Re: about the GNU promise

[Alexandre François Garreau]

Le mercredi 12 février 2020, 06:54:10 CET Mike Gerwitz a écrit :
> On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 16:32:53 -0500, nylxs wrote:
> > On 2/6/20 5:36 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> >> The goal is to acknowledge that GNU is not the only free software
> >> provider, and that the GNU Project (socially) and the GNU System
> >> (technically) has to work with these other free software projects.
> > 
> > That is because you fail to understand the importance of Free
> > Software, because honestly, you are so corrupt and greedy that you
> > can't be educated, and you can not be helped.
> 
> Personal attacks weaken your argument and are not appropriate for this
> list.

I believe personal attacks are wasteful, but more than this this one is 
unkind (“that you can’t be […]” is, and the preceding wording is violent).

> And despite my disagreements with Ludo on the topics under discussion, I
> very strongly disagree with your characterization of him.

Personally, I believe Ludo intends nothing wrong, but I believe even with 
good intents, anyone, even he, can do bad.

If we were to listen the polishing discourse or the vague and approximate 
promises of Ludo, I don’t see how we’d avoid to end with a “democratic” 
consortium of companies’ employees.  We would have x% redhat, x% 
canonical, x% microsoft…

And the only proposed way of avoiding that is merely signing a short and 
weak non-juridical pledge… that could be disregarded easily by personal 
interpretation.  Words can be twisted, and people (especially paid 
employee ordered to be so) can be dishonest: *THAT*’s the main conclusion 
from “the last rms’ events” to me.  And the proximity of both severly 
frightens me

But then Ludo, what would prevent consensual decisions such as their 
common  “remove lisp and some C, and prefer with javascript, python, and 
c++”?

What would prevent going as hypocritical as FSF marketing, such as saying 
“DRM and  proprietary software are shit let’s not use them for 1 day out 
of 356”?

What would prevent going as corrupt as W3C such as “let’s forget semantic 
web, XML and XSLT/functionnal programming and put ecmascript and json all 
the way to pave the way for javascript trap, SaaSS and DRM” (and pretend 
accessibility is not a question of design and meaning but of individual 
(not social) effort, like if switching off the lights when exiting a room 
could prevent global warming)

What could prevent from getting as greedy as Apple and state “let’s remain 
under GPLv3 but outsource more stuff to LLVM”…  How is this case taken in 
your “Social Contract”?  Could it only be so?  I can foresee pressure for 
that to happen.  But can a mere text cover all cases in advances?

How could you expect it to stay be democratic in an society ran by 
plutocracy, in an economy ran by capitalism?

We’re not talking about a country elections, or about a small town whose 
inhabitants are all known in advance… GNU is international, and developed 
via internet… there is no people to provide security, for this… and a 
pledge is a really bad filter… while rms’ predictions have thoroughly have 
been good.

Only people can defend texts, which can’t defend themselves (Plato said 
that, criticizing Writing itself).  But if people are employee, there is 
no defense anymore to be expected.

Re: about the GNU promise

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 16:32:53 -0500, nylxs wrote:
> On 2/6/20 5:36 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> The goal is to acknowledge that GNU is not the only free software
>> provider, and that the GNU Project (socially) and the GNU System
>> (technically) has to work with these other free software projects.
>
>
> That is because you fail to understand the importance of Free Software,
> because honestly, you are so corrupt and greedy that you can't be
> educated, and you can not be helped.

Personal attacks weaken your argument and are not appropriate for this
list.

And despite my disagreements with Ludo on the topics under discussion, I
very strongly disagree with your characterization of him.

-- 
Mike Gerwitz


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: about the GNU promise

[Marius Bakke]

nylxs  writes:

> That is because you fail to understand the importance of Free Software,
> because honestly, you are so corrupt and greedy that you can't be
> educated, and you can not be helped.

Please keep personal attacks out of these discussions.  I encourage you
to read again the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines at
.

Thanks.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: about the GNU promise

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Benno,

Benno Schulenberg  skribis:

> Anyway... I've carefully read https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract
> (Last modified: 2020/01/22 11:55), and here are my comments.

Thanks for taking the time to read it and to comment it.

> Please don't call the document a Social Contract.  The first sentence says:
> "These are the core commitments of the GNU Project...".  In other words:
> these are promises.  A better title for the document would be:
>
>   The GNU Promises

I agree these are promises.  I personally find the name “Social
Contract” clear, but perhaps the context is missing: it is a reference
to Rousseau’s Social Contract¹, and the phrase has since been used
broadly to designate documents that are a collective pledge or set of
promises (an example is Debian’s Social Contract).

I think “social contract” accurately defines the document, but “GNU
Pledge” or similar would also work I guess, although it does not have
the nice effect of making it clear that it’s a social construct.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

> The first sentence continues with: "to the broader free software community".
> Well, why only to the free-software people?  I would say: "to the world".

Yes, good point, I agree.

> The second sentence says: "The GNU Project provides a software system..."
> The word "system" is both too vague and too all-encompassing; it sounds as
> if it wants to be a single, massive block of software.  I would say that
> the GNU project "provides software packages...".  The second section then
> nicely elaborates a bit on this.

Sounds good to me.

> I'm glad to see that the numbering in the first section goes from 1 to 4.
> Please don't use the numbering from 0 to 3, as in the email, because then
> the average person reading this would think that we are nerds and inepts.

OK, makes sense to me.

> The first section ends with: "the GNU Project pays attention and responds
> to new threats to users' freedom as they arise."  I applaud an organization
> that takes it upon itself to respond to such threats, but I as an individual
> maintainer cannot and will not make any such promise.

Right, I think this is a collective pledge: this is what we members want
the project to promise.  Do you think the individual/collective
distinction needs to be clarified?

> The third section begins: "Free software extends beyond the GNU Project..."
> Huh?  Vague.  Does this want to say that there is also free software that
> is not part of the GNU project?  If yes, then say so.

Yes, that was the goal.

> It continues: "which works with companion free software projects that
> develop key components of the GNU System".  Oof...  Who are those
> "companion free software projects"?  How can such projects "that
> develop key components of the GNU System" not be part of the GNU
> project itself?  In short: what does this want to say?  Where is the
> promise here?

The goal is to acknowledge that GNU is not the only free software
provider, and that the GNU Project (socially) and the GNU System
(technically) has to work with these other free software projects.

The promise is that of working hand in hand with free software projects
that are natural allies and/or develop tools that GNU relies on.  It’s
about being a “good citizen.”

There’s been several occasions in the past where GNU drove away some of
its allies, or was perceived as failing to acknowledge the technical
importance of other free software components.  As I see it, this promise
is a way to rectify that.

WDYT?  Can you think of a way to reword it to clarify this?

> And then: "The GNU Project aims to extend the reach of free software to
> new fields."  Huh?  What new "fields"?  Again: what is the promise here?
> Is it that we intend to assimilate everything?

The idea I think is that GNU is not tied to a specific set of
application domains and includes packages of any field—compilers,
astronomy tools, math software, etc.

There probably lacks a transition from the previous sentence though.

Any wording you would suggest?

> The fourth section says: "The GNU Project wants to give everyone the
> opportunity of contributing to its efforts..."  To me this sounds as if
> the GNU project will not put any hurdles and conditions in people's way
> before they can contribute.  But in practice the GNU project requires
> that significant contributors sign a copyright assignment, and that
> translators sign a copyright disclaimer.  I think that these two things
> make the GNU project quite unwelcoming to possible contributors.  So,
> in my opinion, that sentence is rather untruthful.

Note that copyright assignment has always been optional; a number of GNU
packages do not have copyright assignment at all, but for those that do,
contributors are indeed required to sign an assignment form.

To me this is more of a policy issue and beyond the scope of this
document.

Thanks for your feedback!  I guess we’ll incorporate some of your
suggestions in the coming days. 

Re: about the GNU promise

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Benno,

On Mon, Feb 03, 2020 at 04:28:52PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> Maintainer of GNU nano talking here.  I haven't followed the whole discussion,
> but I've peeked at some of the archived emails, and was disheartened by the
> tone and attitude in some of them.  :|

We do try very hard to keep a kind and friendly tone on the
mailinglist, but I agree we don't always succeed. Thanks for sending
in your feedback anyway.

> Anyway... I've carefully read https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract
> (Last modified: 2020/01/22 11:55), and here are my comments.
> 
> Please don't call the document a Social Contract.  The first sentence says:
> "These are the core commitments of the GNU Project...".  In other words:
> these are promises.  A better title for the document would be:
> 
>   The GNU Promises

I made a similar suggestion to call it "Our GNU Promises"
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-01/msg00092.html
But do also agree it is not as snappy. I wouldn't mind a different title though.

> The first sentence continues with: "to the broader free software community".
> Well, why only to the free-software people?  I would say: "to the world".

Wouldn't that be a bit overreach? I like to be at least a little bit
focussed and practical. We are working on Free Software for users that
are open to using that software. We could say we do it for anybody
whether or not they are hostile to user freedom. But do we really
commit to do the work for everybody?

> The second sentence says: "The GNU Project provides a software system..."
> The word "system" is both too vague and too all-encompassing; it sounds as
> if it wants to be a single, massive block of software.  I would say that
> the GNU project "provides software packages...".  The second section then
> nicely elaborates a bit on this.

Yes, or maybe say operating system and software packages?

> I'm glad to see that the numbering in the first section goes from 1 to 4.
> Please don't use the numbering from 0 to 3, as in the email, because then
> the average person reading this would think that we are nerds and inepts.

:) I do think people in general do understand that zero is super
special, above and beyond any numbering. So don't really mind
myself. But counting from 1 seems more common indeed.

