Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

Hi Giacomo,

On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 11:28:49PM +0200, Giacomo Tesio wrote:
> I've to say I'm a bit confused, but maybe we have different sources and
> experience so we have different perspective on the matter.

Yes, I am pretty sure the perspective changes for people who have had
longer, or more direct, exposure to Richard, while working on GNU or
GCC over the years.
 
> That being said (and for full disclosure), I also consider his return to
> the FSF fair, because the shitstorm that caused his resign two years
> ago was built on top of a severe misrepresentation of his words, as
> described here https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/ and
> admitted also by the people arguing against his return (see the
> various edits at https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix ).

So this for example depends on whether you believe this is the one and
only incident that can easily be explained away or if it is a decades
long pattern of behavior where people finally had enough. See for
example this blog that links and lists various other past events
https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2021/03/26/0

You are referencing the recent open letter which isn't really what
people are discussing here. Although many probably sympathize with
calling for the removal of the entire Board of the Free Software
Foundation and calling for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from all
leadership positions, including the GNU Project

You can disagree with the specific way that was worded and still come
to the same conclusion. See for example https://www.arp242.net/rms.html

> On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:50:52 +0200 Martin Jambor wrote:
> 
> > Nobody suggested that GCC would be relicensed and certainly not to a
> > non-free license.  If you decide to contribute your port upstream, it
> > will be safe with us, regardless of who will or will not be on the
> > steering committee
> 
> When I joined the Harvey project they were all fun and welcoming.
> When I asked how and where to write my copyright statement, I was
> answered by the seasoned and well known Google's engineer that a few
> years later completely removed my name from the project without
> removing the contributions.
> 
> Harvey is copylefted too (GPLv2) and as you know, this sort of
> behaviour would trigger GPL termination, but Harvey is part of
> Software Freedom Conservancy and the violation of my copyright
> likely occurred during the working hours of the above engineer.
> 
> So they were the good guys and the most powerful guys, together.
> I had no hope in a US court (and I'm Italian and... let say "not rich").
> 
> 
> They taught me a valuable lesson, though.
> 
> In the long run, even the good guys betray your trust if they have a
> reason to and they think they can get away with that.

I looked a bit at that issue you filed and how they handled your
request to remove your code from the project. And I must say I don't
really understand what you believe they did wrong, they seemed to have
acknowledged and corrected their mistake and then removed all the code
you wanted to have removed. There is some disagreement over whether a
mass change of function declarations is copyrightable or not. But I
happen to agree with them that if there is only one way to do it, then
having someone else do the same transformation is a correct way to
resolve this. I am not sure I understand your goal in this particular
case. Sorry.

To make this copyright issue somewhat relevant to GCC. GCC doesn't
currently contain individual copyright statements and most of the code
is currently assigned to the FSF. So the above mistake won't happen
when contributing to GCC, but mostly because of the technicality that
you sign away your copyright up front.

> This means that its core value, its main "selling point", is not how
> cool it is, but how it is designed, developed and distributed to
> maximise software freedom.
> 
> IOW, I can imagine scenarios where some features should NOT be
> introduced to reach this political goal which is MORE important
> than the technical goal of compiler suite
> 
> To this aim, I'd prefer to see RMS in the GCC's SC.
> Because to me GCC is not just "open source", it's not just matter of
> seeing the source: it's Free Software, it should be designed and
> developed TO maximize software freedom!

But even here RMS is just one voice and his insights are not always
very accurate. His technical knowledge of the code base and of the
community who develops the code is simply not always current. That
doesn't mean he cannot understand the technology, he can, he still is
really smart. But it takes very long (months) to get him up to
speed. Once he understand the issue he often comes to the right
conclusion. But sometimes he doesn't because he doesn't have the full
picture. If he doesn't it might take months again to convince him he
was wrong. Which he will never admit, he will simply say people didn't
inform him about some change in technology or community participation,
when he changes his opinion. Yes, he always wants to maximize software
freedom, and so do many others with him, but his ideas of how to
design and develop code to achieve that aren't always accurate or
effective.

> On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:09:26 -0400 JeanHeyd Meneide wrote:
> 
> > >      My problem is Dr. Richard M. Stallman stands credibly and
> > > factually accused of Doxxing and GCC contributor/participant and
> > > knowingly manipulating the project for his own personal reasons.  
> > 
> > This should be "RMS explicitly sanctioned, encouraged, and
> > blessed the Doxxing of an individual". Apologies, he did not do the
> > doxxing himself; this was a fat finger on my part. 
> 
> Thanks for the clarification. I was quite surprised actually, because
> I didn't read such accuse among the others in the rms-open-letter.
> 
> Did it happen on a public mailing list I can read?
> Or maybe in a public forum? Or something that has been published
> somewhere?

I think this is actually two separate incidents of women being
harassed on a public gnu mailinglist for speaking up against Richard's
behavior. One happening about a year ago, another last week. Both by
individuals who were "defending" RMS. Whether to call them doxxing
depends on your definition. I would say the last one clearly was, the
first one might "just" have been "normal" vile, misogynist and racist.

Some of it was on private gnu lists, where people were called
subhumans and nazis. Which was obviously not a healthy environment to
have a discussion. So we asked the FSF Executive Director for a public
place to discuss GNU governance where we could have rules against such
hate speech and he agreed. Sadly when a woman (GCC contributor) spoke
up she got attacked in such a vile way we had to block/moderate some
posts. RMS disagreed with the public discussion and assumed the
moderators were preventing people from voicing certain opinions so
arranged for new moderators to take over the list that he assumed were
loyal to him and then said...

> The new moderators have now allowed people to defend the GNU Project
> and to defend me personally.  If you would like to do these things,
> please do not hold back.

I am not going to link to the public discussion that resulted because
of his call to action. It was truly horrible. I am also not going to
link to the latest doxxing campaign of the other woman because even
though the link to her picture, address and police station have been
removed from the archives what is left is almost equally bad. The
people involved (even if they acted for RMS, they did so in good faith)
don't deserve to be a target even more. And it doesn't help the
healing process to relitigate this incident. It happened, that is
painful enough.

Again, it isn't about this one or two incidents. I am sure someone can
find a way to explained it away by saying people simply misunderstood
his intentions or that no law was broken. But it is about a pattern of
behavior that shows RMS creates a misogynist, racist and transphobic
environment by (hopefully unknowingly) setting the example that others
will then follow and amplify.

Cheers,

Mark