On 11/01/2019 09:25 AM, Carlos O'Donell wrote: > Sandra Loosemore posted her opinions for the first time. She didn't > repeat herself.
You, Carlos O'Donell, and your fellow censor Mark Wielaard, should NOT be the moderators of this list. You are both signers of a public document that calls for the removal of Richard Stallman as the leader of GNU, namely the "Joint Statement." Therefore, your natural bias is to accept messages that work towards your goal while rejecting those that oppose it. For example, given that the declared purpose of this is list is to talk about governance, Sandra Loosemore's messages were in violation of the following rule, and yet they were approved: _____________________________________________________________________ Tue, 29 Oct 2019 10:31:37 +0100, Mark Wielaard wrote: And for governance discussions, they should stay on topic and be about governance. Discussions about individuals and their capabilities are off topic. _____________________________________________________________________ While another message, carefully drafted to refute her considerations in the clearest possible way, was rejected: -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: Women and GNU and RMS (was Re: something else) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2019 13:31:48 +0700 From: Marcel <m...@runbox.com> To: Sandra Loosemore <san...@codesourcery.com>, gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org CC: Richard Stallman <r...@gnu.org>, Dora Scilipoti <d...@gnu.org>, Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> [Yesterday most of my messages to this group were censored, including a new thread I tried to start to discuss the censorship, and two responses to Sandra's post. Here is version 3.] > I haven't seen anything resembling a "power grab", so by definition > I'm not on the list as participating in one. The way I read detractors is as follows: - We are volunteers at GNU. We are unhappy with RMS's leadership because he does not represent us and harms the project. We want the project to become a "bottom-up organization". Which I can simplify further to: - RMS is at the top, we are at the bottom. Remove RMS and put us at the top. Is this not the very definition of a power grab? > It has bothered me for a long time that there are so few women > participating in the GNU community. Identity politics can quickly subsume important common struggles and become a divide and rule strategy (sometimes it's the original intention even). In this particular case, it detracts from the main goal of GNU and the Free Software Movement (which is Free Software, by the way). If the phenomena of under-representation of women in tech was exclusive to GNU (or even more tellingly, to projects led by RMS), I would be willing to concede that this is a GNU (or RMS) problem, but it is not. If it is a problem, it is a problem in tech or more likely, a wider problem in society. > OTOH, it's clear to me that some women have indeed felt > threatened by RMS's behavior, been put off from participating by > offensive sexual comments and "jokes" from others in the free software > community, or felt that they were being belittled or ignored because > of their gender. The only thing that could be clear to you from the above—and given that you mention you did not feel threatened by RMS personally—is whatever anyone _CLAIMS_ happened. So far, I have not seen any evidence nor have I seen any alleged "victims" seek recourse in a court of law. What I have seen is a lynch mob phenomenon. I will oppose this kind of lynch mob, whether it pertains to "witches" being burned at the stake or RMS being libeled and defamed by a group of people trying to ruin his life. > And then there were RMS's disgusting public comments... (I will not re-post your slander) If you are complaining about the "public image" disaster for GNU, why do you seek to bring it up again repeating the mischaracterizations ? These were a series of mischaracterizations and slanders of comments made by RMS in is personal capacity. > IMO, to regain control of our public image, I think we have to take > some explicit and public steps to disassociate the GNU project from > RMS's comments. If the CEO of a corporation made such controversial > and offensive statements, the board would likely demand his immediate > resignation as part of damage control. Not everyone may share your opinion of throwing RMS under the bus as damage control; I certainly do not. The GNU project is by default disassociated from what RMS or anyone else in the GNU project says in their personal capacity. > I think the FSF and GNU maintainers collectively have a similar > responsibility as custodians of the GNU project, I think that the FSF and GNU maintainers should have similar responsibilities as other volunteers in the project: in your example maintainers should have the responsibility to maintain software packages; in the case of translators, to translate text; etc. The word "custodian" brings nightmarish religious war imagery to mind. > and I do think RMS needs to resign for the good of the project. Let me rephrase that "...and I do think RMS needs to resign for the good of the project's custodians". Nothing to see here, move along folks, there is absolutely no power grab attempt taking place! > I appreciate his past technical contributions and his > promotion of the concept of "free software" to begin with, "To begin with"? You make it sound as if RMS had participated in some mythical birthing and then disappeared. He has been the leader of this project for the past 36 years. > but he is not a good public ambassador for the GNU community and has > not seemed to do much actual leadership of the project (either > technical or management) for many years now. May I know who you are comparing him to? Please show me your measuring stick. > My perspective is that the GNU project's mission is to produce > high-quality software that is free for everyone to use You are defining freeware, not Free Software. For further clarification, I suggest you start with the first hyperlinked menu item, aptly entitled "What is Free Software?" and read through the four essential freedoms: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/. _________________________________________________________________________ -- Dora Scilipoti GNU Education Team gnu.org/education