Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists

[J.B. Nicholson]

Alexandre François Garreau wrote:

Apparently it’s not related to harm to him, but he sincerely believes he’s
a defensor of rms against anybody that he consider has harmed him.  And
thus is happy to harm them…


It is quite unclear to me how I became a target for this prior to being sent a bunch 
of email I didn't ask for and don't want.



So if you’re annoyed, there is unfortunately really nothing to do but
spamfilters and/or taking this to the tribunal…  I guess US law don’t allow
harassment does it?


One could contact his domain hoster with evidence of using the domain for sending 
spam (which I take to mean unsolicited, undesired messages typically sent in bulk). 
Some domain hosters are not interested in being a party to spam, so they include 
terms in the contract which allow the hoster to end service for breach of contract 
when the customer spams others. Something comparable could be said of the hosters 
used for his domain's authoritative DNS servers, and his service provider. I'm not 
recommending nor disrecommending these choices, I'm saying these are among the things 
one could take up.



But yeah harassment is a bad thing and I wish there were better technical
and social tools against it (such as a free and decentralized software,
that can be controlled by the users who want to protect themselves about
harassment).


Do I understand this correctly: You want a free software, decentralized system for 
conveying messages where users submit their posts to a moderator?

Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists

[J.B. Nicholson]

Alexandre François Garreau wrote:

It was, and it is not “tolerated”, this is bad faith: it is simply
impossible to do anything about that.


gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org list owners could remove ru...@mrbrklyn.com from the list 
and make it clear that he won't be allowed back until he has stopped sending 
unsolicited email to those who don't want it.


I'm not saying I recommend this or don't recommend this reaction, frankly it's not my 
decision to make as I don't own gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org. I bring this up to point 
out that it goes too far to say "it is simply impossible to do anything about that". 
There is something that can be done. Apparently gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org owners have 
chosen to do nothing about it and therefore it is fair to say that 
ru...@mrbrklyn.com's behavior is tolerated.

Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists

[J.B. Nicholson]

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

It isn't tolerated, but it is also something that those administrating
gnu-misc-discuss@ (or any GNU list) can do little about.  You've been
forcefully subscribed to another list, the GNU project is not in
control of it.  We cannot filter who sends what to you specifically
which is the case here.


I'm not asking anyone but ru...@mrbrklyn.com to do anything about it. He's the 
perpetrator and apparently he has decided to create problems for other people who 
have done him no harm. I figured he was reading this mailing list and that this 
problem adversely affected other list subscribers so I posted here about it as well 
as sending him email to undo what he had done.

Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists

[J.B. Nicholson]

Taylan Kammer wrote:

I've had the same problem.  No idea what he's trying to achieve...


What I see is indistinguishable from spam but with more annoying intention (I get 
into this in detail below) amounting to harassment. I'm surprised that this behavior 
is tolerated and not identified as a source of unkind communication.



Anyhow, you can make the ML mail you your password and then use it to 
unsubscribe.
That will put an end to the annoying [Hangout - NYLXS] mails consisting of 
broken
up threads and a good amount of spam.
In my case that did not work. At first I couldn't reach the Mailman server at all to 
get to the web front end. Now I can get to it but I'm told that I am not a subscriber 
because his Mailman instance doesn't see my email address on its subscriber list for 
that "Hangout" mailing list. Messages to vill...@mrbrklyn.com are going to me, and 
correspondingly I've been receiving messages with vill...@mrbrklyn.com's Mailman 
password.


Therefore I believe that ru...@mrbrklyn.com has set up a forwarding address of 
"vill...@mrbrklyn.com" and made it so that email to that address is routed to me. I 
can only imagine that the benefit to him is that if anyone he does this to complains, 
he can falsely claim that they're not subscribed when clearly they are receiving the 
unsolicited messages. In other words, this is intentional.


I tried unsubscribing vill...@mrbrklyn.com from that mailing list and apparently he 
re-subscribed that account back to that mailing list. So this would seem to be an 
intentionally annoying. He knows what is doing, knows it is unwanted, and keeps doing it.

ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists

[J.B. Nicholson]

Apparently I've been subscribed to a mailing list -- 
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/options/hangout -- without my permission or 
consent. I wish to be removed from that mailing list and any mailing list copies 
being relayed to me by any subscriber to that list.


I have been able to reach http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/options/hangout but it 
seems that I cannot unsubscribe even though I've asked nicely on this list 
(gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org) to not receive these "hangout" posts. It looks as though 
the messages to me are being sent to vill...@mrbrklyn.com and redelivered to me.


I don't know what the exact arrangement of message delivery is but I want it to stop 
and it appears as though you, hangout-ow...@nylxs.com (listed as the owner of this 
"hangout" mailing list) continue to keep these messages which I don't want coming to 
me. You are clearly in control of this "hangout" mailing list and I've made it clear 
twice now that I want no part of that mailing list.

Re: Richard Stallman should be reinstated to President of the FSF

[J.B. Nicholson]

Ruben Safir wrote:

Nobody but Stallman can do what he does, as a spokeman, and strategic
planner to protect end users from the abuses of non-free software.


If that's true then everything RMS headed up is in deep trouble. At some point 
everyone needs to be replaced if only because nobody lives forever. I don't agree 
with the above quoted claim. I think it's possible to find whom we need to keep the 
free software social movement going and I think it's important that more people speak 
publicly about software freedom as a value unto itself.


I won't post to your other mailing list to which I was apparently subscribed without 
asking, and I cannot unsubscribe (the links in the email were unreachable). I 
shouldn't have to unsubscribe as I shouldn't have been subscribed in that manner in 
the first place.

I suspect that there is no such thing as a "GNU Social Contract"

[J.B. Nicholson]

fredomatic wrote:

I, Frederic Y. Bois, maintainer of package GNU MCSim, endorse version
1.0 of the GNU Social Contract, available at
.


I suspect that the response from Alfred M. Szmidt is correct -- there is no GNU 
Social Contract and what you're agreeing to is something bearing the GNU name and 
logo but made by a third party who does not speak for the GNU Project (such as 
Ludovic Courtès' proposal in 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-10/msg00050.html ).


gnu.tools' current domain registrar (namecheap.com)[1] is not the same as gnu.org's 
current domain registrar[2] (gandi.net). gnu.tools' owner is not publicly listed in 
whois but gnu.org's organizational owner is publicly listed in whois. If I were keen 
to agree to Courtès' proposal I'd wonder why the gnu.tools domain exists, if GNU 
needs a wiki for the project why not host that wiki on wiki.gnu.org, and where one 
could get official word from the GNU Project leader (which remains rms) on which 
domains are owned by the GNU Project (certainly one would expect gnu.org to be in 
that set of domains but not necessarily gnu.tools).


These differences suggest to me that one should be wary of what one finds on 
gnu.tools.



[1] https://www.whois.com/whois/gnu.tools which appears as shown in 
https://archive.md/wip/QM6MM as of the time/date on this email.
[2] https://www.whois.com/whois/gnu.org which appears as shown in 
https://archive.md/wip/CVMzp as of the time/date on this email.

Re: Go code of conduct

[J.B. Nicholson]

wayne, steve wrote:

Do you have a link to the article on microagressions that you disagreed
with?


My guess would be https://golang.org/conduct particularly the following 
language:



Avoid destructive behavior:
[...]
Microaggressions: brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults to a person or group. 



___
gnu-misc-discuss mailing list
gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss

Re: referencing non-free software

[J.B. Nicholson]

Please stop copying me on your replies, Ilya Shlyakhter. Both Reply-To: and 
Mail-Reply-To: were set and pointed to gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org on my reply 
which was sent only to the same address, the mailing list address. That's a 
pretty clear sign that the poster doesn't want replies going to them.


Ilya Shlyakhter wrote:

""A GNU program should not recommend, promote, or grant legitimacy to
the use of any non-free program."  I don't understand what "grant
legitimacy" means here.


Even the quote from the URL you supplied comes with other language that 
provide clear context which addresses your own question, as does the text 
indicating how nonfree software may be mentioned (which I quoted earlier in 
my first response to this thread).


You appear to have chosen the wrong definition of 'legitimate'. Consider 
"Conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or 
standards; valid." from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/legitimate instead: 
Granting legitimacy to a nonfree program in GNU documentation includes 
stating something in a way that makes that nonfree program appear to be a 
reasonable and proper choice without any language explaining how 
proprietary software is unethical.


The principles of this definition are laid out for you not only in 
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/References.html#References but 
in many essays on https://gnu.org/philosophy/ and many recordings on 
https://audio-video.gnu.org/.


___
gnu-misc-discuss mailing list
gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss

Re: referencing non-free software

[J.B. Nicholson]

Ilya Shlyakhter wrote:

The only reason I see stated is "Proprietary software is a social and
ethical problem, and our aim is to put an end to that problem."  What
I don't see explained is why hiding proprietary software from users is
the right way to end it.


I don't think that not "recommend[ing], promot[ing], or grant[ing] 
legitimacy to the use of any non-free program" is hiding proprietary 
software. Proprietary programs don't go away because GNU programs don't 
legitimize their use. Your point also strikes me as remarkably one-sided 
and likely to benefit the proprietary programs the GNU Project encourages 
people to supplant with free software.



I would think that the right way is to out-compete proprietary software
on the merits (both technical and philosophical), so that users, having
had a full opportunity to evaluate the merits (technical and
philosophical) of the free and non-free programs for their task, choose
the free ones.
Which merits one picks helps determine the outcome of the comparison. The 
GNU Project was founded to favor software freedom and has long argued that 
even buggy and less featureful free software is a better choice than 
powerful and reliable nonfree software because software freedom is more 
important. On a practical level, it's hard to argue against that 
perspective because software freedom allows one to make free programs less 
buggy, more reliable, or add more powerful features. But no amount of 
programming labor or technical skill will make a nonfree program free.



What is the harm, exactly, of referencing non-free software, if the
reference is accompanied by links to the FSF's arguments against using
it?
Where is there a prohibition against GNU programs "referencing" nonfree 
software?


I see "A GNU program should not recommend, promote, or grant legitimacy to 
the use of any non-free program.". I also see that well known proprietary 
programs (such as a widely used nonfree operating system) can be mentioned 
and one can supply directions as to how to use the free program on said system.


I trust it's obvious how nonfree software harms the user and why an 
organization founded to supplying free software has no interest in 
recommending, promoting, or granting legitimacy to any nonfree software.



By protectionism, I mean artificially protecting free software from
competition by restricting knowledge of the alternatives, the way
countries protect domestic industries by restricting imports.


I believe nonfree software will still exist no matter what the 
documentation for free software says. Any perceived competition is in the 
eye of the beholder.


Also, but somewhat relatedly, can we expect proprietors to recommend free 
software to their users? It would be useful to those users to learn that 
they don't have to put up with privacy violations, backdoors, and the rest 
of the malware users are not permitted to fix.



"Look at any kind of website. How often do they discuss alternatives
to whatever their site is about." -- philosophy sites certainly do
discuss alternatives.


Positioning nonfree and free software as alternatives runs against 
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Alternative quoted below:



We don't describe free software as an “alternative” to proprietary,
because that word presumes all the “alternatives” are legitimate and
each additional one makes users better off. In effect, it assumes that
free software ought to coexist with software that does not respect
users' freedom.

We believe that distribution as free software is the only ethical way to
make software available for others to use. The other methods, nonfree
software and Service as a Software Substitute subjugate their users. We
do not think it is good to offer users those “alternatives” to free
software.


This is similar to the listed objection on the same webpage calling all 
writing "content" which suggests every piece of writing is interchangeable 
with every other piece of writing, presumably the only difference worth 
recognizing is commercial value. That's not the case, they argue, so we 
shouldn't use language which suggests that is the case.


___
gnu-misc-discuss mailing list
gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss