Dear Nala, Greetings to China. I am eating here with chopsticks...
* Nala Ginrut <mu...@gnu.org> [2019-11-07 15:03]: > > Hi Jean! > > Yes, I totally agreed. And I actually meant RMS's health status, > personally I don't think the fame was hurt by the recent comments > misinterpretation or even the previous personal activity years ago. > If his health status is permitted, then maybe he can do some advocating > work by simple coding work, it's kind of advertisement. ;-) His programming was significant for the inception of GNU operating system, as there were not many people to do it except of RMS. By calling and inviting contributors to join his position changed, and from simple programming RMS became probably, it is my impression, supervisor of the GNU project. Then some larger GNU software became more or less self managed, or have formed into larger groups, such as Gnome for example and position of RMS changed into planner and policy maker. Yet most important work is in fundemental underlying free software philosophy which is what RMS is mostly known for. Today people are well aware that software projects include so many people. Who wrote the software is not always prominently displayed. It may matter little to public to know the name of a programmer. Those are all my personal impressions. What matters are speeches and connections, RMS does the advocacy on much higher level, first there is FSF that has most important campaigns and sponsoring such: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/ RMS is founder, he initiated majority of activities and manner of conducting those activities within the FSF, and together with other people who have agreed on fundamental principles, the organization is working by motivation of duty by those people who feel they have the duty to help, and also by those who could be motivated by money and are paid to help. Stallman does speeches in remote areas, such as in Russia in August 2019. Or he goes into the heart of Microsoft and vouches for better policy of free software licenses within Github.com. That type of fundamental work is most important. He has good connections and thus the power to "close" new allies and gain their acknowledgement and approval for free software. That is done on higher level than solely coding. It shall not be underestimated how important is the work of advocacy. GNU project and the FSF that is founded on GNU free software philosophy are higher level of organizations, they are based on philosophy and not necessarily on the hierarchy of employed people. Free software philosophy, when understood by somebody, is making the person vouch for free software and human rights, be it that person is member of FSF or contributor to GNU operating system or not. Multiple organizations came to existence to promote free software philosophy and user rights. That type of organization is motivated by duty to spread the free software philosophy and spread software for reasons of free software philosophy, and highest motivation is duty and not the money. If one would be only motivated by programming "open source", one is motivated maybe by quality software, but does not regard importance of free software philosophy. It does not matter much for as long as software is free, but such governance of software by motivation of being better software does not spreed the word about human rights and freedom in computing, it is weak and fragile. Thus promoting GNU project with programming alone, would not be the GNU project. Stallman as a programmer would probably cause more programmers to contribute, but Stallman as philosopher and human rights advocate is causing more philosopher and more advocate to join. > At least in China, RMS is still greatly respected by technical people. Of > course, there're proprietory supporters don't like him. Maybe it's > because it is a different culture, when I told the so-called RMS > scandal to my Chinese friends, they thought it's a joke. Since in our > culture, one should be judged by the contributions that one ever > made. After experenced the Cultural Revolution [0], Chinese people are > utterly cautious about the judgement to personal life and > opinions. Because these are used for politically attacking to > individuals. Of course, and thank you for telling your opinion as being there in China. GNU project and free software philosophy is now of planetary importance. The public shamings for reasons that RMS expressed opinions or jokes, and the call-out or cancel culture is phenomena that got some space in media in some of Western countries, and even there it is not generally approved. Mob justice is punishable by law in many countries. And many will find it as you said "it's a joke". > BTW, Cultural Revolution caused over million people died or suicide by > ethical pressure, but the indirect killers thought they were doing > ethical correction, and in the beginning, people thought it was funny. > > Frankly, I felt funny when I first heard RMS stepped down by those comments. RMS is head of GNU project. Stepping down as President of FSF appear to me as act of damage control and not act of being ashamed of anything or morally wrong. In my opinion that was not right action do, as media is always hungry and they will be always making money on mob' emotions. And being President of FSF or not being President of FSF does not need to change the course of action which is advocacy of free software and free software philosophy, or actively delivering speeches all over the world, or gaining new allies for the free software movement. Practically very little have been changed. FSF is still campaigning for same causes and doing its job of supporting free software. It should do so, with or without RMS, it does not matter, he is the founder. Other politics should not matter for FSF. Practically nothing changed that I can see, unless RMS stops delivering speeches worldwide and do smart actions of advocacy on higher levels. At that point there will be time to call to organize more public speakers to deliver free software philosophy speeches and to lobby for more free software in governments or in new technologies, such as cars with software backdoors. Jean P.S. I have removed gnu-system-discuss from Cc: as it was not about GNU system.
