Free Software Foundation Announces 'Next Step' for Improving Board Governance (fsf.org) 71
The Free Software Foundation shared an update on its "series of actions to strengthen and modernize the foundation's governance structure and processes."
After a series of interviews with various firms, the board has retained a professional consultant to help the FSF devise and execute the changes needed to optimize the impact of the board and the organization.
During an initial six-month engagement, the firm will work with board members and FSF stakeholders to devise a range of systems and infrastructure that lead to:
- A transparent community-supported process for identifying new board members and evaluating current board members;
- A board member agreement that clearly outlines the responsibilities of all board members;
- A code of ethics that articulates the values of the FSF and conveys a set of principles to guide its decision making and activities, as well as the behavior of its board members, officers, employees, and volunteers; and,
- More focused and streamlined board processes that encourage consistent attention on FSF's most pressing needs .In addition, FSF executive director John Sullivan has begun recruiting candidates to succeed him as the organization's chief employed officer...
The board is also evaluating the first proposed changes to its bylaws since 2002. The goals of these revisions are to ensure that user freedom cannot be compromised by changes in the board, members, or hostile courts, with particular focus on the future of the various GNU General Public Licenses (GPL); to codify the implementation of the staff seat created on March 25, 2021; and, to align the bylaws with the outcomes of the ongoing effort to modernize the foundation's governance structure and processes.
As FSF continues to pursue its mission, the board believes these collective efforts will strengthen the organization's governance, ensuring that it is transparent, accountable, and professional for current and future board members, associate members, staff, and the broader free software movement. These efforts also underscore the board's recognition of the need to attract a new generation of activists for software freedom and to grow the movement.
During an initial six-month engagement, the firm will work with board members and FSF stakeholders to devise a range of systems and infrastructure that lead to:
- A transparent community-supported process for identifying new board members and evaluating current board members;
- A board member agreement that clearly outlines the responsibilities of all board members;
- A code of ethics that articulates the values of the FSF and conveys a set of principles to guide its decision making and activities, as well as the behavior of its board members, officers, employees, and volunteers; and,
- More focused and streamlined board processes that encourage consistent attention on FSF's most pressing needs .In addition, FSF executive director John Sullivan has begun recruiting candidates to succeed him as the organization's chief employed officer...
The board is also evaluating the first proposed changes to its bylaws since 2002. The goals of these revisions are to ensure that user freedom cannot be compromised by changes in the board, members, or hostile courts, with particular focus on the future of the various GNU General Public Licenses (GPL); to codify the implementation of the staff seat created on March 25, 2021; and, to align the bylaws with the outcomes of the ongoing effort to modernize the foundation's governance structure and processes.
As FSF continues to pursue its mission, the board believes these collective efforts will strengthen the organization's governance, ensuring that it is transparent, accountable, and professional for current and future board members, associate members, staff, and the broader free software movement. These efforts also underscore the board's recognition of the need to attract a new generation of activists for software freedom and to grow the movement.
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Nah, they will just write a compliance document that is as convoluted as the GPL, which will erase all past sins for Stallman and give him a clean slate going forward while "enforcing rules" that are meaningless
Is Stallman a go or nogo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fuck you woke assholes. I rebelled against political correctness in the 80s/90s and, while it might have cost me a bit career wise, I can sleep very well at night.
There were millions of victims of Communism, too (Score:1, Interesting)
> How has “woke” culture personally caused you harm?
Aside from the billion dollars in damage from the BLM riots, there's also ongoing harm like this:
https://www.newsweek.com/san-franciscos-organized-shoplifting-surge-prompts-target-cut-operating-hours-1606674 [newsweek.com]
And because I know that you'll screech about Jan 6th in response to bringing up BLM, here's a full list of the people who died that day. As you can see, it was a few medical issues and an unarmed protestor being shot for trespassing, not
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What does woke culture have to do with wanting the police to stop murdering so many black people? The damage to the capitol riot is estimated at $30 million. So you’re spewing whataboutism. The fact that those people died from mild physical activity is also laughable.
Re: There were millions of victims of Communism, t (Score:1, Troll)
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What does woke culture have to do with wanting the police to stop murdering so many black people?
The premise of this question is woke bullshit. Statistics don't support your view - when you normalize for firearm violence [ojp.gov] there is no racial differences. If the rate of violent crime, especially involving guns, is so disproportionate how could you expect this to not also cause more violent interactions with cops?! Who do you think is more likely to get shot by cops, an armed robber committing a crime or a grandma walking down the street? You could argue that cops murder too many people, but arguing that c
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Citation here (Score:2, Offtopic)
Largest teachers union says critical race theory is 'reasonable and appropriate' for kids [starspost.com].
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Re: Is Stallman a go or nogo? (Score:2)
How woke culture damages us all? Easy! Here's an example:
Years ago woke culture has caused a major cancer researcher, Sir Tim Hunt, to become unable to research for more than two years due to being canceled after making a private, in jest, mysoginistic joke that an asshole militant overhead. All his female research colleagues, lab assistants and others came in his defense, telling whoever was open to listening that he wasn't a mysognist. The mob was having none of that and he lost his job all he same. Years
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I , for one , recommend the reintroduction and mass production of guillottines to be ready for this sporting event :) .. ok .. step right in " .. .. why step ahead of the line .. you are a valued customer after all .. "
" next woke customer please " " what ? you're a republican ? well
" what your name is Donald ?
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Look at what he's done to our modern world (AKA think of Linux without GNU) and tell me he should be Bill Cosby'd.
Comparing what Richard Stallman did with what Bill Cosby did shows you are completely delusional. What problem are you trying to solve in the world that puts them in the same category?
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Genuine question: what is "woke" in this context?
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I rebelled against political correctness in the 80s/90s and, while it might have cost me a bit career wise,
In the 90s "politically correct" was basically the phrase used to refer to avoiding blatantly racist or sexist slurs (homophobia hadn't really even made it onto the list then). So your method of rebellion must have been being performatively racist and/or sexist.
Well done! Have a cookie.
Lonely at the bottom. (Score:2)
So basically, "come back, we didn't mean it".
An easier solution (Score:2, Insightful)
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There will be many other hire/fire decisions to make. They may not be easy. Having plans in mind for how to do them best makes sense.
Re:An easier solution (Score:4, Informative)
Look at the changes they are making, the main goal is the opposite of that. They are trying to make sure the Stallman ethos doesn't get changed in the future by a different set of activists (the four essential freedoms [gnu.org] need to be upheld).
So they are trying to make sure that happens. It's not an easy task when completely different people can end up in charge.
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Sometimes doing the right thing is more work than catering to the unreasonable demands of a loud minority.
Incidentally, Stallman wasn't fired. He resigned. The board didn't buy into the obviously-skewed interpretations of Stallman's statements that were being proffered. So they took him back once he decided that he still had something valuable to offer the world.
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They ignored all the other creepy stuff he does. That comment was the tip of the iceberg, e.g. the infamous "pleasure cards".
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They ignored all the other creepy stuff he does. That comment was the tip of the iceberg, e.g. the infamous "pleasure cards".
Wasn't that just a play on the question they used to ask when you traveled: Business or Pleasure? (is that a creepy question?) He didn't want to be seen as a business man and give out business cards so he took the other option - and it's worth noting he did give them out to everybody, not just women. If they had the word "Business" instead it would all be ok?
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Problem is even if it was a joke it was accompanied by the offer of "tender embraces". Giving that to random people attending professional events is creepy and highly inappropriate.
https://external-preview.redd.... [external-preview.redd.it]
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Very easy to shut down.... (Score:1)
That sure seems to be a lot of work when they could have just kept Stallman fired.
An FSF that would push out one of its missions greatest proponents and spokesmen, is an organization that no longer cares about its missions and should be shut down so a new more focused organization could start...
In that case then, probably easier to clarify the FSF mission so attempts by outsiders to poison the FSF can be more easily rejected.
Re:Very easy to shut down.... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm a big fan of what RMS has done, he's absolutely not a great spokesman. He's started something great, but it would be far better for him to retire and somebody else to take over.
Even in his own area, my impression is that he's not really respected as much as tolerated. It doesn't make for a great spokesman when even his proponents have to make excuses.
