Hi Michael,
Michael McMahon wrote:
> I did that.
It's possible that what Alfred wrote came out of a sentiment of frustration,
seeing savannah down for two days in a row.
It's also possible that what you did (to unsubscribe Alfred) came out of a
sentiment of frustration, seeing that the dDoS attacks continue, and that
your work feels like a Sisyphus' effort.
Nevertheless, unsubscribing someone against his will is not good. It is
an act commonly associated with "cancel culture", not with the culture of a
healthy community. It can have two major negative effects:
* It divides the community.
Richard Stallman set out the policy for the GNU project that
Free Software is the only main goal it pursues (with privacy and
security too), and that GNU should not adopt other goals, of political
or social nature. The motivation for this policy is that other goals
would invariably divide the community, and he does not want that.
* Reactions of a broader public.
Imagine what if journalists (like lwn.net or Bryan Lunduke), next week,
tell a story "FSF sysop silences unwelcome discussion on GNU mailing list".
Imagine the effect on the FSF. Imagine how many mails or phone calls Zoë
will get...
> There is a trend where you try to get people to leave
> Savannah. Why are you on Savannah lists if you try to get people to move
> off Savannah?
Alfred is by far not the only person thinking that way. Prominent GNU package
maintainers like Simon Josefsson and Pádraig Brady are considering this [1][2].
And other important GNU packages (GNU guix, GNU Health) already left savannah
[3][4].
Always remember: You can't silence a discussion by banning the people who
speak out.
Bruno
[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2025-07/msg00000.html
[2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2025-09/msg00260.html
[3] https://codeberg.org/guix
[4] https://codeberg.org/gnuhealth
