Re: The General Public Licence (GPL) as the basic governance tool
> From: Ludovic Courtès > Cc: m...@klomp.org, gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org > Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:34:32 +0100 > > > That's just the tip of a very large iceberg. I know it, you know it, > > and every GNU maintainer knows it. When we get appointed, we receive > > a 1000-word message from RMS with some quite non-trivial instructions, > > including, but not limited to, a pointer to maintain.texi as the place > > to find specific policies and guidelines that are mandatory to follow. > > That is what I alluded to when I said "maintaining a GNU project > > according to the guidelines". I don't know how things are on your > > plate, but for me following those guidelines takes most of my free > > time, and requires some non-trivial efforts. > > Of course, but these are mostly technicalities. Richard’s point here is > that we’re expected to do nothing beyond following those policies, and > even the guidelines can be sidestepped. Those "technicalities" and policies is what makes the GNU Project what it is: a Free OS advanced by a Free Software movement. Without those "technicalities", there would be nothing to make us different from any other "open-source" project. > >> The GNU Social Contract is about changing that. > > > > How can you change that if the document is voluntary? > > Endorsers will know what to expect from each other and people who work > with them will have a clearer picture, too. Expect from them and have a clearer picture in what areas? Are we talking about developing GNU software, or are we talking about something else? IOW, are you trying to make the GNU Project change its goals to include more than just developing a Free OS? And if you do, then what are those additional goals which you would ideally want GNU to pursue? > Over the last decade I have, again, not been silent about a desire to > work towards a collectively-run GNU. But I’ve also done a lot for GNU > in that time, and I don’t think it’s useful to view every single action > of mine as “part of that campaign”. I was only talking about that single action, not about everything you did and continue doing as part of developing and maintaining GNU software. > If you and I both state our commitment to upholding that set of values, > then we have something in common that we can build on. We know we’re on > the same page. > > A project like GNU is the people who make it. If the ties among those > people are stronger, the whole project benefits. The Social Contract > can be one of these things that allows us to emphasize what we share. I think being involved in the same GNU software project is already evidence that we have a lot in common, and goes a long way towards making our ties quite strong. I don't see how a declarative document can do anything to make that any stronger. Especially since not everyone will endorse it. I hope it doesn't mean you will talk kinder to those who did, or treat them more favorably in any other sense.
Re: The General Public Licence (GPL) as the basic governance tool
Le lundi 24 février 2020, 11:12:09 CET Dmitry Gutov a écrit : > On 23.02.2020 23:34, Ludovic Courtès wrote: > > I do see that some people do not judge the document for what it > > actually says, and I think it’s a pity. > > > > Over the last decade I have, again, not been silent about a desire to > > work towards a collectively-run GNU. But I’ve also done a lot for GNU > > in that time, and I don’t think it’s useful to view every single > > action > > of mine as “part of that campaign”. > > I think it's a real pity that the first public push for this initiative > (which could be beneficial for GNU in the long run) started with you > kicking down Richard who had just been unfairly treated by the public > and the press in the preceding scandal. Oh yes, so much… I mean democracy is good. I don’t think many of us sincerely believe autocracy or even monarchy is per se a good value. It is simply something *hard* (or impossible) to achieve in more than just words (and this is something I would fear, and I’ll always prefer a loose monarchy to a self-declared-democratic oligarchy), and especially not well in all places (for instance it seems obvious to me than to GNU, software freedom should be more important than democracy… so if the former is to be questioned or made questionable by the later…) If only that could be done with rms and not against him… I think if there was *one* reason to believe a chance in governance would make rms contribute to GNU *more* instead of less (especially as now he’s not FSF president anymore, and his recent contributions weren’t so heavy or incontournable), there would be so much less opposition to any political change… maybe even none? About software-freedom vs. democracy: note a *lot* of violent opponents (trolls, or not, depending of the viewpoint… and timepoint of discussion (some trolls were quiet or left recently, ruben was the last, kaz can be annoying but came recently)) were to underline the importance of *contributions* to free-software *philosophy*. So they *are* sensible to the fact of upholding free-software value. They simply happen not to believe a constitution, social contract, or simple written promise is enough for being trustworthy. And for something as important as GNU, I agree (this is creative work, not some repetitive packaging task whose failing distro could be replaced by another and nothing would be lost). Then they get vehement when they see a simple bare text being opposed to 40 years of, let’s say it, mythical… literally legendary (in the etymological meaning) both technical and philosophical struggle of a man who may have been cultized (at least who became a cultural meme), but doesn’t look like the same authoritarian figure that could be criticized in other projects, communities or organizations (he simply doesn’t look to even have the time for that). In these regards, though the amount of work and technical level is not the same, I’d give more trust (about political judgement, not reliability) to people like those of Libreboot, than of Guix. And the same about other software projects which more relates to politics than technical skills. My two cents. http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html > And that is something you *will* have to work on fixing (because I'm > sure others have similar sentiments). :(
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
Le lundi 24 février 2020, 06:28:07 CET J.B. Nicholson a écrit : > 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. It was, and it is not “tolerated”, this is bad faith: it is simply impossible to do anything about that.
Re: State of the GNUnion 2020
> Regarding punishing repeat offenders anyway, as we've seen just > recently, you can't censor a determined individual on a public mailing > list anyway. Limit their audience, sure, but banning them outright seems > impossible. And I can hardly see the whole GNU project migrating off > mailing lists. If new younger people come in charge and want to succeed to “compete” with github, gitlab, etc. I can see how they’d like to replace mailing-lists with gitlab or other SaaSS-like web software… It’s a general tendency that web tends to eat any internet-related computer usage… I dislike that… web is not appropriate… > For better or worse, a lot of my colleagues, and a lot of users and > Emacs contributors (the main GNU project I contribute to) use > proprietary OSes. Even the maintainers do (though not exclusively). I am > not fond of that, but I started using Emacs in a similar position years > ago, and I wouldn't want to exclude any of them from being a part of > our project because their stance is more lax, or that their end goals > are more utilitarian (at least for the time being). I know several people (I’m not anymore sure of it it includes even myself) who started using emacs on a proprietary OS, and then the beauty of Emacs brought them to 100% free-software life. This is something of value indeed. You might think support for proprietary OSes and “endorsement” of them (of proprietary software in general, non-endorsement of the strict GNU philosophy (which isn’t even actually so well described in the social contract as to imply that proprietary software, should, indeed, stop to exist, I believe)) are not anyhow related… but actually to support something, you need to test it, to use it, and to know how good it is in comparision with other similar uses on the same platform. That’s why emacs OS X port is known to be pretty good. There are people using it. But then, either we make already-convinced full-librist use proprietary software, which is a pity, and not really natural… or we even stop then to go to 100% free software… which is even worse… either we *need* to accept people who don’t use 100% free software *because* they don’t want to, *because* they’re not convinced. They’re likely a major amount of people who would be the last to be convinced. By opposition with most of mankind who either never heard of free software, or doesn’t understand what it does imply (and what proprietary software imply (or simply what computer software is)).
Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Harrassment on this list
Le lundi 24 février 2020, 15:57:39 CET Ludovic Courtès a écrit : > Ian Lance Taylor skribis: > > nipponm...@firemail.cc writes: > >> I'm not on this list to see a do-nothing guy foment all day and night > >> filling up my inbox. Ruben: If you want to sue, sue. You're a Jew, > >> you > >> know lots of lawyers. Stop fomenting and keveching and just file your > >> suit. > > > > As far as I can tell, I received this on the gnu-misc-discuss mailing > > list. > > > > I think it is necessary to say that I find this kind of racist > > commentary abhorrent. > > > > I hope that others feel the same way. I didn’t received that mail… is that crossposting? > I feel the same, it’s terrible that such messages are tolerated. > We should stand up against that. I must say that, I was first shocked. But as that feeling is rare to me, I found that interesting and reflected… It was likely, as a french, by not being used to that (afaik it’s not illegal in the US, I don’t know how common it is)… so is that how it passed moderation? and wait… this looks *unambiguously* racist… but is it an insult? it is not… so this is an interesting case. Is that *why* it passed moderation? So I did read again the GKCD, and it says everybody is accepted (even “encouraged to contribute”) whatever the demographics, etc. it says “race” (whatever it means), “ethnic group” (more precise, maybe too much, I know what it means but not when it applies ^^'), “religion” (okay this is clear but knowing enough personally people to know when it applies is trickier), “cultural background” (actually the same, thinking of it)… but it doesn’t talk about “racism”. I then read again your Code of Conduct, and it doesn’t forbid racism neither. So what in case of “positive” racism? or self-interiorized racism? what about someone who someone has good characteristics because of biological race, or who believe she has personal problems for racist reasons? She’s not insulting anyone else. She’s not making people unwelcome, she’s not necessarily hingering contributions… Moreover… what is racism anyway? I saw several right-wing people twist its original definition so that they can term any opposition to nationalism as “anti-white racism”. Which is easy as in my country the liberal commonsense meaning is taken to colorblindly mean “ignoring any differences about races” (like a lot of people feel like the word “black” about a person is to be somewhat racist, so they don’t use it, and when they need it too much they use the english word “black” (because english looks “cooler” to them)), or it is even stretched so much sometimes that I already saw people to qualify “hatred against LGBTs” as “racism”. This is even trickier as these kind of stuff pretty much change across countries… So okay there are a lot of people based in the US within GNU, but also many not… and if “endorsement” or “racism” becomes important… what about when it gets more ambiguous? what is someone is a nazi white supremacist *outside GNU*? will some day every maintainer be policed according their personal views on the israelopalestinian conflict? https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#29_May_2019_(Experience_of_Labour_with_antisemitism)
Re: feeling intimidated for endorsing the GNU social contract
