Re: GCC association with the FSF

[Giacomo Tesio <giacomo@tesio.it>]

Hi Alexandre and Jonathan,

On Sun, 11 Apr 2021 23:49:54 -0300 Alexandre Oliva via Gcc wrote:

> > - RMS ensures GCC stays honest (implying the rest of us can't be
> > trusted or don't *really* believe in FOSS, I don't think it's true
> > and don't see this as an advantage)  
> 
> Trust is not rational indeed

In fact, trust has been fundamental to the evolution human race and is
still foundational to both market economy (as Adam Smith wrote in 1776)
and democracy.

Trust CAN be naive when granted to people or organizations with either a
track record of misbehaviour or misaligned incentives with the trustee.

But trust is really irrational only when it cannot be easily reclaimed:
when it's sticky (for any reason) it turns to political Power that
tends to produce more issues than it used to solve as trust.


Anyway, it's important to note that the point has never been
"RMS is trustworthy while you are not", but "the FSF and the GNU
project are credibly committed to protect Free Softare in the long run,
the other members of the Steering Committee might or might not".

Also looking at their affiliations and with all respect for their own
personal integrity, too many things can go wrong to be ignored.


People changes, group changes... shits happen.

But if you have certain interests and demographics overly
over-represented in the leadership of an organization, certain
shits will happen way more than others and pass unnoticed. 


That's why I asked to fix the Steering Committee and NOT to reinstall
Stallman: even if I rationally trust his consistency on Free Software,
I'm not sure anymore his oversight really worked.


> - this is unfair, RMS is being subjected to a witch hunt

It might be irrelevant to your question (and for you personally), but
it's not irrelevant to a movement that consider software as a form of
expression like any other and explicitly refer to Free Software as Free
Speech.

In fact, all of the alligations against RMS are so solid that the
harassers themeselves had to retract most them:
https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

But it's not matter of fairness or inclusiveness: it's just politics.
People here are exploiting the mob lynching Stallman to remove FSF
oversight over the project without being questioned too closely from
the rest of the world.


But having said that, I'd really like to see Jonathan going forward with
his fork if he can take with him most of US-corporate interests.

Which doesn't mean that US-corporations should be forbidden here, just
that they should have NOT such an overwhelming and unbalanced influence
on the leadership of the project.


My (hopefully last :-D) two cents.


Giacomo