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Re: [Fsuk-manchester] GNU/Linux and free speech


From: MJ Ray
Subject: Re: [Fsuk-manchester] GNU/Linux and free speech
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:17:27 +0000
User-agent: Heirloom mailx 12.2 01/07/07

Andy Halsall <address@hidden> wrote: [much agreement snipped]
> What I find maddening is the amount of damage that these communities do 
> to themselves on occasion when an internal schism occurs, it seems that 
> since we are accustomed to having to fight to be heard, and fight to 
> survive that when a small (or even large) difference of opinion occurs 
> (various projects adopting/not adopting GPL3 springs to mind as one, the 
> various splits and forking of organisations campaigning against Software 
> patents is another) then some of us turn against each other.  [...]

Do you think any responsibility for that can be attributed to FSF
appearing not to listen to views, even those of sizeable groups?
If you want free as in free speech, shouldn't you listen to that
speech, as long as it respects others' freedom too?

I believe that - at least starting from the FDL 1.x discussions when I
learnt more about the organisation - FSF has appeared to do the
equivalent of "we are a lighthouse: your move" to projects far too
often.  See a common sentiment in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/08/msg00054.html

One of the most frustrating things in discussing about free software
is a tendency to go round in circles, posting the same points over and
over again with no new data, "Oh, look, this isn't an argument!  It's
just contradiction!" FSF has the added complication that when new data
is supplied (such as examples of FDL confusing some GNU maintainers so
much that they misused it, declaring primary sections invariant), then
it fixes only the wrong thing: the uses were corrected, but not the FDL.
(They're not the only group to do that, by any means.)

Sometimes we need to change tack and ask: OK, we just don't agree on
the reasons, but can we find some route that works for both of us?
What are our key goals?

For example, I don't believe that propping up legacy publishers with
adware[1] or imposing distribution-badgeware[2] in the mistaken belief
that you can "ensure cooperation" (clearly absurd: open and voluntary
participation is the first Cooperative Principle[3]) are key FSF
goals, but it seems difficult to discuss these issues in any useful
way.  Part of that's because FSF consultations use buggy undocumented
software and that's not negotiable either.

1. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-gfdl.html
2. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
3. http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html

Anyway, I'll leave this there, as I doubt fsuk-manchester can fix
FSF's community disconnect immediately, but it seems a nice step in
the right direction.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/




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