Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
Hi Andy, Andy Wingo writes: > 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; The funny thing is, I don't actually have a strong opinion on this particular change. What I *do* have a strong opinion on is that you made the decision unilaterally, without discussion on the mailing list, and without even consulting your co-maintainers. The commit was pushed to Savannah less than 6 hours before you publicly announced a new Guile release that included this core language change: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?id=20535922147cd5992330962aaa5c4986563fc905 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-08/msg00016.html Ludovic and I only found out about the change after the public announcements had already been made. Can you understand why I consider this behavior to be dictatorial? > I responded over email asking to talk about the issues; This is misleading, because in fact you flatly refused to even discuss the issue of *process*, namely that you made the decision unilaterally. Instead, you insisted on limiting the discussion to the merits of the actual change, after it had already been made, included in a release, and publicly announced. This kind of thing has happened several times in the past, and you've always responded the same way, flatly refusing to talk about process, and insisting on limiting the conversation to the merits of the changes you had already made. > 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. I regret quitting the project. The bus factor of Guile is far too low, and it's a very important project. I was angry. I think I had a right to be angry. After 8 years working on Guile, and 5 years as your co-maintainer, your actions felt extremely disrespectful to me. Can you understand why I would feel that way? > 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. I did not excoriate you for your work. Rather, I complained bitterly about being blindsided by changes that you included in the 2.2.0 release against my wishes. Still, I should have balanced my complaints with congratulations for your contributions. I'm sincerely sorry that I failed to do that. I didn't have it in me at the time, and your refusal to talk about process left an open wound that has festered and never really healed. > 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. This is a severe mischaracterization of what I actually wrote. First of all, I never said that it was the "only reason", or even that it was "a reason". I merely said that you had an "interest" in deposing Richard, by which I meant that you had something to gain from it. Secondly, there was a specific purpose to raising my grievances on the internal mailing list. It's because you are vigorously arguing for collective decision making within GNU, while at the same time you are acting in a dictatorial manner within the Guile project, failing to even consult your co-maintainers on core language changes. I think that's hypocritical, and I said so. > 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. The facts are plain. The bus factor in Guile is shockingly low. Ludovic's attention is almost entirely focused on Guix, and he hasn't worked much on the compiler since the 2.0 days. A lot has changed since then, as you and I both know. Besides you, I'm the only person in the world who is able to work on contemporary Guile compiler internals. > I don't know what to conclude about RMS's motivations -- is it > retaliation? A stronger case can be made that your attempt to block my return to this project is retaliatory. You might be comfortable with a bus factor of close to 1 on modern Guile compiler internals, but that would be an irresponsible decision on your
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 4:56 PM Tadeus Prastowo wrote: > Dear Andy, > > Could you kindly move > https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to > your own site, please? They published their "Joint Statement" on gnu.org because they know they have support from a faction of the FSF board. It's all part of the "board game". :) Adrienne -- Freedom - no pane, all gaiGN! GNU C-Graph - http://www.gnu.org/software/c-graph Code Art Now - http://codeartnow.com Abertheid Campaign - http://www.abertheid.info Follow me on Twitter @AdrienneGT @GNUcgraph
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
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
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
Dear Andy, Could you kindly move https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to your own site, please? As Jean said, you (and/or Ludovic) should not have published the petition under gnu.org in the first place, to quote Jean [1]: To publish his political opinions where Ludovic Courtès is defaming and harassing Richard Stallman on his own domain is disgraceful and shameful activity! That would be like me to kick my own mother in her stomach. End quote. Every family has their own weaknesses, but experiencing how broken one's family is not an excuse to kick one's own parents from the house that the parents have built with their own hands. If one no longer wishes to live with their own parents, they definitely are free to leave their own parents and go out of their parents' houses. Therefore, I implore you to take down https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ from a subdomain of gnu.org, hand over the maintenance of the GNU Guix project to Mark, resign from the GNU Guix project (leave your parent and go out of your parent's house), and set up your own site and repository to fork the GNU Guix project (build your own house now with your own hands, which is the right and fair thing to do instead of kicking your own parent out from their own house). Lastly, I implore you to ask those who have signed https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to follow suit. For example, those GCC folks can definitely have the money of their own organizations jointly to fork GCC, no? If not, then they should remove their signature from that joint statement, unless you have moved that statement out from under the gnu.org. Fair, isn't it? Thank you. [1] https://gnu.support/richard-stallman/Ludovic-Court%C3%A8s-Guix-is-accusing-Stallman-of-Thoughtcrime-on-his-own-domain-GNU-org.html -- Best regards, Tadeus
