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GNU is Not Unix Open Source

Free Software Foundation's Executive Director Resigns (fsf.org) 41

John Sullivan became the Free Software Foundation's Executive Director back in 2010. But now after 11 years, "I've decided to resign my position..." he tweeted Friday, "effective at the end of a transition period."

"We'll be sharing further details, including information about that transition, and a few more words, in the coming days."

Meanwhile, the Free Software Foundation announced Thursday that it's seeking "a principled, compassionate, and capable leader" to be its new executive director, working remotely out of their Boston office with the Foundation's current staff and board of directors. "The executive director, working with the president, is the public face of the Foundation." The FSF faces many challenges as software becomes increasingly central in the exercise of all fundamental human freedoms, including speech, association, privacy, and movement, and as software owners seek to exploit their control over us to profit at the expense of those freedoms. The executive director has a vital role in enabling the FSF to continue meeting these challenges, starting from the strong base that has been built in the last thirty-five years. The Foundation has recently reached record-high membership numbers and was awarded a perfect score from Charity Navigator, as well as its eighth consecutive four-star rating. Efforts to improve the Foundation's governance are underway.

The executive director is the FSF's chief employed officer. The position reports to the president/CEO and the board of directors, and is responsible for management of all other staff, all day-to-day operations, and oversight of the Boston physical office. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to hire for additional key positions in the management team.

One interesting item on their list of job responsibilities:
  • Mentor, inspire, coordinate, and manage all FSF staff, building a culture that upholds the FSF's ideological principles and includes accountability, empathy, efficiency, and excellence

A blog post on the FSF site also notes that the last month saw 11 new GNU releases. "A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance: please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help."


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Free Software Foundation's Executive Director Resigns

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  • Is this news? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Saturday May 29, 2021 @09:39AM (#61434052) Homepage

    John Sullivan announced his intentions to step down quite a while ago, as per this article [techrights.org].

    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Ah, and the linked tweet is dated March 28th.

      Slashdot. Olds for Nerds; Stuff that's Passe

    • Re:Is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CrappySnackPlane ( 7852536 ) on Saturday May 29, 2021 @09:44AM (#61434072)

      Nah, editors are fishing for clicks and hoping this will milk some Stallman debate.

      "Mentor, inspire, coordinate, and manage all ____ staff, building a culture that upholds ____'s ideological principles and includes accountability, empathy, efficiency, and excellence" is totally standard boilerplate for any high-management job posting, but for those who see patterns in clouds I'm sure they think it's totally all about the Stallman comments from a year ago or whenever.

      • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

        Nah, editors are fishing for clicks and hoping this will milk some Stallman debate.

        "Mentor, inspire, coordinate, and manage all ____ staff, building a culture that upholds ____'s ideological principles and includes accountability, empathy, efficiency, and excellence" is totally standard boilerplate for any high-management job posting, but for those who see patterns in clouds I'm sure they think it's totally all about the Stallman comments from a year ago or whenever.

        Yes, cultural revolutions merit nothing but yawns. Silly stuff to take note of or discuss.

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          Hahaha, are you kidding? Copy-paste boilerplate in the job posting for an Executive Director is a "cultural revolution"? Next you're going to tell me that McDonald's including "Restaurant Cleanliness" in the posting for a Crew Member (read: register jockey) position signifies a "sanitation revolution".

      • Nah, editors are fishing for clicks and hoping this will milk some Stallman debate.

        So glad this story wasn't posted on pornhub.

  • it may take a while to fill that position?
  • Wow, this posting for a McDonalds job includes "Partnering with other Crew and Managers to meet target goals during your shift" - I guess McDonalds has been struggling to make money or something...? Very interesting, hurr

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by algaeman ( 600564 )
      McDonalds is probably having issues due to their association with billionaire pedophiles.
      • McDonalds is probably having issues due to their association with billionaire pedophiles.

        I guess their signs should say, "Billionaires Served" instead of "Billions Served" ... :-)

  • working remotely out of their Boston office

    What does that even mean? If they're at the Boston office how is that remote?

  • hmm, yes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday May 29, 2021 @10:19AM (#61434148) Journal

    and as software owners seek to exploit their control over us to profit at the expense of those freedoms.

    Yes, if only somebody unnameable had occasionally warned us that centralizing software on servers owned by somebody else might pose a problem like that ...

    • Darn. Sorry to hear geeks are leaving their Steam collections behind. Oh well, it's the principle of the matter.

      • Darn. Sorry to hear geeks are leaving their Steam collections behind. Oh well, it's the principle of the matter.

        Pretty sure quite a few real geeks use Gog? And not just for the principle, but because DRM is a PITA.

  • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Saturday May 29, 2021 @11:21AM (#61434302)

    As long as FOSS leadership are centralized in the US it will be POLITICIZED regarding issues which are not to do with code, but with ideological squabbles and purity spirals distracting from what was once the core mission.

    American culture today is about nothing else but woke (for better or worse, but this is how those who dominate the US want it and have it). They dominate FOSS.

    Software freedom is arguably too important to be sideline everywhere in behalf of other issues. Non-US stakeholders may want a greater voice in how things go. What if the US turns (politics is always CYCLIC) fascist as many want? Shall that local, American climate change also pollute Free Software though software freedom is a vital GLOBAL cause?

    The US has become silly and lives in a desperate neo-Victorian moral panic which shall reign for decades purely because those wishing it so are such profitable employees (everything in the US is about money in the end, our "ideals" ephemeral pretense) for the moment.

    Weaponizing moral panic for corporate greed will always be easy because emotional people are inherently weak and easily used if ideologically affirmed. (The Q-Anon movement is the flip side but the silliness is everywhere.)

    Americans are unfit to lead as the nation declines politically. Those elsewhere need Free and Open Source software reflecting global goals, not American goals. We'll see what they choose but I expect inaction.

    • As long as FOSS leadership are centralized in the US it will be POLITICIZED regarding issues which are not to do with code, but with ideological squabbles and purity spirals distracting from what was once the core mission.

      Well they could always centralize in Russia or China. Get back all that freedom people think the US is incapable of.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        There are actually a large number of indices trying to rank countries by freedom. The US isn't in the top 10 of most of them, and neither is my country (UK). Norway and Sweden are pretty consistently top ranked.

        Of course you may disagree. Those two have high tax rates, for example. But overall quality of life there is excellent.

      • by freax ( 80371 )

        It's not because he said current FOSS leadership are centralized that he said the solution is a centralized leadership.

        FOSS leadership should be decentralized.

  • Can there possibly be a better qualified candidate than RMS?! Especially the compassionate part!

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Compassion would be accepting when people tell him that his behaviour towards them is upsetting and creepy, and changing it.

      Stallman is certainly capable of that. Look at his ideas on gender neutral pronouns. He shows compassion, but also a complete lack of understanding of the issue. He's just not good at anything to do with social interaction, I'm sorry to say.

    • Easy on that compassion thing.

      âoeThere is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children. Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realise they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. Thatâ(TM)s not willing participation, itâ(TM)s imposed participation, a different issue.â

      - Richard M Stallman.

      No, Richard, f*cking kids is NOT

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