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142 lines
7.1 KiB
142 lines
7.1 KiB
11 months ago
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<div class="sidebar-about">
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a>
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<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p>
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<div class="post">
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<h1 class="post-title">Commented Link: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman</h1>
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<span class="post-date">
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2021-04-13
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/links/">#links</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/rms/">#rms</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/fsf/">#fsf</a>
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</span>
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<p>After the <a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/thoughts/rms-and-fsf-again/">weird return of rms to the Free Software Foundation
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board</a>, now both the FSF and rms provided
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statements about the event.</p>
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<p>But I still think things are amiss.</p>
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<span id="continue-reading"></span>
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<p>First, a small look at <a href="https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community">rms short
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statement</a>.
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While recognizing his troubled comments, it seems he focused on one single
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event -- the Minksy comment -- , ignoring a lot of others that appeared, like
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the accounts of women feeling uncomfortable and people pointing the way he
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directed the FSF. He did mention that he may sound "tone deaf" and the feeling
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that this statement is "just to say something" may be related to that, but
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still... Can't be board help him in discussing this kind of stuff?</p>
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<p>Second, and which gave me a lot more "bad vibes" was the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman">statement by the FSF
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board</a>
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about rms reinstatement into the board. On that, the second paragraph strikes me
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like the most out of perspective of them all.</p>
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<p>For example, "We decided to bring RMS back because we missed his wisdom." The
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problem here is that it pushes an emotional tone: they don't "lack" the wisdom,
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they just "missed" it. It's not like they recognize a failure in the current
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board focus, it is more like they felt they needed the "hug that really tied the
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room together".</p>
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<p>Another point: "His historical, legal and technical acumen on free software is
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unrivalled." I understand where they are trying to get here, and I'd give that
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rms really does have a lot of historical knowledge, but that strikes me as,
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again, a problem with rms. If you have a senior dev/technical leader in your
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project, it is expected that this person would help other developers and
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management people by passing away their knowledge, to the point that they may
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be, in the future, totally irrelevant (that doesn't happen, 'cause either they
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move up the hierarchy or new people are brought to the team). <em>A technical
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leader/senior dev that doesn't share knowledge is a failure, in my opinion</em>. On
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those 20 years in the FSF before renouncing his position, rms should've shared
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enough that even if his knowledge is vast, a lot was present around no matter
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what. While I can't point the problem directly at rms, as it could be that the
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board itself didn't care about acquiring more knowledge (as some developers do),
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this shows that there is a huge problem here.</p>
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<p>Still in this same paragraph, "He remains the most articulate philosopher and an
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unquestionably dedicated advocate of freedom in computing." rms admitted himself
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that he's tone deaf. How can someone be articulate if he's tone deaf and can't
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properly explain his points? Connect this that, in the next point the board
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itself recognizes that "his personal style remains troubling for some" and you
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have someone that <em>isn't</em> articulate.</p>
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<p>And finally, there is "We recognize the need to attract a new generation of
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activists for software freedom and to grow the movement." This is true and I'm
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fully behind the FSF on this point. Except for the fact that instead of bringing
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someone from a new generation to fill the seat in the board, they are bringing
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someone from the previous generation. If I had to shown my geek credentials, I'd
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say that it is basically Kirk taking command of Enterprise A from Decker and, if
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Decker wasn't there, he'd blow the ship completely in the first warp test. A new
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generation is necessary to understand the new environment, we can't keep using
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the same old knowledge now that the ship is a brand new one.</p>
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<p>The feeling I got from all this is that both texts were posted only to say
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"Yeah, ok", not "We recognize our faults". If rms recognized the problems, he
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would've cited the other issues, citing his side and pointing understanding
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about where he failed. If the board recognized the problem with appointing rms
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again, they wouldn't have use an emotional tone about him and wouldn't pin this
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all in a "new generation" while staying with the old.</p>
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<p>Being wrong happens. Understanding what was wrong (communication, attitude,
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understanding at the time) and pointing that out is a great way to grow up. If
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you keep deflecting this, you end up standing still doing the same wrongs
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again. And I feel both rms and FSF, in those statements, are still standing
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still.</p>
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