Thoughts on the Joint statement on the GNU Project

[Tirifto]

Hello all!

A week ago, ‘Joint statement on the GNU Project’ [0] was published and
raised some controversy within the GNU community. I'd like to share
some thoughts on that, because I think the presentation of the
statement could be improved to forego many bad impressions.

Myself, I've been a GNU user for a few years, and have only had a few
minor contributions or involvement in general, but I try to follow the
development around GNU and Guix, and hope my comments below will be of
some use.

(I spend several paragraphs establishing context you may already have;
please bear with me!)

Initial reaction
----------------

When I first read the joint statement, I felt great disappointment
towards all the undersigned GNU maintainers, and towards Guix, for
proudly presenting it on its blog. That hurt, because GNU and Guix had
been my favourite projects that I strongly agreed with on a philosophi-
cal level, and felt very excited about. This concord diminished when I
read the statement I strongly disagreed with, and I suddenly felt like
maybe I couldn't feel comfortable in this project after all.

By chance, I had been subscribed to the blog of Andy Wingo, who posted
[1] about his reasons for signing the statement one day later. While my
personal views on the matter still differ, the post made me consider
that the statement may have reasonable motives behind it; it gave me
new context to look at the statement in; it patched the abhorrent image
the statement had made for itself. And here's the problem I see with
the original context…

The role of Richard Stallman
----------------------------

Richard Stallman is a prominent figure when it comes to libre software.
He founded the FSF & the GNU project; he wrote the GPL, and he wrote
some important code. At some point, he was undeniably a central figure
and a vital part of the movement. Some say he no longer is, pointing
out the lack of recent contributions and participations. But there is
one thing Richard Stallman does actively tend to: the spirit.

Richard Stallman talks about the principles and the importance of libre
software. Not only that; he lives by those principles. I see other
people organise and write software, but I see Stallman constantly
repeating the same fundamental idea of libre software, reminding us
why it's important, and submitting his whole lifestyle to it.

One could say that Richard Stallman placed the foundation, and then
stayed behind as people built on and around it. But he stayed behind to
watch over the foundation he had placed. In my eyes (and I guess in
eyes of many others), that keeps him as a prominent central figure,
because the spiritual foundation still forms the vital core of the
movement, and he has stayed by it as its faithful guardian.

I'm not saying this is what should ultimately make a GNU leader—that's
up to GNU to decide, as Andy Wingo states. But I wanted to explain why
the public sees him as a central figure and why that's a valid point of
view.

The outrage against Richard Stallman
------------------------------------

Over the years, many remarks and expressed opinions of Richard Stallman
have been met with controversy. Some of his behaviour has been
criticised as well. Some critics have ripped his words out of context
or exaggerated his opinion to fit their narrative; others took a
problem with his actual statements, while yet others have defended
them. Well, when one is regarded as the leader of a movement, it's
appropriate for the movement to place their statements under scrutiny.

A month back or so, Selam Gano wrote a post [2] heavily criticising
Richard Stallman's e-mail from a mailing list at MIT, where he in turn
criticised the term ‘sexual assault’. The post has seen coverage from
various media outlets, some of which have joined the original post on
the heavy criticism.

Unfortunately, both Selam Gano and the media outlets have twisted
Richard Stallman's words into statements he did not actually make.
Those malformed reports have sparked an outrage against Richard
Stallman, with calls on him to resign [3], which he eventually did [4].

Whether or not this outcome was good or bad, the process leading to it
was extremely destructive. For this same outcome, an ideal process
would have been a civil complaint about Richard Stallman's behaviour,
with him coming to agree and resign. Perhaps that wasn't a viable
option. But what happened instead was people rallying under a banner of
slander to bring Richard Stallman down, disregarding the unrest this
would inevitably bring to the libre software movement.

There were better points brought forth in the rally; criticisms of
Richard Stallman which are provably based in truth, and those which are
not provably fabricated. But they were not placed at the forefront and
carefully elaborated; instead, the rally was spearheaded by malformed
accusations, which cast a bad shadow on everyone who followed behind.
Those to stand against the impact of smear-faced avalanche would easily
clash with the more decent ideas that followed in the same trajectory.

I'm trying to say that the way this went set the stage for internal
conflict; those who had reasonable demands for Richard Stallman to step
down were not given the spotlight to leave a decent impression, and
those who tried to counteract may have felt betrayed by the former.
I know the whole thing did not sit well with me, at least.

To make things worse, Richard Stallman announced that he was still the
head of the GNU project; shortly on that, someone vandalised his
website to announce his resignation from the GNU project, too. When
that got fixed and he reaffirmed his position, I felt relieved, and
I reckon others did, too.

