From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-lj1-x229.google.com (mail-lj1-x229.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4864:20::229]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BCB9F385781B for ; Sat, 3 Apr 2021 23:45:35 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.3.2 sourceware.org BCB9F385781B Received: by mail-lj1-x229.google.com with SMTP id y1so9120887ljm.10 for ; Sat, 03 Apr 2021 16:45:35 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=y5JzupoaJSCv5/bXnKN/d0oh04TwFJ5kn4sk5bWQLVM=; b=G7EuBerPwinN1X/6p/fL7bci8ab2us6QHK6aAAxGFYlFaLks5DSGD+gn4hoXZcJIkd RYuPZYEIDqrybFLkbDIXCzxNtR30hkn2VLs9jNu5iWPUcy/iIgC7cVu3ZBrCBdgpePpZ eeMBbSn6nMclhC09Lai8Pckirjx8u6lSAbPMKNTbHaKmkFzWoDQ+LfxtPgQ+1YhhHXb2 3yO5FsmISEhlAN55O8K4ERwmdO/eyzCwx8o4Czr2qAMEFEMAlM/RqO3LgCUb5IKZ8T4h 7q7yoKHCreBj6OzvzieuXlTeihB1D3AW0kIVtkSc9s+//6gUvONgHWSg2FYEZM5H9j7p DVqQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM531LzryV6HpCDUbycazinx0Nefms8gP13oqeiW+mJb+/leIf+du2 xGu/d7XcvqzYpq3kM36VUmIUa5ewy8xBZSWZMOQhHQ== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJwr2zs9mCq2n/XJJ9ET8IcTK+gwHkcpH45dEvF92L8l05u30JWYoj3PjbeX8MO1Fy9AAG1lGBLe3BhMXrS1EKw= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:9cc4:: with SMTP id g4mr12205084ljj.34.1617493534098; Sat, 03 Apr 2021 16:45:34 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20210401011133.00001e9c@tesio.it> <20210401020415.00002c77@tesio.it> <20210402120541.000068a5@tesio.it> <20210403193133.00005b3d@tesio.it> In-Reply-To: <20210403193133.00005b3d@tesio.it> From: Ian Lance Taylor Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2021 16:45:23 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: RMS removed from the GCC Steering Committee To: Giacomo Tesio Cc: GCC Development , Gerald Pfeifer , Thomas Rodgers , Nathan Sidwell , JeanHeyd Meneide Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Spam-Status: No, score=-18.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, DKIMWL_WL_MED, DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU, DKIM_VALID_EF, ENV_AND_HDR_SPF_MATCH, KAM_SHORT, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE, SPF_HELO_NONE, SPF_PASS, TXREP, USER_IN_DEF_DKIM_WL, USER_IN_DEF_SPF_WL autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on server2.sourceware.org X-BeenThere: gcc@gcc.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Gcc mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2021 23:45:37 -0000 On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 10:31 AM Giacomo Tesio wrote: > > I'm still just one Italian hacker: all the huge imbalances that the > removal of the only FSF and GNU member of the Steering Committee > uncovered, are still there! As far as I can tell, the imbalances you refer to are the fact that the GCC steering committee has mostly Americans and some Europeans. And that is fair. But you have singled out removing RMS (who as David noted was never really a member of the committee anyhow) as a particular problem. Let's not forget that RMS is an American. So the imbalance you mention was there already. > > I personally do not believe that the membership of the steering > > committee is a significant cause of that problem. > > I would be surprised if you did! Fair point. > I mean, you are a member of such committee since 2 decades. > And you are from the US. And you work for the biggest threat to > global democracies and to all people's autonomy and freedom! Actually I joined the GCC steering committee in 2014. And you are confusing my employer with my free software work. In the time I've been working on GCC I've worked for six different companies. I don't get a job and then get told to work on free software. I am a free software programmer who only takes jobs where I will be working on free software. > But that's the fact with priviledge: if you have it, you can't see it. I'm sure that's largely true. And I'm well aware that I have enormous amounts of privilege. But you write that statement as though it contradicts something that I said. It doesn't. > > But I could be mistaken. So prove me wrong. > > Ok, let's try! ;-) > > > > This is free software. If you want to make it better, then make it > > better. [...] So prove me wrong. Do the work. > > This is plain old open source rhetoric. > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html No, it really isn't. The point of free software is to provide freedom. In order to do that, it has to work. Free software is not just a group of people who get together to discuss the benefits of free software. It's a group of people who build working software that gives freedom to other people. That is what we have been doing, in a small way, with GCC. I personally have been working on GCC for 30 years now, on and off. If nobody worked on GCC, nobody would care about it. People care about GCC because it is free and because it works. Both aspects are critical. > But you can see how flawed this argument is by comparing it with your > own words: https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235269.html > > RMS was actively contributing to the Steering Committee without > contributing a single line of code since years. > > So you proved that you (and open source rhetoric) are wrong. I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I think I was pretty clear in that e-mail message that RMS was not actively contributing to the steering committee. And, even if he was, so what? I agree that lots of work on GCC and other free software projects has nothing to do with actual programming. When I spoke of doing the work, I didn't mean just programming. I meant the work of making GCC successful, which includes much much more than just writing code. > > If I knew how to fix that problem, I would work to fix it. > > Really? > > Well, let me do my job as a new member of the Steering Committee (:-D) > and solve this problem for you and everybody else. > > In my original request[3], I proposed to solve it according to the > recent precedent you established with the removal of Richard Stallman of > Free Software Foundation [4][5], by simply removing enough employees of > corporations ruled under the same legislation, until the global > interests of the different economical regions and populations of the > world are at least more balanced, if not more represented. > > But apparently you cannot decide which US-corporation should be thrown. > (indeed US-corporations hold the vast majoirity of SC heads, right now). I don't understand this argument. If we remove everybody from the committee, then it will be more balanced in some sense, but there won't be anybody on it. If you want a more balanced committee, then at some point you have to talk about adding people. And I do think it would make sense to add more people to the committee. Any suggestions? They should of course be people reasonably familiar with GCC and with free software, and with compilers and software development tools. (And for reasons discussed elsewhere, RMS is not a good suggestion.) Ian