Fwd: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
-- Forwarded message - From: Stefan Israelsson Tampe Date: Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 11:09 PM Subject: Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile To: Jean Louis Hi List, I appreciate the work of all maintainers. I really hope that we can get a solution to this situation. Anyhow I think that the political question is really difficult and I personally stay out of any judgement on all sides from the lack of deep understanding. Let me just say that I understand both views on the matter but I'm to ignorant to find out where to best draw the line. The best solution is to stop women and men being hurt by a partner and still maintain a free though movement and allow people who do not being hurt do whatever they like. My view of the world though is that it is piss ugly in many ways and a lot of human is being abused. So I want to make the world a little better by sharing my work as free code. And I hope that I will still see my favorite hackers working on guile in the future as well. I will certainly not put a judgement on either side of the fence, and hope that the politics stays out of my favorite scheme environment. Please maintainers, dig down the ax, and concentrate to do whatever you can to make the world a little better by exposing your great nonpolitical computer poetry to the world. Then on the political side, fight it on political sites, for a better world of cause, that I support. Regards Stefan On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 10:15 PM Jean Louis wrote: > This is response to: > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg5.html > > Dear Andy, > > No, I do not think that conflicst affect GNU Guile. I think you are > the one affecting GNU Guile and GNU community and Guix community. > > That you are now using Guile mailing list to promote defamation of RMS > and to mix private political opinions of Dr. Richard Stallman with GNU > Guile project is disgrace. > > GNU project is apolitical and never was political. > > Dr. Richard Stallman has his blog and political views outside of the > GNU Project and FSF and those views do not represent neither GNU nor > FSF. > > You have your own blog outside of the GNU project, so please stick to > your blog, write your stuff outside, do not send stuff to GNU Guile > list. > > It was you who started mixing Guix with politics, and you and Ludovic > Courtès who started mixing jokes with feminism, feminism with GNU and > so on. > > Please refer to GNU kind communication guidelines to stick to free > software philosophy. Your blog does not show that you are promoting > free software philosophy, you promote software, but not free software > philosophy, and I can by that way think of you as only as programmer. > > Yet your logical skills and research skills are down to zero related > to Dr. Richard Stallman. > > Your integrity is down to zero, as instead that you appreciat all the > donations and facilities as provided by RMS as that is his creation, > you are spitting and dividing the same community that you are > pretending to support. > > You are traitor of the GNU project and GNU communication guidelines. > > You are traitor of Guix good code of conduct that shall create > harassment friendly environment. > > * Andy Wingo [2019-10-16 09:14]: > > 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. > > Please do not generalize, those are not "GNU maintainers" those are > few people who have been invited by Andy Wingo, you and your good > friend Ludovic Courtès to join on the rumor mongering accusation > inflation that you have published on Guix pages. > > That is disgrace for you personally, disgrace for Ludo, disgrace for > Guix and GNU and the FSF. > > > Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here: > > > > https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu > > And I have written responses on that, so why not have some balls and > refer to responses as well? > > See: > https://www.reddit.com/r/gnu/comments/dgelag/thoughts_on_rms_and_gnu_wingolog/f3eglgb/ > > You have no arguments really to backup your accusations. > > > The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated > > I am sorry, please stop with generalizations in your statements. > > Saying "many people" is anti-social characterization, please be > specific and name people, do not give false impression that many > people support you, as they don't. > > > 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. > > That is incorrect. That is your twisted and biased opinion
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
