conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Andy Wingo]

Hello all,

In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has
been simmering for years burst into public.  For a while it resubmerged
into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile
project.

Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here:

  https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu

The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated
Richard Stallman not as a hero, not as a leader, but rather a "missing
stair" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair) that one has to
route around.  This approach was never very inclusive -- if you don't
have much experience in GNU, it's possible to not know about it, and to
fall in the hole yourself.  On the other hand if you know of RMS but not
Guile, you might think that Guile developers support RMS.

However, recent events made me realize this approach was not only unfair
to newcomers, but unjust as well, as by continuing to work on GNU and
not saying anything, I was both lending unmerited prestige to RMS,
enabling his creepy behavior towards women, and additionally, enabling
his apparent pedophilia-advocacy.

Regarding this latter point, I wasn't really aware that this was a view
RMS was promoting, but I am ashamed to admit that I had heard rumors
that Richard publically advocated sex between adults and teenagers,
defended sexual harassers, and questioned the experience of victims of
sexual assault, and I preferred not to listen.  Looking again, and I
think Richard's web site speaks for itself:

  https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)
  https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)
  https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)

Anyway.  So far, so GNU.  A couple weeks ago I thought it an opportune
moment to declare publicly the views that I have long held privately:
that I do not consider RMS to be the leader of GNU, and that GNU
maintainers and other developers with a stake in the project should
organize to fill the void.

                               *  *  *

I pause here to mention that you may not agree with this perspective and
that is fine.  There are many ways that we can continue to work together
while this discussion plays out.  Part of the purpose of this mail
though is to make it clear that there are differences of opinion and
that the GNU project is in flux.

                               *  *  *

Now we get to how this issue affects Guile.

Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
shipped them in the 2.9.4 release; I responded over email asking to talk
about the issues; in response a week later I see that he resigned from
maintainership and left the Guile group on Savannah.  It was truly a
shame for Guile, as Mark is an excellent hacker and has done a lot of
good work for Guile.

It's true also that, mixed with the sadness, I felt a modicum of relief.
It has never been easy to work with Mark.  I could toil on Guile for
weeks, taking time away from my family, and then wake up to receive a
private mail excoriating me for my work.  It was also far from the first
time he threatened to leave the project if he did not get his way.  I
have never let the problems between Mark and me into the public sphere
though, preferring to preserve his reputation, and it is only out of
necessity that I do so now.

Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up
his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was
ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that
could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking
Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania.

Naturally I don't think this is the case.  We all have our problems but
this particular one isn't mine.  It is true that when I get home after a
long day of work and take care of my family and maybe have a precious
half-hour or hour here or there, I usually prefer to devote it to
retiring items from my personal Guile 3.0 to-do list, rather than
helping others; a failing, perhaps, but not a malicious one.  I always
tried to enable Mark's work, supporting him becoming committer, then
maintainer, then trying to keep him on board; but evidently that was not
enough.  Fair enough; I can't please everybody.

Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
recent events".

Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.  I don't know what to conclude
about RMS's motivations -- is it retaliation?  And why would Mark
assent, especially if he professes to be scandalized by autocratic
behavior and messianic tendencies?  I can't say as I have no more
information than this Savannah request.

It a test, perhaps?  Mark is already aware that I do not consider RMS to
have a leadership role in the GNU project, but although this position is
shared by others, it is not a consensus position, and I don't think it's
Mark's position.  Of course it goes without saying that I don't consider
this supposed appointment of Mark as co-maintainer of GNU Guile to be
legitimate in the least, but who else will go along with it?

And what role is Mark looking for?  Are we to have commit wars or
something?  I would certainly hope not but I can't tell.  I don't think
the conditions exist currently for good collaboration between me and
Mark, so I am not sure how this will play out in the future.

                               *  *  *

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that conversation about the future of
GNU has now reached Guile, but it is still strange to find that the
questions of "how much pedophilia advocacy is too much pedophilia
advocacy" or "how much creepiness towards women is acceptable" should
have any bearing on the development of an implementation of Scheme.
But, here we are.  The differences of position are real and we need to
see how to go forward with them.

Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?

Yours in free software,

Andy

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Thompson, David]

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 9:14 AM Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
> stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
> the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
> GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
> like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?

A bit of context about myself and what has shaped my feelings on the
matter: In 2014 I was hired at the FSF as a web developer. In 2015 I
quit because the work environment that RMS is ultimately responsible
for was demotivating and sad.  All of my former FSF coworkers, some of
whom sincerely tried (and failed) to make positive change, have since
moved on due to similar frustrations.  In 2018 I disassociated myself
with GNU (as in I no longer identify as a GNU hacker, as there is no
formal association) after witnessing RMS rudely interrupt and derail
Bradley Kuhn's LibrePlanet session and insist that conference rules do
not apply to him.  That was the last straw for me, personally, but
this pressure had been building for years.

However, I have felt, and continue to feel, that Guile is an oasis in
the GNU desert and a large part of that is because it has maintainers
that truly care about creating a welcoming environment and not
tolerating bigotry in the name of "free speech."  Andy, Ludovic, and
Mark, I owe each of you much gratitude for all the help and positive
messages I've received since 2012 or so when I discovered Guile.  I
love free software, and I especially love Guile. Thank you, thank you,
thank you.

