Re: You rate savannah.gnu.org at A? AYFKM?

[Pau Amma]

On 2022-03-05 05:36, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > It definitely included thriving, organized, collaborative efforts
>   > supporting complex software ecosystems. Those definitely qualify as
>   > movements.
>
> We are persistently miscommunicating.
> They are not movements as I understand the word.
> You're using a much looser definition of "movement".

Then your understanding contradicts 2 major dictionaries of American 
English:
- Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/movement 
senses 2a and 2b), and see in 
https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/explanatory-notes/dict-definitions, 
"The sense divider also is used to introduce a meaning that is closely 
related to but may be considered less important than the preceding 
sense")
- American Heritage Dictionary 
(https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=movement sense 3a and 
3b, and see in https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/howtouse.html under 
Order of Senses, "Entries containing more than one sense are arranged 
for the convenience of the reader with the central and often the most 
commonly sought meaning first.")

I'm using MW sense 2a and AHD sense 3a, which are more central, as the 
dictionaries themselves explain, than the ones you insist on. This very 
much sounds like a "you" problem.

> The free software movement is a campaign for a moral goal:

No. As long as you consider it acceptable to throw some people under the 
bus, as long as you call not doing that a "feature", your goal, whatever 
else it may be, is *not* moral and will never be, repeated claims to the 
contrary notwithstanding. I provided you with several links about morals 
and morality in my previous email. I suggest you read them before using 
that word again.

> to end an injustice.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther 
King). Since you consider acceptable to perpetuate an injustice (and 
arguably reinforce it, by giving it another stronghold), your approach 
is flawed to the core, and you're defending the indefensible.

> Compare with the civil rights movement,
> the environmental movement, etc.

Or the disability rights movement, perhaps? I'm grimly unsurprised that 
you didn't mention that example despite me being right there in your 
inbox, advocating for those.

>   >  Do you have any evidence of that? Specifically, that they didn't 
> have
>   >  clearly articulated goals aiming at furthering what they saw as 
> the
>   >  common good and behaved consistently with achieving these goals?
>
> I think this is another misunderstanding.
>
> Maybe SHARE did have goals of that sort.  I never said it didn't.
> That's not the distinction I was making.
>
> What I mean by a "moral goal" is something stronger than that.

"You keep using that word, moral, but it doesn't mean what you think it 
does."

> It
> means a goal of fighting to end wronds, of ending some sort of harmful
> practice.  A moral goal is one formulated in moral terms.

Then, since you happily ignore and perpetuate one wrong while claiming 
to fight to end another, you're not fighting to end wrongs, plural. That 
would mean your own goal is not a moral one.

> There are goals that are good but not matters of right vs wrong.  For
> instance, a school educates people, and that is good to do.
> But educating people is not a matter of eliminating a wrong.
> Ignorance is a lack, not a wrong.

Ignorance that can and does harm others, as the FSF's(*) does, is very 
much a wrong, to be corrected whenever possible.

> The free software movement is a campaign against the injustice of
> software that gives certain people power over the users.  That goal is
> a matter of good vs evil -- a moral goal.

Yes, software (like websites) that gives certain people, like the FSF, 
power over the users, by letting it selectively deny access to some of 
us (aka, people with disabilities), is indeed a matter of good vs. evil. 
You're mistaken, though, if you believe you're on the side of good in 
that. You're on the side of vile, contemptible evil, and your claim to 
stand for all users makes you hypocritical as well, as I've mentioned 
before.

>   > Incidentally, a more neutral and less emotionally charged word
>   > than "moral goal" like "principled stance" doesn't fit the
>   > situation of both those and the FSF?
>
> I never had anything to do with SHARE.  Did SHARE have a principled
> stance?  If so, what was it?

Have you read the URL I pointed you to earlier?

> However, not every principled stance is a moral goal.
>
> "We will not do nasty practice X" is a principled stance, but not a 
> moral
> goal.

So what does that make "we're perfectly happy doing nasty practice X", 
where X is discriminating against people with disabilities? An 
unprincipled stance?

> "We will set an example of not doing nasty practice X" starts to adopt
> a moral goal.

So why don't you try doing that? You could start with hypocrisy, then 
move on to lip service.

> "We will put an end to the nasty practice X" is a real moral goal.

Thanks for acknowledging that my goal in hammering you is a real moral 
one.

> I explain this in the hope you may understand better what I have said.

Oh, I understood it from the beginning. Being constantly exposed to and 
reminded of ableist discourse makes people with disabilities and 
disability activists experts in understanding readily not just the 
surface meaning put up for public consumption by temporarily abled 
people, but the quiet parts usually left unsaid. I still appreciate your 
doubling down on it and saying the quiet part out loud, as that should 
make it crystal clear to any others reading this now or who may come 
across it in the future.

(*) I haven't heard from others in the FSF on this topic, so I will 
assume good faith ignorance on their part unless and until proven 
otherwise. So far, though, your own statements all point to bad faith on 
your part.

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