This is response to: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg5.html Dear Andy, No, I do not think that conflicst affect GNU Guile. I think you are the one affecting GNU Guile and GNU community and Guix community. That you are now using Guile mailing list to promote defamation of RMS and to mix private political opinions of Dr. Richard Stallman with GNU Guile project is disgrace. GNU project is apolitical and never was political. Dr. Richard Stallman has his blog and political views outside of the GNU Project and FSF and those views do not represent neither GNU nor FSF. You have your own blog outside of the GNU project, so please stick to your blog, write your stuff outside, do not send stuff to GNU Guile list. It was you who started mixing Guix with politics, and you and Ludovic Courtès who started mixing jokes with feminism, feminism with GNU and so on. Please refer to GNU kind communication guidelines to stick to free software philosophy. Your blog does not show that you are promoting free software philosophy, you promote software, but not free software philosophy, and I can by that way think of you as only as programmer. Yet your logical skills and research skills are down to zero related to Dr. Richard Stallman. Your integrity is down to zero, as instead that you appreciat all the donations and facilities as provided by RMS as that is his creation, you are spitting and dividing the same community that you are pretending to support. You are traitor of the GNU project and GNU communication guidelines. You are traitor of Guix good code of conduct that shall create harassment friendly environment. * Andy Wingo [2019-10-16 09:14]: > 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. Please do not generalize, those are not "GNU maintainers" those are few people who have been invited by Andy Wingo, you and your good friend Ludovic Courtès to join on the rumor mongering accusation inflation that you have published on Guix pages. That is disgrace for you personally, disgrace for Ludo, disgrace for Guix and GNU and the FSF. > Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here: > > https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu And I have written responses on that, so why not have some balls and refer to responses as well? See: https://www.reddit.com/r/gnu/comments/dgelag/thoughts_on_rms_and_gnu_wingolog/f3eglgb/ You have no arguments really to backup your accusations. > The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated I am sorry, please stop with generalizations in your statements. Saying "many people" is anti-social characterization, please be specific and name people, do not give false impression that many people support you, as they don't. > 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. That is incorrect. That is your twisted and biased opinion which has foundation in your educational background. I have got impression that you have never ever understood what free speech means. And you have not legally understood what is defamation and slander of character. You are bringing criminal acts into GNU Guile mailing list. Please refrain doing so. > 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. Your statements are generalized, twisted and distorted. You are doing this only to justify the harm you have done to the community and to make your "right" in your own eyes. You have betrayed the principles of good behavior in the community, you have harmed both Guix, and GNU, and Guile community and you are only trying to justify and "prove" how right you are. I do believe you are good person, truly I do, I just know that you are young and naive, and I am kicking my head into the wall for reasons that one programmer like you cannot differentiate what RMS really said. As I considered programmers always in general having sense of logics and differentiation. To differentiate is a test of intelligence. To identify things with each other, without seeing differences is a test of stupidity. > > https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism) > >
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
This is very sad. I appreciate the enormous time investments of all of you for Guile. When you make a decision, I hope you understand the other. Regards, Florian
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
Hi Andy, Ludovic and everyone else, As a previous co-maintainer of Guile, it saddens me that you/we have run into these kind of difficulties. It's especially sad since, as also David wrote, Guile has always been a project with a friendly atmosphere. What I wish for is that everyone involved in this conflict make their best effort to find a good way forward, and in particular, a way that can preserve the valuable social assets of Guile. My own viewpoint of recent events around RMS is that he is a special kind of person with his own kind of strengths and weaknesses. Yes, it's quite clear that project leadership and management is not his strength, but at the same time he is the root of the free software movement with a fantastic legacy. I'm also fascinated by how often what he has said, and which at the time might have caused many rolling eyes, eventually have turned out to be correct. So, also here, I'm sad that there is not enough room in present day society to accommodate a person like RMS. I would have wished for him to end celebrated. Even though I'm myself strongly for the causes of women and obviously completely against any form of child abuse, I think that it is possible to disagree with some of RMS statements without judging him too harshly. I take a risk in saying that it is certainly possible to see his perspective and arguments in his defence of Minsky, even if one disagrees and thinks that he has left some aspects of the situation out. Then there is the question of leadership. I