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Re: GNU - Principles and Guidelines (was: Re: A GNU “social contract”?)


From: Mark Wielaard
Subject: Re: GNU - Principles and Guidelines (was: Re: A GNU “social contract”?)
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 23:39:08 +0100
User-agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13)

Hi Alfred,

On Fri, Jan 03, 2020 at 12:26:59PM -0500, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> You are clearly
> uninterested in having a discussion, and this contiued spreading of
> FUD and lies is out of control on your side.

I am interested in discussing these issues since I believe they are
important for our community. But it is hard to have a discussion when
you don't assume good faith and call statements or opinions you don't
like FUD and lies.

>    The FSF holds the resources for the GNU project and has oversight
>    responsibility over how those resources are used, which should be in
>    accordance with the FSF mission as a charitable organization.
> 
> There are plenty of GNU resources that are not managed by the FSF, the
> FSF does not dictate how GNU project resources are used.  So this is
> patently false.

There are some GNU projects which use other foundations to hold their
assets and some GNU maintainers are compensated through other
organizations for their contributions. But the FSF does hold lots of
important resource for us, like funds, copyrights, the trademark, dns,
various development machines, etc. As a US 501(c)(3) public charity
they need to make sure those are used according to their mission for
the public good. So when we make policies around who can use which
resources we do have to work together with the FSF to make sure that
is the case.

>    A Social Contract or Mission Statement for GNU is necessary as a
>    first step for new governance for GNU. It has obviously been
>    discussed with Richard, who has said it might be a good idea. But
>    he has also been told that discussions about GNU governance should
>    be done openly and publicly. His input is certainly welcome. But in
>    the end it is the GNU maintainers who ratify it by adopting it for
>    their packages.
> 
> His input is the only input that matters in the end, since he is the
> head of the GNU project.  That you dismiss this is beyond any
> reasonable discussion.

I am interested in his opinion, but I simply don't agree that his
input is the only one that matters.

>    But in the end it is the GNU maintainers who ratify it by adopting
>    it for their packages.
> 
> Patently false, it is RMS who ratifies changes that are applicable to
> the GNU project and nobody else.  Please stop spreading these made up
> notions of how the GNU project is governed.

We are discussing how we want the GNU project to be governed. This is
simply my opinion how we can collectively come together describing
it. I do acknowledge that you feel differently about that.

Cheers,

Mark



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