Why the FSF is Structured the Way It Is (fsf.org) 30
Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation as a nonprofit in 1985 with four other directors (including MIT computer science professor Gerald Jay Sussman). Sussman remains on the Board of directors, along with EFF co-founder John Gilmore and five others.
Friday the eight directors published a new article explaining how their goal and principles are protected by the nonprofit's governance structure: An obvious option, used by many organizations, was to let supporters sign up as members and have the members' votes control everything about the organization. We rejected that approach because it would have made the organization vulnerable to being taken over by people who disagreed with its mission... [A]ctivist organizations should be steady in their mission. Already in 1985, we could see that many of the people who appreciated the GNU Project's work (developing useful GNU software packages) did not support our goal and values. To look at software issues in terms of freedom was radical and many were reluctant to consider it... So we chose a structure whereby the FSF's governing body would appoint new people to itself... [T]he FSF voting members consist of all the present board members and some past board members. We have found that having some former board members remain as voting members helps stabilize the base of FSF governance.
The divergence between our values and those of most users was expressed differently after 1998, when the term "open source" was coined. It referred to a class of programs which were free/libre or pretty close, but it stood for the same old values of convenience and success, not the goal of freedom for the users of those programs. For them, "scratching your own itch" replaced liberating the community around us. People could become supporters of "open source" without any change in their ideas of right and wrong... It would have been almost inevitable for supporters of "open source" to join the FSF, then vote to convert it into an "open source" organization, if its structure allowed such a course. Fortunately, we had made sure it did not. So we were able to continue spreading the idea that software freedom is a freedom that everyone needs and everyone is entitled to, just like freedom of speech.
In recent years, several influential "open source" organizations have come to be dominated by large companies. Large companies are accustomed to seeking indirect political power, and astroturf campaigns are one of their usual methods. It would be easy for companies to pay thousands of people to join the FSF if by doing so they could alter its goals and values. Once again, our defensive structure has protected us...
A recent source of disagreement with the free software movement's philosophy comes from those who would like to make software licenses forbid the use of programs for various practices they consider harmful. Such license restrictions would not achieve the goal of ending those practices and each restriction would split the free software community. Use restrictions are inimical to the free software community; whatever we think of the practices they try to forbid, we must oppose making software licenses restrict them. Software developers should not have the power to control what jobs people do with their computers by attaching license restrictions. And when some acts that can be done by using computing call for systematic prohibition, we must not allow companies that offer software or online services to decide which ones. Such restrictions, when they are necessary, must be laws, adopted democratically by legislatures...
What new political disagreements will exist in the free software community ten, twenty or thirty years from now? People may try to disconnect the FSF from its values for reasons we have not anticipated, but we can be confident that our structure will give us a base for standing firm. We recently asked our associate members to help us evaluate the current members of the FSF board of directors through a process that will help us preserve the basic structure that protects the FSF from pressure to change its values. A year ago we used this process to select new board members, and it worked very well.
Sincerely,
The Free Software Foundation Board of Directors
Friday the eight directors published a new article explaining how their goal and principles are protected by the nonprofit's governance structure: An obvious option, used by many organizations, was to let supporters sign up as members and have the members' votes control everything about the organization. We rejected that approach because it would have made the organization vulnerable to being taken over by people who disagreed with its mission... [A]ctivist organizations should be steady in their mission. Already in 1985, we could see that many of the people who appreciated the GNU Project's work (developing useful GNU software packages) did not support our goal and values. To look at software issues in terms of freedom was radical and many were reluctant to consider it... So we chose a structure whereby the FSF's governing body would appoint new people to itself... [T]he FSF voting members consist of all the present board members and some past board members. We have found that having some former board members remain as voting members helps stabilize the base of FSF governance.
The divergence between our values and those of most users was expressed differently after 1998, when the term "open source" was coined. It referred to a class of programs which were free/libre or pretty close, but it stood for the same old values of convenience and success, not the goal of freedom for the users of those programs. For them, "scratching your own itch" replaced liberating the community around us. People could become supporters of "open source" without any change in their ideas of right and wrong... It would have been almost inevitable for supporters of "open source" to join the FSF, then vote to convert it into an "open source" organization, if its structure allowed such a course. Fortunately, we had made sure it did not. So we were able to continue spreading the idea that software freedom is a freedom that everyone needs and everyone is entitled to, just like freedom of speech.
In recent years, several influential "open source" organizations have come to be dominated by large companies. Large companies are accustomed to seeking indirect political power, and astroturf campaigns are one of their usual methods. It would be easy for companies to pay thousands of people to join the FSF if by doing so they could alter its goals and values. Once again, our defensive structure has protected us...
A recent source of disagreement with the free software movement's philosophy comes from those who would like to make software licenses forbid the use of programs for various practices they consider harmful. Such license restrictions would not achieve the goal of ending those practices and each restriction would split the free software community. Use restrictions are inimical to the free software community; whatever we think of the practices they try to forbid, we must oppose making software licenses restrict them. Software developers should not have the power to control what jobs people do with their computers by attaching license restrictions. And when some acts that can be done by using computing call for systematic prohibition, we must not allow companies that offer software or online services to decide which ones. Such restrictions, when they are necessary, must be laws, adopted democratically by legislatures...
