Hi Andy! Your work (and amazing blog) and the wonderful work by the GUIX team is what brought me to guile. I don't have any I'll feelings towards Mark (I have appreciated his support on the mailing list many times), but I will follow Guile wherever you and Ludo take it, inside or outside the GNU project.
I am but a lowly hobby programmer (who found a home in scheme) soI don't think I can contribute much in either case, but if financial support for hosting is needed I can contribute to that. Apart from trying my best to help people in the IRC channel. Thank you for your work. -- Linus Björnstam On Wed, 16 Oct 2019, at 15:14, Andy Wingo wrote: > Hello all, > > In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has > been simmering for years burst into public. For a while it resubmerged > into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile > project. > > Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here: > > https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu > > The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated > Richard Stallman not as a hero, not as a leader, but rather a "missing > stair" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair) that one has to > route around. This approach was never very inclusive -- if you don't > have much experience in GNU, it's possible to not know about it, and to > fall in the hole yourself. On the other hand if you know of RMS but not > Guile, you might think that Guile developers support RMS. > > However, recent events made me realize this approach was not only unfair > to newcomers, but unjust as well, as by continuing to work on GNU and > not saying anything, I was both lending unmerited prestige to RMS, > enabling his creepy behavior towards women, and additionally, enabling > his apparent pedophilia-advocacy. > > Regarding this latter point, I wasn't really aware that this was a view > RMS was promoting, but I am ashamed to admit that I had heard rumors > that Richard publically advocated sex between adults and teenagers, > defended sexual harassers, and questioned the experience of victims of > sexual assault, and I preferred not to listen. Looking again, and I > think Richard's web site speaks for itself: > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no) > > https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken) > > https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy) > > Anyway. So far, so GNU. A couple weeks ago I thought it an opportune > moment to declare publicly the views that I have long held privately: > that I do not consider RMS to be the leader of GNU, and that GNU > maintainers and other developers with a stake in the project should > organize to fill the void. > > * * * > > I pause here to mention that you may not agree with this perspective and > that is fine. There are many ways that we can continue to work together > while this discussion plays out. Part of the purpose of this mail > though is to make it clear that there are differences of opinion and > that the GNU project is in flux. > > * * * > > Now we get to how this issue affects Guile. > > Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for > essentially unrelated reasons. He threatened to leave because he wished > to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and > shipped them in the 2.9.4 release; I responded over email asking to talk > about the issues; in response a week later I see that he resigned from > maintainership and left the Guile group on Savannah. It was truly a > shame for Guile, as Mark is an excellent hacker and has done a lot of > good work for Guile. > > It's true also that, mixed with the sadness, I felt a modicum of relief. > It has never been easy to work with Mark. I could toil on Guile for > weeks, taking time away from my family, and then wake up to receive a > private mail excoriating me for my work. It was also far from the first > time he threatened to leave the project if he did not get his way. I > have never let the problems between Mark and me into the public sphere > though, preferring to preserve his reputation, and it is only out of > necessity that I do so now. > > Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up > his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was > ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that > could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking > Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania. > > Naturally I don't think this is the case. We all have our problems but > this particular one isn't mine. It is true that when I get home after a > long day of work and take care of my family and maybe have a precious > half-hour or hour here or there, I usually prefer to devote it to > retiring items from my personal Guile 3.0 to-do list, rather than > helping others; a failing, perhaps, but not a malicious one. I always > tried to enable Mark's work, supporting him becoming committer, then > maintainer, then trying to keep him on board; but evidently that was not > enough. Fair enough; I can't please everybody. > > Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request > from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had > appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given > recent events". > > Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically > or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to > my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic. I don't know what to conclude > about RMS's motivations -- is it retaliation? And why would Mark > assent, especially if he professes to be scandalized by autocratic > behavior and messianic tendencies? I can't say as I have no more > information than this Savannah request. > > It a test, perhaps? Mark is already aware that I do not consider RMS to > have a leadership role in the GNU project, but although this position is > shared by others, it is not a consensus position, and I don't think it's > Mark's position. Of course it goes without saying that I don't consider > this supposed appointment of Mark as co-maintainer of GNU Guile to be > legitimate in the least, but who else will go along with it? > > And what role is Mark looking for? Are we to have commit wars or > something? I would certainly hope not but I can't tell. I don't think > the conditions exist currently for good collaboration between me and > Mark, so I am not sure how this will play out in the future. > > * * * > > I guess I shouldn't be surprised that conversation about the future of > GNU has now reached Guile, but it is still strange to find that the > questions of "how much pedophilia advocacy is too much pedophilia > advocacy" or "how much creepiness towards women is acceptable" should > have any bearing on the development of an implementation of Scheme. > But, here we are. The differences of position are real and we need to > see how to go forward with them. > > Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community > stands. In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on > the issue. What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with > GNU? What about its relationship with RMS? Finally, what would you > like to see happen regarding the future of Guile? > > Yours in free software, > > Andy > >