At any rate, RMS is pretty old at this point, and not going to last forever. It can't all hang on him.
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He's 68 years old, so he may still be around for a while, presuming he doesn't have any serious health issues. But I agree that a movement can't be run by only one person. There is no heir-apparent, and GPL use has declined precipitously in recent years. In 2016, all GPL licenses (v2, v3, and LGPL) made up about 40% of all project licenses, while it dropped to about 25% by 2020. Almost all of that decline (10 points) was from v3. Apache and MIT have a majority together. Sure, the Linux kernel isn't going an
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It is beyond me how is that could be cast as "not great", as not concise, as not factual or not inspiring. When speaking on his key subject there's nobody better than him. Or perhaps you mean something else by "spokesman".
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Yes, I mean quite a bit more than that.
At this point he's spent decades repeating his views, so I'd say that job is done for the most part. There may still be a need to repeat the same speech once in a while, but by now it's been well polished, so that part is easy.
The hard part is reaching the places that have been resistant, and Stallman isn't going to achieve that by his current methods. I think the main issue is that he's effectively a dinosaur, hailing from the old times when software was written by on
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In that case then, probably easier to clarify the FSF mission so attempts by outsiders to poison the FSF can be more easily rejected.
It's probably too late.
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Regardless of your opinion on RMS, it is easy to acknowledge that the decisions regarding his association with the FSF were among the worst set of options.
The FSF is now a woke organization, and as such, has become irrelevant. Now they can be as woke as they want, but then they are attractive to a different group.
retained a professional consultant (Score:1)
Oh brother, what could be more useless? and more profitable? for the "consultant"
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They're a public relations outfit, looking for "venture capital"
Stuff that matters? (Score:3)
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Yes, it is. The FSF's copyright-attribution policy means that it holds the copyright on a ton of important Linux software, including:
- GCC
- GDB
- GNU Make
- Coreutils
- Bash
- GNU Findutils, grep, gawk, sed, diffutils, etc
- Autotools
- Ghostscript
- GNOME
- Groff
- Texinfo
- fdisk
- bc
as well as lots and lots of other packages.
As the copyright holder on all of these projects, the FSF controls their licensing and di
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they still wield a _ton_ of control over the packages we all take for granted. So news about FSF governance changes are important to watch
Then the paper fails to explains how current changes will have a real-life impact.
Dog Whistles (Score:2)
A purge of those who do not toe the line - political views are superior to abilities.
- A board member agreement that clearly outlines the responsibilities of all board members;
Have them sign documents to show that lack of inclusivity is grounds for getting rid of them
- A code of ethics that articulates the values of the FSF and conveys a set of principles to guide its decision making
FSF goes the full Woke (Score:1)
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
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The FSF turned itself a pariah by bringing back Stallman
The people who falsely accused Stallman turned themselves into pariah's by lying.
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It must have been bad enough before putting up with all the political bullshit of the FSF but now they're so so toxic that projects have an excuse to move away or fork if they have to.
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Any chance that the FSF would reboot itself for the modern age died the moment they let him back in.
What does "reboot itself for the modern age" even mean? What features delineate the "modern age" from whatever the prior age was?
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You know, a reboot. A root and branch overhaul of their website, their tools, their message, their leaders, the way they approach companies. It doesn't require them to dump their core beliefs but it do
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It must have been bad enough before putting up with all the political bullshit of the FSF
OK there's the tell, you are one of those trolls who always hated the GPL, and now you're just jumping on. You don't care about the actual issues at all, you've always opposed the FSF.
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I'm sorry if you've conflated the FSF, RMS, GPL and into one indivisible thing where criticism of one is criticism of them all but maybe that's part of the problem too.
followup to FreeNode takeover? (Score:2)
This really looks like a response to the recent changes to freenode, like FSF members looked at that mess and said "we need to prevent THAT from happening to US!"
It just proves the point - no matter how benevolent and honorable something is, if it's not designed to be resistant to abuse, it will eventually be abused. (very similar to welll-meaning laws that are written with anticipation of a lot of "correct interpretation", that end up getting horribly twisted and abused)
So it's best to just button it up no