What new political disagreements will exist in the free software community ten, twenty or thirty years from now? People may try to disconnect the FSF from its values for reasons we have not anticipated, but we can be confident that our structure will give us a base for standing firm. We recently asked our associate members to help us evaluate the current members of the FSF board of directors through a process that will help us preserve the basic structure that protects the FSF from pressure to change its values. A year ago we used this process to select new board members, and it worked very well.
Sincerely,
The Free Software Foundation Board of Directors
Interesting problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Jerry Sussman is, to put it delicately, near the end of his career. So are Stallman and a lot of the rest of bunch.
While their influence has been vast, it has been incomplete, as evidenced by the philosophical reality that the new generation doesn't seem to grok freedom in software the way they do, but also in more practical disconnects. If you read The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, or The Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics, you will find a near-impenetrable jumble of Scheme. Lisp and Scheme have obviously has some influence over the CS sphere, but no one uses them.
This means the disconnect is bidirectional. Sussman and co couldn't get the rest of the world to do it their way, nor have they fully adapted their language and practice to keep up with the world.
Whether that's good or bad isn't my point. My point is, their ability to advocate for their original political objectives is hampered by the disconnect in ability to communicate.
Re: (Score:2)
Always a good idea to clarify an organisation's principles before attempting to pass the batten on.
Re: (Score:1)
"Working well"? (Score:3)
Meanwhile, no new FSF-backed projects are gaining popularity or prominence. Their "high priority" ideas are at least a decade obsolete: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/... [fsf.org]
Re:"Working well"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FSF, through its efforts, became totally irrelevant.
Even if that opinion was shared by 99% of the population (and I certainly disagree), making an organization "relevant" by changing its goals to something else (that happens to be "more popular") would contradict the organization's purpose.
Maybe the next generation, who happened to never experience freedom in so many forms like we older ones did, cannot see the value of software freedom (and many other kinds of freedom), and maybe that means that at some point the organization dissolves. But "modernizing" it by pursuing different goals... no thanks, start your own organization for those.
Re: (Score:3)
making an organization "relevant" by changing its goals to something else (that happens to be "more popular") would contradict the organization's purpose.
I'm not talking about changing the overall goals. I'm talking about staying relevant by advocating and supporting the issues that are more current.
E.g. "play OGG" is completely irrelevant. Patents on MP3 have expired, this fight is irrelevant. A more modern relevant idea would be support for VP9/AV1 over x265.
Instead of the useless RYF ("respects your freedom") hardware certification, they can support and highlight the emerging RISC-V open ecosystem.
There's also a whole new emerging "self hosting" eco
FSF indeed avoided getting conquered (Score:5, Interesting)
There is nothing wrong with becoming member of multiple organizations if one wants to advocate orthogonal topics, like let's say "free software" and "mandatory quotas for color blind employees" - but trying to make one or another organization adopt both will only weaken their chances to succeed.
WWSD? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: "free" software "foundation" (Score:2)
Their decision? Whose decision? Stallman and FSF's?
Re:"free" software "foundation" (Score:5, Informative)
Today, XYZ being "open source" does not necessarily mean much, other than that you can read some part of the source code XYZ utilizes, but probably not all of it, you may not be granted the right to re-use, distribute or modify that code, and of course XYZ may depend on some proprietary "cloud service" to work at all. It is not wrong to call XYZ "open source", but it is far from being "free software" in the sense of the FSF.
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Today, there are companies producing "open source" which is nothing other than a branding, a way to sell software without the basic rights to modify it and republish it. C
Re: (Score:2)
That said, I so see use cases for "public domain" licensing. If, for example, I want to entice as many companies as possible to utilize my code - for example, because my code
Re: (Score:2)
... then why did they not just release all contributions into the Public Domain where there are zero restrictions or obligations?
RMS wanted to be sure that free software remained free. Releasing to the public domain would allow someone to create closed, proprietary versions of the software.
Developers can use and modify GPL software, but if they release their own version, they must also release the source code. That way, they cannot deny others the freedom they received originally with the software.
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Nobody is talking about the original code remaining free forever, software freedom licenses guarantee that the sons and daughters of the original code stay free forever.
Re: (Score:2)
FSF/RMS wanted all versions of a free program to remain free. You might think that's a 'very narrow and specific version of "freedom"' in your context, but the freedom of the software is preserved in this way. Someone can't create an almost-but-not-quite compatible version with closed source and have it usurp the free version with aggressive marketing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: radical (Score:2)
Does Stallman approve of non-commercial development of non-free software?
Fuck I give up (Score:2)
Even the fucking FSF is now pushing the OSI's lie?
The divergence between our values and those of most users was expressed differently after 1998, when the term "open source" was coined.
No it fucking was not [plaetinck.be] but if the FSF wants to concede the fucking war, fine. I'm now officially done promoting Free Software. They can fuck themselves.
Self-Seating Boards are Fine (Score:1)
It is weird to me that the FSF feels that they even have to justify this.