don't think that it was good timing of the GNU maintainers to go forward with their initiative at this precise point in time. But I welcome it in other respects and now that it is out in the open, I think you maintainers should go forward with it and try to achieve a more reasonable governing structure in GNU. I wish you good luck with that. With the timing you chose it will be harder, but I hope for you to succeed. Regarding Guile, I have a very high confidence in Andy and Ludovic and think the Guile project should regard itself very lucky to have such maintainers. I wasn't aware of the differences between Andy and Mark and also have a very high appreciation of Mark's careful work. But I think it is clear to most people that it is not good leadership by RMS to appoint Mark as co-maintainer without consulting with Andy and Ludovic. Under normal circumstances, a leader can do such things, but given the current situation, with the well motivated request for a new governing structure, my point of view is that it is Andy and Ludovic who currently rows this boat. Andy and Ludovic, you have my full support. Please stick with Guile, but please also keep your calm and talk a lot to key people to try to resolve this situation in a good way (which of course does not mean letting your hands be tied). Best regards, Mikael
Re: Stepping back up as a co-maintainer
* Mark H Weaver [2019-10-16 01:42]: > Hello all, > > In light of recent events, I've decided to step back up as a > co-maintainer of GNU Guile. I am welcoming it, thank you for stepping back up. Jean
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
* Christopher Lemmer Webber [2019-10-16 11:33]: > I agree with everything Andy and David have written, so I'm not sure how > much to rehash here. > > I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move. It seriously > undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any > semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from > under their feet at any time. What means "fair" to you? Jean Louis
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
* Thompson, David [2019-10-16 10:12]: > Now, onto the present. Seeing Mark step down from as a Guile > co-maintainer was an indicator that something was amiss internally > with Guile. I have a great respect for Mark, but I must admit that > I've been extremely disappointed to see him, on internal GNU lists, > steadfastly defending what I consider indefensible behavior by RMS. What you need to understand is to keep GNU project apolitical, where only politics is free software philosophy. That is how "community" is created, on sharing what is common to community. We are all different people. We have all our different political notes. RMS has affinity to Science Fiction. Somebody does not have affinity on Science Fiction and cannot think of it. Would then Science Fiction as subject beyond free software shall be focused on to divide the community of free software depending on what they think of science fiction? Please understand the analogy. GNU community is friendly to each other and welcoming everybody regardless of their outside political viewpoints. Keep GNU community politics-free and it will keep growing and remaining friendly. If somebody is defending RMS or attacking RMS -- why not keep that in your personal conversation to RMS, or keep it on your own blogs. But keep it OUTSIDE OF GNU website. > Upon seeing the mail to this list that Mark was stepping back into his > co-maintainer role, I had assumed that Andy and Mark had worked > through their differences and disagreements and was glad. But now > that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put Mark > back into this role without the consent of either active Guile > co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely > disappointed and I do not approve. Could you deflate accusations please? > RMS, once again, has abused his leadership role to make unilateral > decisions to the detriment of a GNU project. He has acted, he has not "abused". If anybody shall be leader and contributor in GNU project those should be people loyal to free software philosophy and loyal to GNU kind communication guidelines, people who understand that GNU project is about free software operating system and users' rights. People who think that GNU project itself shall favor one or the other political views are in the wrong place. Please find appropriate place for your ranting, be it on RMS, myself, or anybody else. Not in GNU. GNU is welcoming community to everybody. It is apolitical. It is non-partisan community. Could you try understanding? It is not a democracy and it never was. Free software philosophy was not invented by democratic process. > Yet another data point that reinforces my belief that when RMS > "leads" the results are negative. That is inflation of rumors without facts. What can be wrong that one developer was welcomed back? Nothing. What can be wrong with people like Ludovic Courtès and Andy Wingo and other members of the Thoughtpolice Squad? Everyting. They are dividing community, they do not belong in kind community. I let them be. But I propose that they take their disgraceful behaviour outside of GNU. > This is not the behavior of ap leader that I support, and I > certainly don't personally recognize him as the leader of GNU. So what? > He truly is a broken stair, a stick in the mud, a roadblock. He is the roadblock for people like you who never hold free software speeches and who value rumor mongering and false journalism more than his works to promote free software philosophy. Otherwise, he is the driving force and with all his connections, and influence that RMS has, he can fart and cause more good in society then you can with your biased fact-less statements. > What happens if we pay no mind to him? Does the GNU brand mean > anything at this point? If anything, it's probably negative. Blah blah blah, impossible, you have no idea what you are speaking about. Numerous free software organizations exists in his world, all over the planet, they do not share your thoughts, and your opinions simply do not matter. You cannot change the "GNU brand". It is project to build operating system and project is successful and accomplished, and there are many free software distributions, and free software philosophy is influencing the world and politics of many countries. Users are gaining their rights back. And there is much more to fight for. You cannot do nothing about it. You can hate RMS as much as you want, but you cannot do nothing about it. Finally there are people who love RMS for his way of living, for his way of pushing ideology forward, you cannot do nothing about that. > As for the future, I would like to see Guile continue to be the > welcoming, inclusive, productive place it has been since I've known > it, even though it may require some socially difficult decisions. > Andy and Ludovic, you have my support. You've responded to recent > events admirably even though it meant being personally
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
> From: Christopher Lemmer Webber > Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 11:33:11 -0400 > Cc: Andy Wingo > > I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move. It seriously > undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any > semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from > under their feet at any time. To reach such conclusions, we'd need to hear a first-hand report of what exactly did RMS and Mark say in their (presumed) off-list exchange. No such first-hand report was posted; Mark just said that he decided to step back.
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
I agree with everything Andy and David have written, so I'm not sure how much to rehash here. I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move. It seriously undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from under their feet at any time.
Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 9:14 AM Andy Wingo wrote: > > 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? A bit of context about myself and what has shaped my feelings on the matter: In 2014 I was hired at the FSF as a web developer. In 2015 I quit because the work environment that RMS is ultimately responsible for was demotivating and sad. All of my former FSF coworkers, some of whom sincerely tried (and failed) to make positive change, have since moved on due to similar frustrations. In 2018 I disassociated myself with GNU (as in I no longer identify as a GNU hacker, as there is no formal association) after witnessing RMS rudely interrupt and derail Bradley Kuhn's LibrePlanet session and insist that conference rules do not apply to him. That was the last straw for me, personally, but this pressure had been building for years. However, I have felt, and continue to feel, that Guile is an oasis in the GNU desert and a large part of that is because it has maintainers that truly care about creating a welcoming environment and not tolerating bigotry in the name of "free speech." Andy, Ludovic, and Mark, I owe each of you much gratitude for all the help and positive messages I've received since 2012 or so when I discovered Guile. I love free software, and I especially love Guile. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, onto the present. Seeing Mark step down from as a Guile co-maintainer was an indicator that something was amiss internally with Guile. I have a great respect for Mark, but I must admit that I've been extremely disappointed to see him, on internal GNU lists, steadfastly defending what I consider indefensible behavior by RMS. Upon seeing the mail to this list that Mark was stepping back into his co-maintainer role, I had assumed that Andy and Mark had worked through their differences and disagreements and was glad. But now that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put Mark back into this role without the consent of either active Guile co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely disappointed and I do not approve. RMS, once again, has abused his leadership role to make unilateral decisions to the detriment of a GNU project. Yet another data point that reinforces my belief that when RMS "leads" the results are negative. This is not the behavior of a leader that I support, and I certainly don't personally recognize him as the leader of GNU. He truly is a broken stair, a stick in the mud, a roadblock. What happens if we pay no mind to him? Does the GNU brand mean anything at this point? If anything, it's probably negative. As for the future, I would like to see Guile continue to be the welcoming, inclusive, productive place it has been since I've known it, even though it may require some socially difficult decisions. Andy and Ludovic, you have my support. You've responded to recent events admirably even though it meant being personally attacked by others within GNU and outside. Mark, I urge you to reconsider where you stand with RMS. I know that you have a lot of history, but times have changed. Regards, - Dave
conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile
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