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 21:13:48 +0100, Andy Wingo wrote: >> We've had a few people in particular that have been especially >> problematic, and one person in particular that has many different >> aliases and has even gone so far as to create a separate list that the >> person has forcefully subscribed people to. I condemn this >> behavior. But there's little we can do to stop it. > > I am very sorry, but this is simply not true. There is noting we can do to stop someone from scraping email addresses from a public list and subscribing those users to another list. That is what I was referring to. > The best solution to the problem is a public mailing list whose > subscribers are limited to GNU stakeholders. This would go a long way > towards discourse civility, and is what was asked for in the beginning; > you have the power to do such a thing. I do not have the power to do such a thing. That is beyond the authority granted to me. > It is possible to ban people who have a pattern of problematic behavior. > It too would go a long way to solving this problem. You have the power > to do this, also. > > It is possible to be more vigorous in moderating. You and Brendan took > it upon yourselves the task of moderating this list, so this also is > within your power. Moderators of this list have offered their time to work within certain guidelines. > And yet for some reason you used this power to let the message > referred to in > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-02/msg00441.html > go through. To be clear: you're saying that I personally used my "power" to personally approve a racist message to this list? What an absurd accusation. I just got done condemning someone for calling another person "sick", which is far less offensive. Just because a message makes it to this list does not mean that it was approved. Not every message going to this list is moderated. Before reading this accusation of yours, I read a private message from another person offering his/her time to help moderate this list, wondering how such a message got through, and it's being investigated. Do you not assume that we're acting in good faith? You know quite well that GNU is a project of volunteers. And I can assure you that I'd rather not be spending my time babysitting this list. Messages like this do not help matters any. I would not have approved that message if it was presented to me in a moderation queue. > In a message to Andreas Enge > (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-02/msg00433.html), > you write: > >> But coming to this list, raising an inflammatory topic, and then >> demanding that moderation be used as a tool to reduce tensions is not >> acceptable either. > > Here you have chosen instead to blame the recipients of harassment for > the harassment that they have received: it says "you deserve it", in > pretty much those words. Once again you accuse me of something I have not done, this time by deliberately twisting my words, in plain sight nonetheless. I did not say "you deserve it", or even imply such a thing. The moderators do not cater to individuals' expectations. I would hope that one would consider that to be a good thing, since you wouldn't want us to cater to the expectations of those you disagree with. I have made strong efforts to be a neutral party throughout all of this, but I will not tolerate attempts to smear my or other volunteers' efforts. -- Mike Gerwitz Free Software Hacker+Activist | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer GPG: D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B 2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Harrassment on this list
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 07:07:11 +, nipponm...@firemail.cc wrote: > I'm not on this list to see a do-nothing guy foment all day and night > filling up my inbox. Ruben: If you want to sue, sue. You're a Jew, you know > lots of lawyers. Stop fomenting and keveching and just file your suit. This racist language is not acceptable on this list. -- Mike Gerwitz Free Software Hacker+Activist | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer GPG: D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B 2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: State of the GNUnion 2020
Le mardi 25 février 2020, 00:55:09 CET Samuel Thibault a écrit : > As I mentioned in another mail, I am not talking about the software > running the platform, but the community around the platform. It's the > contact they get from the community living on a given platform, which > makes the welcoming atmosphere. And there leadership does matter. The central point was “leadership does not matter”, it was not refuted with arguments. > Did you really read what was actually written on > https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract ? > It does not talk about the values that contributors hold for themselves, > it talks about the values put in the software of the GNU project: > > “ > The GNU Project provides software that guarantees to all users the Four > Essential Freedoms, without compromise: > ” > > etc. It does not talk about exclusively using free software etc. Oh my god so this is even worse I could believe. So… this statement is not about society, it is not about the actual *goals* of GNU (making people able, in their life (= in their general usage of computers), to only use free software, so that they can act to make proprietary software disappear), it is simply about GNU… But there are already commitments asked by RMS about *not endorsing proprietary software* in GNU project, about everything going to be free… So actually you ask not to support free software outside of GNU, not to support it inside (this is already the case), but to *agree* with it… but *only inside*: this is the combined worse of two worlds. Either you don’t ask anything about their ideas to people contributing (or maintaining) GNU, so to be maximally inclusive… either you ask them to agree with its end goals, so to ensure, if, as you desire, they get involved in leadership, they’ll take the right decisions. There, you ask to hold a subset of those end goals (such as the total disappearance of proprietary software… and SaaSS, which is even worse), so you begin promoting exclusion, or at least some forms of priviledge… without having them being useful to anything! I mean, if some, most or all key GNU people endorsed that text I couldn’t less care if that doesn’t even ask them not to promote the usage of SaaSS for developing it, or the disappearance of proprietary software outside of GNU. For instance GNU does stuff such that proprietary software doesn’t exist out of it. That’s why it actively *promote* copyleft, even if it doesn’t directly serves GNU. That’s why LLVM is politically *an enemy* since it is supported, financed and partially developed *so that* proprietary frontend (or even optimizing backend) can be plugged into it. That’s why GNU refused to support stuff related to LLVM, even if it is *outside* of it, even if our compiler is different. If LLVM had been copylefted, I think GNU (rms) would have been *glad* to merge code, or at least copy or mimicate interfaces so that to help compatibility (because compatibility is a good thing), porting, migrations, etc. But the state is very different: it is that GNU isn’t eager to develop interfaces with LLVM, and this is not related to GNU (otherwise a possible argument could be “yes it competes with GCC, but it’d bring more people to GNU! and after all, it’s free!”). Compilers nowadays, and computer languages in general, because of the vast monopoly of GCC, have been something which are *basically* expect to be *naturally* free. LLVM is an attempt, or at least a serious possibility, of changing that. This has nothing to do with GNU. This has to do with free-software movement. This is exterior to GNU. And yet GNU has to act about it.
Re: State of the GNUnion 2020
On 20.02.2020 15:45, Samuel Thibault wrote: The activity by itself, yes, but the choice of where to start a new project, or starting contributing an existing project, leadership does have a lot of importance. What kind of choice? Contributors come and go, largely depending on their own needs and interests. Yes, but also, and I believe most likely, depending on their knowledge of project places (github vs gitlabs vs savannah) and the contact they get with the people there. The GNU project is less and less known compared to other free software platforms, so it'll get less and less newcomers. That is a problem. But one that wouldn't be solved simply by the leadership's say-so. GNU is usually all volunteers, and if existing developers don't accept the new project management platform, they won't use it. And vice versa, if they like it, the project can migrate to it unilaterally. With the exception of strictly proprietary stuff like Github, but it's out of the question for GNU anyway. Depending on how flexible the core developers are, I guess RMS's recommendation on questions like that will have some influence. But so would enthusiastic, targeted advocacy toward the use of new tools. One doesn't really have to be RMS to work with individual projects and their contributors and discuss their choices and needs. And it's a more difficult endeavor (think Mozilla-type initiatives) than just releasing a document saying "hi all we don't discriminate and accept everyone", which is basically stating the already obvious. From seeing the discussions here, it doesn't seem so obvious :/ Really? For all the shouting and stomping of feet, I haven't seen here any one email stating or even implying that the gender or the race of a contributor is somehow important, or that we'd turn somebody away because of it. Sure, the contrary was explicitly said indeed. But anything one can bring about not only acknowledging it, but also making efforts on inclusiveness is mostly rejected with arguments like "it's too hard to take care when writing something on a mailing list". The argument was, in a typical programmer fashion, that a lot of things could be taken as "harassment", and so a subjective thing like that can't be explicitly disallowed. And that our existing "kind communication guidelines" cover a lot of the same ground already. Regarding punishing repeat offenders anyway, as we've seen just recently, you can't censor a determined individual on a public mailing list anyway. Limit their audience, sure, but banning them outright seems impossible. And I can hardly see the whole GNU project migrating off mailing lists. On the flip side, an argument is made that your initiative might make GNU more exclusionary because of the extra conditions on what it takes to be a part of it. At some point you have to exclude some people in order to include other people, yes. We can see that in various communities: when somebody is having a toxic behavior and does not changes behavior even after strong warnings, one has to exclude that person, because otherwise that person will make a lot other people fly away. Not taking the steps to exclude the toxic person does mean excluding people that can not stand the toxic behavior, even if that latter exclusion is not explicit. That seems to be the ground of what some people do not understand here: full inclusiveness can not work, there will always be some people you will be excluding one way or the other, voluntarily or not. Making sure that the choice of who you exclude gets written down seems important to me. This is a very common argument about CoC's. I was talking about something different. Forget harassment and antagonistic behavior. If we declare that all of GNU should share a certain set of values, and especially that maintainers must share the free software values, whatever it really means in practice, *that* sounds exclusionary already. For better or worse, a lot of my colleagues, and a lot of users and Emacs contributors (the main GNU project I contribute to) use proprietary OSes. Even the maintainers do (though not exclusively). I am not fond of that, but I started using Emacs in a similar position years ago, and I wouldn't want to exclude any of them from being a part of our project because their stance is more lax, or that their end goals are more utilitarian (at least for the time being). And that is where your argument stops working.
Re: State of the GNUnion 2020
Dmitry Gutov, le mar. 25 févr. 2020 01:44:02 +0200, a ecrit: > On 20.02.2020 15:45, Samuel Thibault wrote: > > > > > The activity by itself, yes, but the choice of where to start a new > > > > project, or starting contributing an existing project, leadership does > > > > have a lot of importance. > > > > > > What kind of choice? Contributors come and go, largely depending on their > > > own needs and interests. > > > > Yes, but also, and I believe most likely, depending on their knowledge > > of project places (github vs gitlabs vs savannah) and the contact they > > get with the people there. The GNU project is less and less known > > compared to other free software platforms, so it'll get less and less > > newcomers. > > That is a problem. But one that wouldn't be solved simply by the > leadership's say-so. GNU is usually all volunteers, and if existing > developers don't accept the new project management platform, they won't use > it. As I mentioned in another mail, I am not talking about the software running the platform, but the community around the platform. It's the contact they get from the community living on a given platform, which makes the welcoming atmosphere. And there leadership does matter. > Regarding punishing repeat offenders anyway, as we've seen just recently, > you can't censor a determined individual on a public mailing list anyway. > Limit their audience, sure, but banning them outright seems impossible. That does not mean we can't write that we at least try to do it. > If we declare that all of GNU should share a certain set of values, and > especially that maintainers must share the free software values, whatever it > really means in practice, *that* sounds exclusionary already. Did you really read what was actually written on https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract ? It does not talk about the values that contributors hold for themselves, it talks about the values put in the software of the GNU project: “ The GNU Project provides software that guarantees to all users the Four Essential Freedoms, without compromise: ” etc. It does not talk about exclusively using free software etc. Samuel
Re: Why the "social contract" should not be endorsed
Le samedi 22 février 2020, 20:48:43 CET Andreas Enge a écrit : > If anything, this message shows how much a code of conduct is needed. I’ve just read https://wiki.gnu.tools/wiki:code-of-conduct Beside the usage of the binary *-free english phrasing which is unfortunate when applied to human behavior, I noted that people who are part of “this community” (gnu.tools community, I guess), and sometimes pushing for a CoC within GNU, yet never abided by points 0 (“Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people”) and 1 (“Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences”) of section 1, while I think it could be of great help to deescalate the tensions and disputes on this list. Yet, to refrain myself from any unappropriated accusation, I understand point 0 requires skills which are unequally distributed according populations (and sometimes pretty low in ours, so this is not a point I particularely like being considered as obvious), and point 1 is something that requires experience, at first, to be dealt with easily. Anyway this is pretty much unfortunate as if you are the ones defending such rules, you are socially smart enough to be more likely and able to do this than your opponents… unfortunately, as I guess you may consider that unlegitimate. Also the recent attacks rms received recently, including by members of GNU and FSF, doesn’t abide by points 1 and 2 of section 2. PS: there’s the added issue that while this CoC talks about “community”, it also does about “professional settings” (which to me is antagonist to “community”, and the very reason why the “community” word is so used nowadays (to include unpaid/unemployed people)), while this wiki is not professional, and GNU is not a professional organization, nor even withstand “professionalism” (I recall that being stated along with recalling GNU’s name itself is a joke anyway). Also the wording of the “community impact” of “permanent ban” section is unclear, in regards to whether “inappropriate” and/or “sustained” also qualify “disparagement of classes of individuals” (which btw might include any left-wing discourse such as talking about “plutocrats”… something I can hardly see unwelcome (yet I’ve seen a GHM talk being almost retired for something similar ><)).
Re: State of the GNUnion 2020
Alexandre François Garreau, le mar. 25 févr. 2020 03:10:35 +0100, a ecrit: > Le mardi 25 février 2020, 00:55:09 CET Samuel Thibault a écrit : > > Did you really read what was actually written on > > https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract ? > > It does not talk about the values that contributors hold for themselves, > > it talks about the values put in the software of the GNU project: > > > > “ > > The GNU Project provides software that guarantees to all users the Four > > Essential Freedoms, without compromise: > > ” > > > > etc. It does not talk about exclusively using free software etc. > > Oh my god so this is even worse I could believe. > > So… this statement is not about society, it is not about the actual > *goals* of GNU (making people able, in their life (= in their general > usage of computers), to only use free software, so that they can act to > make proprietary software disappear), it is simply about GNU… Could people actually *READ* the text instead of relying one a single sentence of it? The text also says: “ the GNU Project, which creates and distributes a software system that respects users' freedoms ” Which very precisely is about being able to only use free software. But that doesn't *forbid* people from using other software, why would it? That'd be exclusive for sure, but that's not the goal. Samuel
Re: feeling intimidated for endorsing the GNU social contract
The best solution to the problem is a public mailing list whose subscribers are limited to GNU stakeholders. This would go a long way towards discourse civility, and is what was asked for in the beginning; you have the power to do such a thing. This list is exactly for that, for anyone who is interested in the GNU project. We won't limit who is allowed to subscribe, since we wish to welcome anyone -- even people like yourself. Your behaviour and attitude is already leading to a slippery slope, you not only wish to dictate what GNU maintainers must support, but now you wish to limit discussion to those whom you find acceptable. That is not something the GNU project will do. Anyone who wishes to be a GNU "stakeholder" is exactly that. If you wish to have discussion amongst GNNU maintainers, we already have such lists in place. All of this you know perfectly well. It is possible to ban people who have a pattern of problematic behavior. It too would go a long way to solving this problem. You have the power to do this, also. You already assume that this isn't the case already. And as you can see, that had the exact opposite result -- we cannot do anything when people harvest email addresses and sends them unsolicited emails or subscribes to lists -- this counts double for you, Andy. It is possible to be more vigorous in moderating. You and Brendan took it upon yourselves the task of moderating this list, so this also is within your power. And yet for some reason you used this power to let the message referred to in https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-02/msg00441.html go through. You make the bad faith assumption that the list is already not moderated heavily. If a user has not sent anything notoriously garbage like, they will not be moderated. That does not stop them from sending garbage later, when they are no longer under moderation.
Re: Moderation
Your message is hostile, and unkind. Mike's message was explaining the situation, but you attack him and accuse him. I think you made Mike's point. Just like we do not accept obvious garbage language, we also do not accept hostility towards other members of this list. Please try to use a kinder tone in the future.
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
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
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: [Hangout - NYLXS] Harrassment on this list
nipponm...@firemail.cc writes: > I'm not on this list to see a do-nothing guy foment all day and night > filling up my inbox. Ruben: If you want to sue, sue. You're a Jew, you > know lots of lawyers. Stop fomenting and keveching and just file your > suit. As far as I can tell, I received this on the gnu-misc-discuss mailing list. I think it is necessary to say that I find this kind of racist commentary abhorrent. I hope that others feel the same way. Ian
Re: Why the "social contract" should not be endorsed
On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 07:29:45AM +, Alex Taylor wrote: > Finally "endorsing" the text would give the rebel group a legitimacy which > they neither have, nor deserve. It's instructive to look at the track > record of these renegades. The Guile and Guix projects have both excluded > and/or vilified people who disagree with the people in power (the same > people who push the "social contract"). What details can you provide about how the Guile and Guix projects "have both excluded and/or vilified people"?
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
On 2/24/20 12:28 PM, J.B. Nicholson wrote: 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. I also asked to be removed several times to no effect. You may be able to add filters through your email provider's interface, based on the unique identifiers in those messages. I have successfully removed all of his spam in this way; the emails never make it to my inboxes. I also blocked all of his known domain names in the same way for good measure; if somebody refuses to stop harassing me through spam, I see no reason to ever waste another minute reading what they write (which was full of hatred to begin with anyway). I hope the suggestions above work for you (and anybody else who is being harassed in this way).
Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] feeling intimidated for endorsing the GNU social contract
Le lundi 24 février 2020, 12:31:45 CET Ruben Safir a écrit : > On Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 10:58:28PM -0500, Mike Gerwitz wrote: > > Firstly: I'm sorry that you are receiving those messages. People > > should not feel harassed in that way when communicating on GNU lists. > > WRONG > > When people declare open war against RMS and GNU, they should definitly > feel harrassed. Nobody deserve harrasement. Not only morally but harassement is also a loss of time. Unless you just want to annoy people… But I believe willingly trying to annoy anyone, except maybe someone who is exclusively occupied by you, is never anything but a loss of time because it can’t be good (tell me why if I’m wrong).
praising our moderators
Mike> [...] One again, I ask that people please assume that Mike> moderators are acting in good faith. I would like to say that Mike and others who have moderated have done a very generous and good job. Mike, I hope that you realize that most people feel that way (I'm a physicist, so I'll suggest that you model with ratios of "silent appreciateurs as a fraction of total" and so forth... there might even be universal dynamical systems behavior hiding here.) I think some appreciate your work even when they complain in frustration. Your analysis of what that strangely hostile person did also seems correct, and it's quite possible that removing him from the list would not solve the problem of his hangouts thing. That would mean we would have to wait for it to fade, as it already has at times. I'm also guessing that people on the list are reading the moderators' language vis-a-vis the current hot issues and making some bayesian guess which side they might fall on. Those that I think I've noticed are moderators seem to always behave well in their own postings, even if I might disagree with them on an issue or two (for example I lean toward enforcible codes of conduct). Folksinger Arlo Guthrie captured well the notion decades passing after a crisis in his introduction to "When a Soldier Makes it Home". It should be possible to watch this without proprietary s/w on your own computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDAl7lGGtSo
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
The impossibility is in that you might not get unsubscribed even if baning someone from this list. And what use would that be? To make a pointless stance on top of a mountain of authority? 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. You are showing bad faith, you have no idea what has or hasn't been done. The behaviour is absolutley not tolerated, and that has been made clear over and over again. But like obviously bad behaviour, unkind one like your accusation of moderators and the administrators is also one that we strive to not have here.
Re: The General Public Licence (GPL) as the basic governance tool
On 23.02.2020 23:34, Ludovic Courtès wrote: I do see that some people do not judge the document for what it actually says, and I think it’s a pity. Over the last decade I have, again, not been silent about a desire to work towards a collectively-run GNU. But I’ve also done a lot for GNU in that time, and I don’t think it’s useful to view every single action of mine as “part of that campaign”. I think it's a real pity that the first public push for this initiative (which could be beneficial for GNU in the long run) started with you kicking down Richard who had just been unfairly treated by the public and the press in the preceding scandal. I haven't seen a lot of the subsequent discussions on this mailing list, I'm sure, but in my mind your success is emotionally entangled with damaging the reputation of a good man. And that is something you *will* have to work on fixing (because I'm sure others have similar sentiments).
Re: The General Public Licence (GPL) as the basic governance tool
Hi Dmitri, On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:12:09PM +0200, Dmitry Gutov wrote: > On 23.02.2020 23:34, Ludovic Courtès wrote: > > I do see that some people do not judge the document for what it actually > > says, and I think it’s a pity. > > > > Over the last decade I have, again, not been silent about a desire to > > work towards a collectively-run GNU. But I’ve also done a lot for GNU > > in that time, and I don’t think it’s useful to view every single action > > of mine as “part of that campaign”. > > I think it's a real pity that the first public push for this initiative > (which could be beneficial for GNU in the long run) started with you kicking > down Richard who had just been unfairly treated by the public and the press > in the preceding scandal. > > I haven't seen a lot of the subsequent discussions on this mailing list, It is not without reason motivations are considered ouf of scope for the discussion. In order to facilitate any constructive dialogue, we were asked to assume good faith, which in this case means that whatever reasons people have to participate in drafting the document and endorsing it are valid, however right or wrong one feels these reasons might be. Doing otherwise would likely lead to accusations going back and forth with emotions escalating, opinions hardening, and nothing productive being achieved in the process. thanks, Andreas R.
Re: The General Public Licence (GPL) as the basic governance tool
On 24.02.2020 12:34, Andreas R. wrote: It is not without reason motivations are considered ouf of scope for the discussion. In order to facilitate any constructive dialogue, we were asked to assume good faith, which in this case means that whatever reasons people have to participate in drafting the document and endorsing it are valid, however right or wrong one feels these reasons might be. I am already assuming good faith, if that was not apparent from the previous message. But I don't think sweeping emotions and the past actions under the carpet, and the big picture in general, is going to work well. At some point all that needs to be addressed.
Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Harrassment on this list
Ian Lance Taylor skribis: > nipponm...@firemail.cc writes: > >> I'm not on this list to see a do-nothing guy foment all day and night >> filling up my inbox. Ruben: If you want to sue, sue. You're a Jew, you >> know lots of lawyers. Stop fomenting and keveching and just file your >> suit. > > As far as I can tell, I received this on the gnu-misc-discuss mailing > list. > > I think it is necessary to say that I find this kind of racist > commentary abhorrent. > > I hope that others feel the same way. I feel the same, it’s terrible that such messages are tolerated. We should stand up against that. Ludo’.
Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Harrassment on this list
I feel the same, itâs terrible that such messages are tolerated. They aren't, and please stop implying that they are. You ask us to moderate the list, which we do, but we cannot moderate every single message that is sent here. But then quickly complain when your messages are not sent through in quick order when we put in extra efforts to minimimize garbage here. You cannot have it both ways. The moderators are doing their best to keep things in order, but you are not helping it by constantly accusing them and berating them in this manner. It is a thankless job, show some respect.
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
> 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. 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.
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
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.
Re: feeling intimidated for endorsing the GNU social contract
Hello Mike, On Mon 24 Feb 2020 04:58, Mike Gerwitz writes: > We've had a few people in particular that have been especially > problematic, and one person in particular that has many different > aliases and has even gone so far as to create a separate list that the > person has forcefully subscribed people to. I condemn this > behavior. But there's little we can do to stop it. I am very sorry, but this is simply not true. The best solution to the problem is a public mailing list whose subscribers are limited to GNU stakeholders. This would go a long way towards discourse civility, and is what was asked for in the beginning; you have the power to do such a thing. It is possible to ban people who have a pattern of problematic behavior. It too would go a long way to solving this problem. You have the power to do this, also. It is possible to be more vigorous in moderating. You and Brendan took it upon yourselves the task of moderating this list, so this also is within your power. And yet for some reason you used this power to let the message referred to in https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-02/msg00441.html go through. In a message to Andreas Enge (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-02/msg00433.html), you write: > But coming to this list, raising an inflammatory topic, and then > demanding that moderation be used as a tool to reduce tensions is not > acceptable either. Here you have chosen instead to blame the recipients of harassment for the harassment that they have received: it says "you deserve it", in pretty much those words. Honestly I hope that one day we are able to look back on these days and laugh at our foibles, but I get the feeling that a lot of water will have to run under the bridge for that to happen. In the meantime I think that GNU maintainers that are unhappy with the present situation have to effectively treat the more official leadership lines as damage, and route around them. Regards, Andy
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
Unfortunately the only real solution here is to block all of his emails and domains. I tried unsubscribing too but it didn’t seem to do anything Feb 23, 2020, 21:28 by j...@forestfield.org: > 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. >
Re: Moderation
On 2/18/20 12:07 AM, Mike Gerwitz wrote: On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 17:25:38 +0100, Nathan Sidwell wrote: Indeed, given the toxicity on this list, I had presumed there was no moderation (any more). If it is that modereration is being applied, it is either sorely deficient, or an indication of the language that GNU permits (in spite of the 'kind communication' document). Which is a good demonstration of why people might not find it a welcoming organization. It is worth reminding that readers of this list cannot see the number and type of messages being rejected (and so cannot judge what moderation is being done), and that this moderation is being done by volunteers on their own time. It is also worth reminding that it is not possible to make all parties happy. Indeed, moderators get verbal lashings from all sides. Thanks for confirming the toxicity is acceptable to the list administrators. nathan -- Nathan Sidwell
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 19:34:07 -0600, J.B. Nicholson wrote: > 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. Here we have the perfect example of why one shouldn't judge the moderators harshly without any information. I've publicly told Ruben to stop. Instead, this user has created multiple accounts and spams this list incessantly. A ban would do nothing. I personally reject far more messages from this person that I approve, and there are dozens a day. And because of this "censorship" we impose, Ruben has take it upon himself to create a separate "Hangout" mailing list to which he forwards all messages---including some _private messages_ between him and others. He forcefully subscribed people to this list, and does not honor unsubscription requests. A ban does nothing to help this situation. Indeed, the moderation we did choose to do has resulted in an angry reaction that has only inflamed the situation further. One again, I ask that people please assume that moderators are acting in good faith. -- Mike Gerwitz Free Software Hacker+Activist | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer GPG: D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B 2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: ru...@mrbrklyn.com: Please remove me from your hang...@nylxs.com or vill...@mrbrklyn.com mailing lists
On 24.02.2020 06:28, J.B. Nicholson wrote: 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. You're right, he seems to have changed the strategy or something. I'm getting mails again now. Not sure how to best filter these. Gmail doesn't seem to have anything built-in to filter by the real sender rather than From: field. Not sure if Thunderbird does. Tips appreciated. :-\ - Taylan