> The first section ends with: "the GNU Project pays attention and responds
> to new threats to users' freedom as they arise."  I applaud an organization
> that takes it upon itself to respond to such threats, but I as an individual
> maintainer cannot and will not make any such promise.

Is there a way we can formulate this better? The intent is to capture
situations when for example an user cannot effectively make use of the
four freedoms even though technically the software itself is Free
Software.

> The third section begins: "Free software extends beyond the GNU Project..."
> Huh?  Vague.  Does this want to say that there is also free software that
> is not part of the GNU project?  If yes, then say so.

Yes, that is basically what it wants to say. Do you have a suggestion
how to reword this sentence to be more clear?

> It continues: "which
> works with companion free software projects that develop key components of
> the GNU System".  Oof...  Who are those "companion free software projects"?
> How can such projects "that develop key components of the GNU System" not
> be part of the GNU project itself?  In short: what does this want to say?
> Where is the promise here?
> 
> And then: "The GNU Project aims to extend the reach of free software to
> new fields."  Huh?  What new "fields"?  Again: what is the promise here?
> Is it that we intend to assimilate everything?

The original promise is to create an operating system, but the
definition of that expands over time and we do want to provide all
software that perform useful tasks for users as part of the system.

> The fourth section says: "The GNU Project wants to give everyone the
> opportunity of contributing to its efforts..."  To me this sounds as if
> the GNU project will not put any hurdles and conditions in people's way
> before they can contribute.  But in practice the GNU project requires
> that significant contributors sign a copyright assignment, and that
> translators sign a copyright disclaimer.  I think that these two things
> make the GNU project quite unwelcoming to possible contributors.  So,
> in my opinion, that sentence is rather untruthful.

I think the last sentence of that section is the most important
one. If we put that first, then I think the intent of the section of a
whole is more clear.

> Those are my two cents.

Thanks,

Mark

Re: about the GNU promise

[Jean Louis]

* Benno Schulenberg  [2020-02-05 08:36]:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Maintainer of GNU nano talking here.  I haven't followed the whole discussion,
> but I've peeked at some of the archived emails, and was disheartened by the
> tone and attitude in some of them.  :|
> 
> Anyway... I've carefully read https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract
> (Last modified: 2020/01/22 11:55), and here are my comments.
> 
> Please don't call the document a Social Contract.  The first sentence says:
> "These are the core commitments of the GNU Project...".  In other words:
> these are promises.  A better title for the document would be:

I am sorry, if you respect RMS, then please respect the leadership as
wiki.gnu.tools is not authorized domain, it is splitter group that is
not doing anything good to GNU project, neither they wish good to
RMS. They are extremists who are guided by other politics, and from
viewpoint of other politics, they are guided to destroy the GNU
project and community by introducing fears, uncertainties and doubts.

The domain is not GNU project and does not speak for GNU project.

Participating in the creation of such document without talking to RMS
is, if you ask me, pure disrespect. It is simply not theirs to create
such document, in other words, they are not endorsed.

Jean

Re: about the GNU promise

[Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss)]

On 2020-02-03 07:28, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
The second sentence says: "The GNU Project provides a software 
system..."
The word "system" is both too vague and too all-encompassing; it sounds 
as


It's just missing "operating" in front of it.

if it wants to be a single, massive block of software.  I would say 
that
the GNU project "provides software packages...".  The second section 
then

nicely elaborates a bit on this.


The GNU project's goal is in fact to provide a complete operating 
system;

that's been that way from the beginning.

If the GNU project provides some ad hoc "packages", that implies that
there is some non-GNU system where they have to be installed to be used.

Perhaps a non-free system (where GNU packages can be used due to the GPL
exception for system libraries).

See where that is going?

The third section begins: "Free software extends beyond the GNU 
Project..."
Huh?  Vague.  Does this want to say that there is also free software 
that
is not part of the GNU project?  If yes, then say so.  It continues: 
"which
works with companion free software projects that develop key components 
of
the GNU System".  Oof...  Who are those "companion free software 
projects"?


This is basically just taking a mile-wide detour around saying "Linux". 
:)


The kernel is a key component of the GNU system, an the most popular 
kernel
that everyone is using with GNU stuff on it is not part of the GNU 
project.


Another example: the X Window system.

Another: Apache.

How can such projects "that develop key components of the GNU System" 
not

be part of the GNU project itself?


Lift up a corner of your glibc, and look underneath.


And then: "The GNU Project aims to extend the reach of free software to
new fields."  Huh?  What new "fields"?  Again: what is the promise 
here?

Is it that we intend to assimilate everything?


Machine learning, social networking, crytptocurrency, bioinformatics, 
...

Re: about the GNU promise

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

Hi Benno,

The idea of a social contract, or any document that would require GNU
maintainers or volunteers to agree to a set of philosophical points
has already been dismissed.  Those that have created this wiki page
don't represent the GNU project, or have a mandate to decide.