I did not ponder the meaning and justification of his position at the
time; I was initially shocked to what extent the smear campaign would
reach when I read about his fake resignation, and I was relieved to
see that it didn't actually manage to oust him from GNU, too. After
all, that had been his position for decades, and this would have been
a terrible way to lose it. And then, I read the Guix blog…

Finally, the message of the statement
-------------------------------------

The blog post says what some GNU maintainers think, namely that Richard
Stallman is alienating a large part of computer users and that he
cannot represent all of GNU. That's all. There's no context given. It
doesn't say why they think so or what they want to happen. So what
should we make of it?

Having just witnessed an outrage against Richard Stallman for the past
two weeks, with SFC denouncing him, him stepping down as the president
of the FSF and someone apparently wanting him to step down from GNU as
well, all based on the premise of his bad behaviour; what was my first
thought when I read a joint statement that Richard Stallman's behaviour
is problematic and that he cannot represent all of GNU?

The answer is a continuation of the campaign against Richard Stallman.
I don't think that's necessarily the case now; the statement doesn't
endorse that campaign. It doesn't distance itself, either; the whole
problem with the statement is that it raises question and provides no
answers, instead letting us to make our own with whatever clues we've
got.

It just so happens that the biggest clue is the rally that's been going
on just prior to the statement being posted. Anyone keeping track can
easily draw a connection between the two, because the statement makes
no effort to prevent this.

The statement claims that Stallman has been alienating a large part of
the target audience. It doesn't say how; it leaves us to go on whatever
we can find. And with the most recent incident in fresh memory and all
over the interent, should we figure that all the undersigned support
the slander against Richard Stallman? Or is it his alleged inappropri-
ate behaviour? Or actual things we can verify he's said and done? All
of those exist and the distinction is important; how should I feel about
your statement when I can't possibly tell what it supports?

There's a link to The GNU Manifesto on the basis that GNU should
empower all computer users, but the vision presented in the document is
already fulfilled with the four freedoms. Everyone feeling welcome in
the project is laudable, but the linked section doesn't talk about that,
and what it talks about isn't something Richard Stallman has violated.
(And if it actually is, the statement doesn't tell us how.) Why even
have the link if its relevance is vague at best?

Finally it says that Richard Stallman can't speak for all of GNU and
that it's time to make decisions collectively. Again, why not? It could
mean that Stallman specially is problematic and someone else would be
acceptable. Or it could mean that any one individual wouldn't do. (And I
would agree that one single person will never please everyone.)
Collective decision-making sounds pretty nice, but I don't know how to
interpret it and if it's an important motive behind the statement at
all, since it's only ever mentioned in one vague line.

In summary, it's unclear why the statement is being made, why it's
being made now, and what it hopes to achieve. These questions feel very
important to me and the lack of answers makes me feel very uncertain
about the community (at least the part which makes the statement).

I should also add that the Guix blog may not have been a good place
to post the statement. It puts Guix into a rather special position in
regard to the statement, and I have seen people in the community feel
uncomfortable about the project they like and try to participate in
hosting a message they feel strongly opposed to. It also hinders
discussion, with Guix being kind of a one-way channel; one one hand it
relays the statement, but on another the statement isn't really
Guix-related, so Guix isn't the best place to discuss it.

Suggestions for improvement
---------------------------

Dear signers,

I think it would help tremendously if you clarified your statement. One
way you can do this is find more common ideas you agree on and
incorporating them into the statement. For instance, you could detail
the behaviour of Richard Stallman you all agree to be alienating. Or
expand on what changes you hope to see and how they can positively
impact the GNU project.

Another way, which can work better if your views on something differ,
is to describe your motivations in a personal post and link to it in
the statement. There's a numbered list of names, so each name could be
followed with a link, or at least names of those who authored such a
post. This would leave us, who hope to learn what exactly is going on
here, with an easy way to do so, rather than hanging.

Next, the maintainers of Guix could designate a place of discussion.
People currently seem to default to the Guix mailing lists, which is the
price that comes with publishing the statement on the Guix blog. (While
I don't think you're obliged to provide the public with a place of
discussion, I do think it's something the public would appreciate.)

Finally, more clarity always helps. Implications don't make you guilty,
but they do make you suspect, which does not help GNU, and should be
prevented, if preventable. If the statement has no inherent relation to
Guix, preferably make that clear with a note. If it doesn't stem from
recent desinformation, preferably word the statement to remove doubt.
I don't like the prefixing of texts with preemptive excuses and
disclaimers, but sometimes caution helps, and now it would, I think.

These are just my personal thoughts and comments; I can't speak for
other people or demand changes in your speech, nor do I want to do
either. However, I have seen conflict arise in the GNU community, and
sincerely hope it can be resolved. To that end, I present to you the
above suggestions, in hope that they also cover the concerns of other
people and that you will find them useful in making GNU flourish.

Best of wishes
// Tirifto

P.S.: I'm posting this to both help-guix and gnu-system-discuss. Sorry
if either place is inappropriate, but they're the best I came up with.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. http://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/
1. https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu
2. https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
3. https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us/
4. https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns