Project

General

Profile

RMS Returns to FSF Board

Anonymous - almost 3 years ago -

Knowing RMS's record of sexual harassment and seeing that Parabola is an FSF approved distro. What is your community's response to the return of RMS to the FSF board?

https://archive.is/LN6xd
https://archive.is/HQYmY


Replies (10)

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - danielp3344 - almost 3 years ago -

Your question seems like a loaded one, the community will likely have highly varied views on this issue and AFAICT it does not affect parabola much directly... Are you looking for some kind of public statement?

https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - twotwenty - almost 3 years ago -

That is a pretty humble and reasonable answer.
Thanks for the link to it seems pretty clearly thought out and referenced.

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - Anonymous - almost 3 years ago -

Parabola is not under RMS’ control in any way. Therefore, I do not understand the need for the Parabola community to issue a statement. As said in a previous message, members of the community probably have various views on the topic. One’s view is a personal matter, and is not related to software freedom whatsoever.

From my point of view, the free software movement is not RMS himself, nor does it belong to him. Therefore, the views and actions of RMS are his own only; not those of the various free software communities.

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - bill-auger - almost 3 years ago -

AFAIK, the FSF has no authority over any software projects, not
even GNU - RMS has some authority over the GNU project; but the
recent hub-bub is not about anything related to GNU - it is
about a decision made by the FSF board members, WRT their
internal organization - whatever the practical effect of that
decision may be; it does not affect any software projects
directly

for that reason, the only entity for which it would be relevant
to issue a formal statement, would be the FSF - it would be
inappropriate, indeed pretentious, for any software project to
issue a formal statement, on a matter which does not affect the
software or their efforts, directly

i dont think that the OP was asking for a formal statement
though; rather, to spark a discussion

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - bill-auger - almost 3 years ago -

seeing that Parabola is an FSF approved distro

i think that the salient point of note to the OP, is the direction of implication (pardon my penchant for philosophy) - because 'A' approves of the work of 'B', does not imply that 'B' approves of the work of 'A', nor is there any imperative nor normative expectation of a bidirectional implication

to be fair, any comments to this thread should be taken as personal opinions of individuals; and not of "the parabola community" as a whole

i have removed the links to twitter from the OP - twitter is non-free software; and parabola users do not need to use it, in order to learn of the topic of this thread - this thread was obviously prompted by the petitions which were posted on github last week; so i replaced the links with those

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - Anonymous - almost 3 years ago -

When someone oppresses another person, the oppressor is wrong but also anyone that remained silent and did nothing is wrong.

Why? Because by remaining silent, they allowed the oppression to happen.

While I'm sure you're all good people, your community has a unique position as an FSF approved distro. You are a distro that the FSF believes should be an example for the rest (i.e. an embodiment of their values). Whether that's true or not is up to you. But people will see that you're FSF approved and associate you with them, the good and the bad both.

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - freemor - almost 3 years ago -

My views on the issue are already a matter of public record

commit 0745cd40553af3a6263731695ed77a6d28b26307

and

commit 16ff0f4bc9c3d4d2842db953a28585d2cd0ef522

in the open letter.

And I agree with @jgreen01 statements above.

I am also aware that Parabola is a very loose knit bunch of volunteers and
thus not as well organized as a project like Debian that has a board that can
vote on such issues.

Still it saddens me that there are not more signatures from people here.

It should also be noted that the FSF can no longer hide behind "The opinions
of RMS != the opinions of the FSF". They re-instated him knowing full well
he held these views. Through that act of will they condone those views.

As someone very directly affected by some of those seriously misguided views,
I'd like to point out that the views and actions of RMS do in fact effect
projects because they effect the people that do or would otherwise work at or
on those projects.

Free software projects are not just software that appears fully formed from
the ether but rather the hard work of large numbers of people, mostly
volunteering their time. Thus if the statements and opinions of RMS affect
those people it will in turn affect the projects they choose to work on. Case
in point: the silence of other Parabola devs has me seriously questioning if
this is the community I wish to be contributing my time to.

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - bill-auger - almost 3 years ago -

i will only object to freemor, in that, silence should not be taken as a sign of apathy - i am usually the only one who reads the forum - it is very likely that none of the others even know that this thread exists, or that those github petitions exist, or are even aware of RMS's election to the board - i just spent (i dunno how many) hours writing a 1200 word response for this thread (which i just deleted :)) - i will simplify it

to the point of any apparent silence which may be perceived, i would not expect anyone to state an opinion now, for the simple reason that everyone already has - whatever is to be debated on the matter, is exactly the same today, as what was hotly debated 18 months ago, when RMS retired - i am quite certain that everyone who was around the scene 18 months ago, who would be compelled to "voice" their opinion today (if it were a fresh topic today), already did so 18 months ago (when it was a fresh topic)

the public debate has already run its course, long ago - the matter has reached the petition stage - no further public debate is necessary; because all facts, grievances, arguments, and counter-arguments are well-known already, ad-nauseam - the only debate which would be of any consequence now, would be a debate among the FSF board members - if one desires to publish an opinion now, it is sufficient to simply sign one of those petitions, and wait to see what happens next

the bit that i intended to address previously, is the OP's request for a joint statement

i can not suppose that any of the parabola devs do, or do not feel strongly about this, that, or any other thing - i can only speak for myself; and i often do - i can only suggest, that it is rarely, if ever, appropriate to make political statements on behalf of an entire project - any such joint statement, is equivalent to individual personal statements from all project members, each on their own behalf; but for some reason, lumped into a heap, pretentiously - in other words, it carries no extra weight nor semantics, to declare that "the project" has some opinion

projects can not have opinions, only individual people can; and those opinions may very well, vary across any team - that is perfectly normal; and mature adults should be able to work together towards a common goal, regardless that their opinions on orthogonal matters, may and probably do, differ - it is unreasonable to expect that any team of co-workers will share the same political views, unless the job at hand is inherently political

that one short phrase in the request: "you are a distro", beckons for clarification - "we" are not "a distro" - we are individual human people (each, with a mind of our own), who collaborate on a distro - a distro is comprised entirely of software; and software can not have opinions - this is not merely nit-picking words - it is a salient distinction to recognize, for the sake of inflating (or deflating) collective egos to their healthy weights

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - freemor - almost 3 years ago -

bill-auger It was not my intent to imply that you or any of the other devs were
apathetic.

I apologize if it came across that way.

This is admittedly a very personal issue for me and therefore I have strong
opinions.

I do not expect everyone to have the same opinion, and definitely not to the
same level.

I am in no way looking for a joint statement from "Parabola" because as you
pointed out there is no "Parabola" Which is what I was trying to encapsulate in
talking about how this community is a very loose knit bunch.

I do see this as a seperate, though both related and conflated issue. The fact
that the FSF board would re-instate such a problematic individual brings their
decision making abilities seriously into question for me. And of course their
doing so put the issue from 18 month ago basically back to square one. Actually
a slightly different square one as this time they actively chose this person
rather than it being a case of him being grandfathered in.

I'll not go into all the whys and wherefores of what make this such a heated
issue for me here. This is not the place for that. And I have made all that
known in a letter directly to the FSF board.

With regards to my statements regarding the lack of other people signing the
open letter. It is normal to hope that people whom you respect and are in
community with will be of a similar mind. Not necessarily the same mind, but in
a general ballpark such that they'd find the same things important that you do.
And it can be a bit of a let down to find that is not the case. Especially on a
topic that is of strong personal importance.

RE: RMS Returns to FSF Board - bill-auger - almost 3 years ago -

I am in no way looking for a joint statement

jgreen01 asked for a joint statement - that section was the nucleus of my original draft

BTW, yore obviously replying from email, so you dont notice this - but if you begin paragraphs with leading spaces, the forum interprets it as a block - i found that    has the desired effect though

    (1-10/10)