Now, onto the present.  Seeing Mark step down from as a Guile
co-maintainer was an indicator that something was amiss internally
with Guile.  I have a great respect for Mark, but I must admit that
I've been extremely disappointed to see him, on internal GNU lists,
steadfastly defending what I consider indefensible behavior by RMS.
Upon seeing the mail to this list that Mark was stepping back into his
co-maintainer role, I had assumed that Andy and Mark had worked
through their differences and disagreements and was glad.  But now
that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put Mark
back into this role without the consent of either active Guile
co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely
disappointed and I do not approve.  RMS, once again, has abused his
leadership role to make unilateral decisions to the detriment of a GNU
project.  Yet another data point that reinforces my belief that when
RMS "leads" the results are negative.  This is not the behavior of a
leader that I support, and I certainly don't personally recognize him
as the leader of GNU.  He truly is a broken stair, a stick in the mud,
a roadblock.  What happens if we pay no mind to him?  Does the GNU
brand mean anything at this point?  If anything, it's probably
negative.

As for the future, I would like to see Guile continue to be the
welcoming, inclusive, productive place it has been since I've known
it, even though it may require some socially difficult decisions.
Andy and Ludovic, you have my support.  You've responded to recent
events admirably even though it meant being personally attacked by
others within GNU and outside.  Mark, I urge you to reconsider where
you stand with RMS.  I know that you have a lot of history, but times
have changed.

Regards,

- Dave

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Christopher Lemmer Webber]

I agree with everything Andy and David have written, so I'm not sure how
much to rehash here.

I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
under their feet at any time.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>
> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 11:33:11 -0400
> Cc: Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>
> 
> I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
> undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
> semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
> under their feet at any time.

To reach such conclusions, we'd need to hear a first-hand report of
what exactly did RMS and Mark say in their (presumed) off-list
exchange.  No such first-hand report was posted; Mark just said that
he decided to step back.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Jean Louis]

This is response to:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00005.html

Dear Andy,

No, I do not think that conflicst affect GNU Guile. I think you are
the one affecting GNU Guile and GNU community and Guix community.

That you are now using Guile mailing list to promote defamation of RMS
and to mix private political opinions of Dr. Richard Stallman with GNU
Guile project is disgrace.

GNU project is apolitical and never was political.

Dr. Richard Stallman has his blog and political views outside of the
GNU Project and FSF and those views do not represent neither GNU nor
FSF.

You have your own blog outside of the GNU project, so please stick to
your blog, write your stuff outside, do not send stuff to GNU Guile
list.

It was you who started mixing Guix with politics, and you and Ludovic
Courtès who started mixing jokes with feminism, feminism with GNU and
so on.

Please refer to GNU kind communication guidelines to stick to free
software philosophy. Your blog does not show that you are promoting
free software philosophy, you promote software, but not free software
philosophy, and I can by that way think of you as only as programmer.

Yet your logical skills and research skills are down to zero related
to Dr. Richard Stallman.

Your integrity is down to zero, as instead that you appreciat all the
donations and facilities as provided by RMS as that is his creation,
you are spitting and dividing the same community that you are
pretending to support.

You are traitor of the GNU project and GNU communication guidelines.

You are traitor of Guix good code of conduct that shall create
harassment friendly environment.

* Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> [2019-10-16 09:14]:
> In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has
> been simmering for years burst into public.  For a while it resubmerged
> into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile
> project.

Please do not generalize, those are not "GNU maintainers" those are
few people who have been invited by Andy Wingo, you and your good
friend Ludovic Courtès to join on the rumor mongering accusation
inflation that you have published on Guix pages.

That is disgrace for you personally, disgrace for Ludo, disgrace for
Guix and GNU and the FSF. 

> Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here:
> 
>   https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu

And I have written responses on that, so why not have some balls and
refer to responses as well?

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/gnu/comments/dgelag/thoughts_on_rms_and_gnu_wingolog/f3eglgb/

You have no arguments really to backup your accusations.

> The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated

I am sorry, please stop with generalizations in your statements.

Saying "many people" is anti-social characterization, please be
specific and name people, do not give false impression that many
people support you, as they don't.

> However, recent events made me realize this approach was not only unfair
> to newcomers, but unjust as well, as by continuing to work on GNU and
> not saying anything, I was both lending unmerited prestige to RMS,
> enabling his creepy behavior towards women, and additionally, enabling
> his apparent pedophilia-advocacy.

That is incorrect. That is your twisted and biased opinion which has
foundation in your educational background. I have got impression that
you have never ever understood what free speech means. And you have
not legally understood what is defamation and slander of character.

You are bringing criminal acts into GNU Guile mailing list. Please
refrain doing so.

> Regarding this latter point, I wasn't really aware that this was a view
> RMS was promoting, but I am ashamed to admit that I had heard rumors
> that Richard publically advocated sex between adults and teenagers,
> defended sexual harassers, and questioned the experience of victims of
> sexual assault, and I preferred not to listen.

Your statements are generalized, twisted and distorted. You are doing
this only to justify the harm you have done to the community and to
make your "right" in your own eyes.

You have betrayed the principles of good behavior in the community,
you have harmed both Guix, and GNU, and Guile community and you are
only trying to justify and "prove" how right you are.

I do believe you are good person, truly I do, I just know that you are
young and naive, and I am kicking my head into the wall for reasons
that one programmer like you cannot differentiate what RMS really
said. As I considered programmers always in general having sense of
logics and differentiation.

To differentiate is a test of intelligence.

To identify things with each other, without seeing differences is a
test of stupidity.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)
>   https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)

That website is www.stallman.org and expresses private political notes
of Dr. Richard Stallman, expressly not related to neither FSF nor GNU
project.

In fact, by bringing those links into GNU project, which is financed
by FSF and which is published on GNU.ORG domain that belongs to FSF,
you are endangering the FSF's non-profit status, as non-profit in the
USA is not supposed to engage in any political campaigns, and it is
just matter of time when somebody can escalate situation that the tax
office thinks it is engageing in some of your own proposed political
movements which are outside of the scope of free software philsophy.

Please refrain of promoting that RMS ever published anything of his
personal views and politics on GNU project.

Differentiate between the personal viewpoints and GNU project.

GNU project is apolitical, RMS keeps it apolitical and as you know
from last 6-7 days, you have got all the responses to stop with
politics in GNU project and come back to kind communication.

Just as Red Cross organization GNU project is apolitical. Only
politics is free software and human rigths for users of software.

Let me comment on each of these links:

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)

That is RMS's viewpoint and that is on the level of thinking that you
will maybe get in next 30 years. Young people are simple labeled as
young for reason of their inadequate sense to understand subjects that
are beyond their current educational capacity.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)

Ha hhah ha.

Look Andy, let me say, if you do not understand what is said on that
link, I would have really hard time being your next kind or room mate,
or your husband or wife -- I would really have hard time. Man you are
picky! 
 
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)

Ooh, Andy, you are member of the Thoughpolice[1] Squad, you are going
through the Archive.org like the stallman.org is going to disappear
any time soon, and you are presenting views of Stallman like
Thoughtcrime[2].

I am really afraid of people like you. Would you be in Stasi, East
German former secret police, you would be really kicking asses for
people' thoughtcrime!

Well done Andy! You are doing it by the book 1984[3].

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)

That is comment by RMS where RMS clearly condemns the rape and
protests against inaccurate journalism.

The same type of wanna-be journalism as from Andy Wingo blog.

So what you wish to say? Your blog is good journalism? And the link
that RMS is referring to is good journalism? LOL

Why don't you comment to RMS? This is not place to discuss RMS
viewpoints in GNU Guile as RMS keeps his personal notes, and he is
entitled to his free speech (something you forgot) and he does not mix
it with GNU Guile.

So why are you again dividing community and bringing to everbody in
GNU Guile attention to personal private political notes of RMS which
everybody can anyway read on his blog?

That is not welcome in GNU project. Do you get it?

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)

Yes, thank you, but the blog is open for everybody to read. Personal
political notes of Dr. Richard Stallman are not related to FSF neither
to GNU project.

What somebody thinks beyond apolitical GNU project is their free
speech human right, and I would like to ask you to respect other
people's opinions and refrain from bringing politics into GNU project.

GNU project is not about politics.

RMS keeps political notes outside, keep it too.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)

That was a scientific study. Do you have any arguments to dispute the
scientific study?

Have you done yourself some other scientific work to dispute the
study?

If not, refrain, please do not bring politics and scientific studies
and arguments about which woman is attractive or not attractive into
the GNU Project.

GNU project is about free software and operating system where freedom
zero is for everybody to use it as they wish.

For haven's sake not all the planet is your planet Andy, if you don't
find 18 years old girls attractive and your protest against that, that
is your opinion and your viewpoint. That does not fit into GNU
project, we are welcoming everybody:

- including people who have ANY kind of political view points
  outside of GNU project,

- we are welcoming Andy Wingo, regardless of their view points beyond
  GNU project

- we are welcoming people who respect scientific studies of
  attractiveness of young women and those who do not respect them

- we are welcoming feminists and those who are not feminists, but GNU
  project DOES NOT PROMOTE ANY KIND OF PARTISANSHIP, GNU project is
  non-partisan, apolitical project to create a free software operating
  system, and such can be used by everybody.

By the way, I can fully agree with the scientific study as it relates
to me very much, I find girls attractive in that age.

Do you know that in many countries on this planet younger girls are
married to man older for 10-20 and even more years and that is fine
in many societies. In those societies there are many more people than
in the United States. They could not care less what you are speaking
about.

You are not speaking for the planet. You cannot as you did not travel
enough, did not meet many people.

Cambodia is prime example where girls of 16 years wish to get married
to people of 40-60 years, and where it is considered great,
attractive -- and same cannot be said for your environment.

But you cannot bring those viewpoints into the GNU project.

We do not care if you find 18 years old girls attractive or not, that
is not free software philosophy.

Please refrain of introducing your political viewpoints into GNU
Guile.

Please refrain of politicizing GNU project!

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)

Yes, that is well said by RMS. He is person who has sense to
distinguish between the meanings of words. He does not identify every
meaning with every meaning.

Remember what I said to you? Ability to differentiate =
intelligence. Disability to differentitate is making us stupid.

RMS is spekaing of the meaning in the word "sexual assault". Yet his
political viewpoints and ranting about online articles have nothing to
do with the FSF neither GNU nor Guile.

Thus you should refrain of publishing and introducing various types of
politics into GNU Guile programming language.

I am sorry for you, and I hope you will soon start to differentiate
between the GNU Guile project that is apolitical and political notes
of ANYBODY beyond this community.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)

"The unrealistic picture of sex presented in most porn harms men as
well as women in their sex lives (though in different ways). Their
sexual miseducation starts in adolescence, but many never learn
better. " -- now you are introducing RMS political notes on porn.

Wow, Andy, I am fascinated how much you are sex focused, but let me
remind you:

- this is GNU project

- GNU project shall remain FREE of your porn viewpoints or RMS
  viewpoints

- RMS did not introduce any political notes into GNU project neither
  FSF, you are introducing it

- if you have troubles that RMS thinks that porn harms men as well as
  women in their sex lives, and you like porn, and you have different
  viewpoint then why don't you say so to RMS on his own website
  www.stallman.org as he keeps his political notes outside of GNU
  project. So please consider discussing porn with RMS and not
  introducing porn political views into this GNU project.

GNU project is welcoming everybody, as we do not mind if somebody is
watching porn or not watching porn, GNU project does not mind what is
viewpoint of RMS on porn and if he thinks it harms people, and we do
not mind if you think it different, it really does not matter.

GNU project is about free software operating system.

It is apolitical.

Only politics in GNU project is free software politics.

Andy, please keep it porn viewpoints-free.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)

Now you are discussing personal notes of RMS and his thinking of
attractiveness.

My dear Andy, if you have some not yet revealed in public hidden ideas
you wish to tell to RMS, why not tell him?

There is no place for rumor mongering in GNU project. Stick to GNU
Guile subject, do not introduce attractiveness or non-attractiveness
into GNU project.

It should be by now clear that your intention is not good.

You have no good intentions, and your intention is harassing and
defaming Dr. Richard Stallman for the sake of GNU Guile project, for
the damage to Guix, for the damage to GNU and for division of
community.

You simply don't care.

>   https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)

So RMS said: " Should we accept stretching the terms "sexual abuse"
and "molestation" to include looking without touching?  I do not
accept it. "

What is it that you do not understand?

Please Andy, do not introduce your sex focused view points into GNU
Guile. GNU Guile is programming language and its mailing list shall
remain your-sex-viewpoints-free.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)

Now you are ranting against declining sex rates and RMS's viewpoint on
declining sex rates.

Please Andy, could you you refrain of introducing your viewpoints on
declining sex rates into GNU project?

RMS does not do that, why are you doing it?

Is your intention to divide community?

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)

That is again RMS's view point on expressions in journalism related to
term "sexual assault".

Could you please leave that out of GNU Guile project and GNU project
and please take out of my life, if you have comments to say to RMS,
tell him personally, or rant on your web.

Please keep GNU community undivided, apolitical, promoting free
software philosophy, and not your view points if terms "sexual
assault" shall be used or shall not be used, just comment outside of
GNU web space.

>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)

And there RMS said:

"In "me-too" frenzy, crossed signals about sex can easily be inflated
into "rape". If people rush to judgment, in an informal way, that can
destroy a man's career without any trial in which to clear his name. "
-- which is absolutely true, and which is exact same thing you are
doing to defame and slander RMS for this exact same viewpoint.

Please refrain of dividing GNU community for your own political
views. If you have something to say to RMS, tell to RMS, that is
outside of scope of GNU Guile, Guix, GNU project in itself.

And after your defaming links of links of RMS where you clearly
expressed that your intention is not to promote free software
philosophy, let me then reference what Dr. Richard Stallman is doing
while promoting free software:

Dr. Richard Stallman contacts opinion leaders and forwards free
software, in this example in the heart of Microsoft:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-richard-stallman-spoke-at-microsoft-research-this-week/

That Microsoft took over the Github is already great deal and RMS is
teaching them how to police the licensing issues. Very good.

Please show example from your side how you promoted free software? It
would give some weight to your ranting.

He teaches the world on free software, this time in Russia, August
2019. There is nice Emacs Virgin joke that nobody finds offensive,
this is planet, and people like jokes, there is also the Emacs Saint
joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCh8EcBrptA

Dr. Richard Stallman provides policies and planning for GNU project, and he has done so successfuly for many years.

See:
My Thoughts on the Richard Stallman "Scandal" by Jacob
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGF17TbbBcE

There are facts in that video explained.

More facts:
https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

Look at the case study of Ambedkar Community Computing Center, where
Richard Stallman promoted free software and did something for all
India. One of the underprivileged kids who attends classes at the
Center has achieved a high level of skill in the use of GIMP. His
works have been presented and sold at a local Free Software
conference. The picture on the right shows him handing in to Richard
Stallman a copy of an essay titled “The Future is Ours”, which was
produced at the Center.

Look at video:
https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-software-gimp.html#Mani

Free software changed life of those people.

That is accomplishment of Richard Stallman, the GNU project and Free
Software Foundation.

Look more accomplishments:
https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-cases-india-irimpanam.html

Look at article of Dr. V. Sasi Kumar, The Education System in India,
with accomplishment to use free software at many places in India.

Do you think that is a "coincidence"? Do you know that Richard
Stallman enlightened former president of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on
free software and then President promoted and recommended free
software to wide population?

See:
https://sites.google.com/site/ilugjammu/home/a-p-j-kalam-r-stallman-dicussion-on-open-source
https://www.linux.com/news/richard-stallman-meets-president-india/

Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman (RMS) was in Denmark in May 2019.

After a visit to the beach in nearby Slettestrand the day before, RMS
went to Aalborg, where he delivered his speech “Free software and your
freedom”1 at Aalborg University (AAU), on May 6th.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/photo-blog-2019-may-aalborg-copenhagen

Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman (RMS) was in Brno, Czech Republic, on June 6, 2019, to give two speeches.

In the morning, he took part in the URBIS Smart City Fair, at the Brno
Fair Grounds, giving his speech "Computing, freedom, and privacy."1
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/photo-blog-2019-june-brno

Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman (RMS) went on a 12-city visit to Brazil and Argentina this past May and June. The trip took him…

…to the Federal Institute of São Paulo, in Araraquara, São Paulo,
Brazil, where, on May 14th, he gave his speech "A Free Digital
Society."1 The event was well attended, with universities and schools
from neighboring cities having organized to shuttle their students to
it by bus.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/may-2018-photos-from-brazil-and-argentina

 RMS in The Guardian: “A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe”
by Dana Morgenstein — Published on Apr 09, 2018 10:23 AM

Here at the Free Software Foundation (FSF), we're never surprised when
another violation of privacy by Facebook or other bad actors is
exposed: it has long since been obvious that Facebook is a gold mine
for government surveillance and advertisers. However, we also
recognize that social media has become a crucial part of everyday
life, which is why we urge you to ditch Facebook and instead utilize
freedom-respecting, distributed, user-controlled services like GNU
social, Mastodon, or Diaspora.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/rms-in-the-guardian-201ca-radical-proposal-to-keep-your-personal-data-safe201d-1

January was a relatively quiet month for FSF president Richard Stallman (RMS), so we're taking this opportunity to look back on a few speeches that RMS gave last year and that we did not get a chance to report on.

On February 6th, 2017, RMS was at Reykjavík University, in Reykjavík,
Iceland, to give his speech “Free software: For your freedom and
privacy,” to about 200 people.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/photo-blog-2017-retrospective-reykjavik-eastlansing-potsdam-montreal-salta

You are putting focus on your sexual or asexual viewpoints, whatever
rants you have against RMS, speak to him as he keeps his personal
political notes outside of GNU project.

I am putting focus on free software and promotion of free software, if
you have something to say in that regard let me know. But your blog is
speaking for itself, it is rumor mongering factory, and I am very very
sorry for your state of mind, you must be troubled, you have no calm
sleep, and all what you are trying to do is to justify the harm that
you are doing to this community.

Same is valid for your Thoughtpolice Squad on Guix pages.

> Yours in free software,
> 
> Andy

I don't trust you.


Jean Louis


Footnotes:
[1]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Police

[2]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

[3]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Jean Louis]

* Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> [2019-10-16 10:12]:
> Now, onto the present.  Seeing Mark step down from as a Guile
> co-maintainer was an indicator that something was amiss internally
> with Guile.  I have a great respect for Mark, but I must admit that
> I've been extremely disappointed to see him, on internal GNU lists,
> steadfastly defending what I consider indefensible behavior by RMS.

What you need to understand is to keep GNU project apolitical, where
only politics is free software philosophy.

That is how "community" is created, on sharing what is common to
community.

We are all different people. We have all our different political
notes.

RMS has affinity to Science Fiction. Somebody does not have affinity
on Science Fiction and cannot think of it.

Would then Science Fiction as subject beyond free software shall be
focused on to divide the community of free software depending on what
they think of science fiction? Please understand the analogy.

GNU community is friendly to each other and welcoming everybody
regardless of their outside political viewpoints.

Keep GNU community politics-free and it will keep growing and
remaining friendly.

If somebody is defending RMS or attacking RMS -- why not keep that in
your personal conversation to RMS, or keep it on your own blogs. But
keep it OUTSIDE OF GNU website.

> Upon seeing the mail to this list that Mark was stepping back into his
> co-maintainer role, I had assumed that Andy and Mark had worked
> through their differences and disagreements and was glad.  But now
> that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put Mark
> back into this role without the consent of either active Guile
> co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely
> disappointed and I do not approve.

Could you deflate accusations please?

> RMS, once again, has abused his leadership role to make unilateral
> decisions to the detriment of a GNU project.

He has acted, he has not "abused". If anybody shall be leader and
contributor in GNU project those should be people loyal to free
software philosophy and loyal to GNU kind communication guidelines,
people who understand that GNU project is about free software
operating system and users' rights.

People who think that GNU project itself shall favor one or the other
political views are in the wrong place.

Please find appropriate place for your ranting, be it on RMS, myself,
or anybody else. Not in GNU.

GNU is welcoming community to everybody.

It is apolitical.

It is non-partisan community.

Could you try understanding?

It is not a democracy and it never was. Free software philosophy was
not invented by democratic process.

> Yet another data point that reinforces my belief that when RMS
> "leads" the results are negative.

That is inflation of rumors without facts. What can be wrong that one
developer was welcomed back? Nothing.

What can be wrong with people like Ludovic Courtès and Andy Wingo and
other members of the Thoughtpolice Squad? Everyting. They are dividing
community, they do not belong in kind community.

I let them be. But I propose that they take their disgraceful
behaviour outside of GNU.

> This is not the behavior of ap leader that I support, and I
> certainly don't personally recognize him as the leader of GNU.

So what?

> He truly is a broken stair, a stick in the mud, a roadblock.

He is the roadblock for people like you who never hold free software
speeches and who value rumor mongering and false journalism more than
his works to promote free software philosophy.

Otherwise, he is the driving force and with all his connections, and
influence that RMS has, he can fart and cause more good in society
then you can with your biased fact-less statements.

> What happens if we pay no mind to him?  Does the GNU brand mean
> anything at this point?  If anything, it's probably negative.

Blah blah blah, impossible, you have no idea what you are speaking
about. Numerous free software organizations exists in his world, all
over the planet, they do not share your thoughts, and your opinions
simply do not matter. You cannot change the "GNU brand".

It is project to build operating system and project is successful and
accomplished, and there are many free software distributions, and free
software philosophy is influencing the world and politics of many
countries. Users are gaining their rights back. And there is much more
to fight for.

You cannot do nothing about it.

You can hate RMS as much as you want, but you cannot do nothing about
it.

Finally there are people who love RMS for his way of living, for his
way of pushing ideology forward, you cannot do nothing about that.

> As for the future, I would like to see Guile continue to be the
> welcoming, inclusive, productive place it has been since I've known
> it, even though it may require some socially difficult decisions.
> Andy and Ludovic, you have my support.  You've responded to recent
> events admirably even though it meant being personally attacked by
> others within GNU and outside.  Mark, I urge you to reconsider where
> you stand with RMS.  I know that you have a lot of history, but times
> have changed.

I see no reason why Guile could not be welcoming. It is now welcoming.

What is wrong is mixing other viewpoints that do not belong to Guile,
into the programming language.

Jean Louis

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Jean Louis]

* Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> [2019-10-16 11:33]:
> I agree with everything Andy and David have written, so I'm not sure how
> much to rehash here.
> 
> I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
> undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
> semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
> under their feet at any time.

What means "fair" to you?

Jean Louis

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mikael Djurfeldt]

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Hi Andy, Ludovic and everyone else,

As a previous co-maintainer of Guile, it saddens me that you/we have run
into these kind of difficulties. It's especially sad since, as also David
wrote, Guile has always been a project with a friendly atmosphere. What I
wish for is that everyone involved in this conflict make their best effort
to find a good way forward, and in particular, a way that can preserve the
valuable social assets of Guile.

My own viewpoint of recent events around RMS is that he is a special kind
of person with his own kind of strengths and weaknesses. Yes, it's quite
clear that project leadership and management is not his strength, but at
the same time he is the root of the free software movement with a fantastic
legacy. I'm also fascinated by how often what he has said, and which at the
time might have caused many rolling eyes, eventually have turned out to be
correct. So, also here, I'm sad that there is not enough room in present
day society to accommodate a person like RMS. I would have wished for him
to end celebrated. Even though I'm myself strongly for the causes of women
and obviously completely against any form of child abuse, I think that it
is possible to disagree with some of RMS statements without judging him too
harshly. I take a risk in saying that it is certainly possible to see his
perspective and arguments in his defence of Minsky, even if one disagrees
and thinks that he has left some aspects of the situation out.

Then there is the question of leadership. I don't think that it was good
timing of the GNU maintainers to go forward with their initiative at this
precise point in time. But I welcome it in other respects and now that it
is out in the open, I think you maintainers should go forward with it and
try to achieve a more reasonable governing structure in GNU. I wish you
good luck with that. With the timing you chose it will be harder, but I
hope for you to succeed.

Regarding Guile, I have a very high confidence in Andy and Ludovic and
think the Guile project should regard itself very lucky to have such
maintainers. I wasn't aware of the differences between Andy and Mark and
also have a very high appreciation of Mark's careful work. But I think it
is clear to most people that it is not good leadership by RMS to appoint
Mark as co-maintainer without consulting with Andy and Ludovic. Under
normal circumstances, a leader can do such things, but given the current
situation, with the well motivated request for a new governing structure,
my point of view is that it is Andy and Ludovic who currently rows this
boat.

Andy and Ludovic, you have my full support. Please stick with Guile, but
please also keep your calm and talk a lot to key people to try to resolve
this situation in a good way (which of course does not mean letting your
hands be tied).

Best regards,
Mikael

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

This is very sad.  I appreciate the enormous time investments of all
of you for Guile.  When you make a decision, I hope you understand the
other.

Regards,
Florian

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Linus Björnstam]

Hi Andy!

Your work (and amazing blog) and the wonderful work by the GUIX team is what brought me to guile. I don't have any I'll feelings towards Mark (I have appreciated his support on the mailing list many times), but I will follow Guile wherever you and Ludo take it, inside or outside the GNU project.

I am but a lowly hobby programmer (who found a home in scheme) soI don't think I can contribute much in either case, but if financial support for hosting is needed I can contribute to that. Apart from trying my best to help people in the IRC channel.


Thank you for your work.
-- 
  Linus Björnstam

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019, at 15:14, Andy Wingo wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has
> been simmering for years burst into public.  For a while it resubmerged
> into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile
> project.
> 
> Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here:
> 
>   https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu
> 
> The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated
> Richard Stallman not as a hero, not as a leader, but rather a "missing
> stair" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair) that one has to
> route around.  This approach was never very inclusive -- if you don't
> have much experience in GNU, it's possible to not know about it, and to
> fall in the hole yourself.  On the other hand if you know of RMS but not
> Guile, you might think that Guile developers support RMS.
> 
> However, recent events made me realize this approach was not only unfair
> to newcomers, but unjust as well, as by continuing to work on GNU and
> not saying anything, I was both lending unmerited prestige to RMS,
> enabling his creepy behavior towards women, and additionally, enabling
> his apparent pedophilia-advocacy.
> 
> Regarding this latter point, I wasn't really aware that this was a view
> RMS was promoting, but I am ashamed to admit that I had heard rumors
> that Richard publically advocated sex between adults and teenagers,
> defended sexual harassers, and questioned the experience of victims of
> sexual assault, and I preferred not to listen.  Looking again, and I
> think Richard's web site speaks for itself:
> 
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)
>   
> https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)
>   
> https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)
> 
> Anyway.  So far, so GNU.  A couple weeks ago I thought it an opportune
> moment to declare publicly the views that I have long held privately:
> that I do not consider RMS to be the leader of GNU, and that GNU
> maintainers and other developers with a stake in the project should
> organize to fill the void.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> I pause here to mention that you may not agree with this perspective and
> that is fine.  There are many ways that we can continue to work together
> while this discussion plays out.  Part of the purpose of this mail
> though is to make it clear that there are differences of opinion and
> that the GNU project is in flux.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> Now we get to how this issue affects Guile.
> 
> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release; I responded over email asking to talk
> about the issues; in response a week later I see that he resigned from
> maintainership and left the Guile group on Savannah.  It was truly a
> shame for Guile, as Mark is an excellent hacker and has done a lot of
> good work for Guile.
> 
> It's true also that, mixed with the sadness, I felt a modicum of relief.
> It has never been easy to work with Mark.  I could toil on Guile for
> weeks, taking time away from my family, and then wake up to receive a
> private mail excoriating me for my work.  It was also far from the first
> time he threatened to leave the project if he did not get his way.  I
> have never let the problems between Mark and me into the public sphere
> though, preferring to preserve his reputation, and it is only out of
> necessity that I do so now.
> 
> Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up
> his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was
> ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that
> could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking
> Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania.
> 
> Naturally I don't think this is the case.  We all have our problems but
> this particular one isn't mine.  It is true that when I get home after a
> long day of work and take care of my family and maybe have a precious
> half-hour or hour here or there, I usually prefer to devote it to
> retiring items from my personal Guile 3.0 to-do list, rather than
> helping others; a failing, perhaps, but not a malicious one.  I always
> tried to enable Mark's work, supporting him becoming committer, then
> maintainer, then trying to keep him on board; but evidently that was not
> enough.  Fair enough; I can't please everybody.
> 
> Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> recent events".
> 
> Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.  I don't know what to conclude
> about RMS's motivations -- is it retaliation?  And why would Mark
> assent, especially if he professes to be scandalized by autocratic
> behavior and messianic tendencies?  I can't say as I have no more
> information than this Savannah request.
> 
> It a test, perhaps?  Mark is already aware that I do not consider RMS to
> have a leadership role in the GNU project, but although this position is
> shared by others, it is not a consensus position, and I don't think it's
> Mark's position.  Of course it goes without saying that I don't consider
> this supposed appointment of Mark as co-maintainer of GNU Guile to be
> legitimate in the least, but who else will go along with it?
> 
> And what role is Mark looking for?  Are we to have commit wars or
> something?  I would certainly hope not but I can't tell.  I don't think
> the conditions exist currently for good collaboration between me and
> Mark, so I am not sure how this will play out in the future.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> I guess I shouldn't be surprised that conversation about the future of
> GNU has now reached Guile, but it is still strange to find that the
> questions of "how much pedophilia advocacy is too much pedophilia
> advocacy" or "how much creepiness towards women is acceptable" should
> have any bearing on the development of an implementation of Scheme.
> But, here we are.  The differences of position are real and we need to
> see how to go forward with them.
> 
> Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
> stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
> the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
> GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
> like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?
> 
> Yours in free software,
> 
> Andy
> 
>

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Tadeus Prastowo]

Dear Andy,

Could you kindly move https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to your own site, please?

As Jean said, you (and/or Ludovic) should not have published the petition under gnu.org in the first place, to quote Jean [1]:

To publish his political opinions where Ludovic Courtès is defaming and harassing Richard Stallman on his own domain is disgraceful and shameful activity! That would be like me to kick my own mother in her stomach.

End quote.

Every family has their own weaknesses, but experiencing how broken one's family is not an excuse to kick one's own parents from the house that the parents have built with their own hands.  If one no longer wishes to live with their own parents, they definitely are free to leave their own parents and go out of their parents' houses.

Therefore, I implore you to take down https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ from a subdomain of gnu.org, hand over the maintenance of the GNU Guix project to Mark, resign from the GNU Guix project (leave your parent and go out of your parent's house), and set up your own site and repository to fork the GNU Guix project (build your own house now with your own hands, which is the right and fair thing to do instead of kicking your own parent out from their own house).

Lastly, I implore you to ask those who have signed https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to follow suit.  For example, those GCC folks can definitely have the money of their own organizations jointly to fork GCC, no?  If not, then they should remove their signature from that joint statement, unless you have moved that statement out from under the gnu.org.  Fair, isn't it?

Thank you.

[1] https://gnu.support/richard-stallman/Ludovic-Court%C3%A8s-Guix-is-accusing-Stallman-of-Thoughtcrime-on-his-own-domain-GNU-org.html

--
Best regards,
Tadeus

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Adrienne G. Thompson]

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On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 4:56 PM Tadeus Prastowo <eus@gmx.com> wrote:

> Dear Andy,
>
> Could you kindly move
> https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ to
> your own site, please?


They published their "Joint Statement" on gnu.org because they know they
have support from a faction of the FSF board. It's all part of the "board
game".

:)

Adrienne
-- 
Freedom - no pane, all gaiGN!

GNU C-Graph - http://www.gnu.org/software/c-graph
Code Art Now - http://codeartnow.com
Abertheid Campaign - http://www.abertheid.info
Follow me on Twitter @AdrienneGT @GNUcgraph

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Hi,

Firstoff: I don’t know RMS personally — except for seeing him at a talk.
I only know his writings. I’ve been disagreeing with him on non-free
licensing of writings for more than a decade.

When I saw the joint statement about RMS,[1] I thought that this is
hard, but looking at social network coverage about RMS, I could not
disagree, because communication online changed in a way that how RMS
writes could regularly lead to flamewars against GNU.

But looking at the links you posted, I did not see anything which fits
the definition of pedophilia-advocacy. Going by Wikipedia, "Pedophilia …
is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent
experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent
children" and "the cut-off point for prepubescence [is] age 13."[2]

All the articles you linked to[4] are about teenagers who are clearly not
prepubescent. Several are about disagreement over whether it is honest
to use the name child for an adolescent.

It is strange to see such words inflated to "pedophilia advocacy" which
going by the definition in Wikipedia they clearly are not. Therefore I
wish to see more reflection and less inner flaming.

I haven’t said much about this, because I do not know RMS personally. I
never worked with him and I also never observed his behavior within a
group.


From what I hear, there are genuine problems, which point towards not
having RMS as head of the project. Experiences like the ones from David:

Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:
> In 2014 I was hired at the FSF as a web developer. In 2015 I
> quit because the work environment that RMS is ultimately responsible
> for was demotivating and sad.  All of my former FSF coworkers, some of
> whom sincerely tried (and failed) to make positive change, have since
> moved on due to similar frustrations.

This is something that should not happen. It is an indicator that RMS
might not be the best strategic choice to represent GNU, or be presented
as a leader of the project. Given how much GNU grew, there are now
likely people in the project who are better at project management, at
people management, and maybe even at strategy.

But I wish to see us avoiding to condemn people by misrepresenting the
opinions they voice.


This also goes to people who now call Andy Wingo a traitor.


I don’t mind a strategic discussion whether RMS is a good representative
of GNU in todays times. I also don’t mind discussing whether it would be
better to have someone else take leading roles, do planning, and so on.

But please let’s not have moral discussions about someones opinions
about sex between juveniles and adults. What you’re talking about is
legal in Germany — where only sex between children below 14 and anyone
older is strictly forbidden, and sex between someone of 16 or 17 years
and an adult is legal as long as no payment (in money or otherwise) is
involved.[3]

This is a moralizing discussion which can easily destroy a project which
is focussed on the specific goal of ending proprietary software. Who is
good enough to be part of the project? Who can steer our outrage against
each other to divide the project again and again until not much is left?

Once we let ourselves be divided by someone who misrepresents opinions,
we open our flanks to all those who want to see GNU fall and copyleft to
be forgotten in a wealth of lax licensed javascript frameworks.


Grabbing people by emotions can destroy everything they build. And this
also goes here:

> Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up
> his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was
> ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that
> could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking
> Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania.
> …
> Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> recent events".

Did Mark join again, because RMS wants control over Guile, or did RMS
ask him to continue to maintain Guile, because Mark has been extremely
helpful to many newcomers?

Or did he even ask him to join again to avoid division while Mark would
see firsthand that you are not trying to be a dictator?


It is also possible that RMS fears that GNU could lose Guile when people
target you to get you to sever ties with GNU.


From a strategic point, if I wanted to attack GNU in the current
situation, my first points of attack would be Guix and Guile, because
these are at the same time growing rapidly and acting as a focus for
much of the development within GNU. To run such an attack, I would
social engineer the maintainers of Guix and Guile on an axis they care
about, so I could cut them off from GNU.

Looking at the public writings over the past years, it is clear that
aspects of RMS are such an axis.

And looking at how there already are people who try to spread every
wrongdoing by RMS, this is also a very easy to use axis.
(which is why a discussion about representation of and decision making
 within GNU is very different from a discussion about morals: this axis
 is too easy to use to attack GNU).

> Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.  I don't know what to conclude
> about RMS's motivations -- is it retaliation?  And why would Mark
> assent, especially if he professes to be scandalized by autocratic
> behavior and messianic tendencies?

Since Mark was the maintainer of Guile up to 6 weeks ago, I wouldn’t be
surprised if he just did not think that he might have to get permission
to take up his work again.


However saying that RMS has no idea about Guile is a stretch.
Guile would not be where it is today without your work, but it also
would not be where it is today without longtem support by GNU and by RMS
personally. RMS might have no idea about technical details of todays
Guile, but very much so of Guile as a vision.

I personally would not be working with Guile if it weren’t "the GNU
Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions, and the official
extension language of the GNU project".

When I decided to start with Scheme, I was split between Chicken,
Racket, and Guile. All three were similarly active and interesting, but
Guile is the extension language of the GNU project, so this is what I
chose. I never regretted my decision, because Guile also works very well
with Emacs and is well-suited for writing commandline applications — all
things I need. But I did not know that back then.


What I now see is that you’re running into fear:

> It a test, perhaps?  Mark is already aware that I do not consider RMS to
> have a leadership role in the GNU project, but although this position is
> shared by others, it is not a consensus position, and I don't think it's
> Mark's position.  Of course it goes without saying that I don't consider
> this supposed appointment of Mark as co-maintainer of GNU Guile to be
> legitimate in the least, but who else will go along with it?
>
> And what role is Mark looking for?

What role did he have 6 weeks ago?

> I would certainly hope not but I can't tell. Are we to have commit
> wars or something?

Where does this fear come from? Who but you has the time and experience
with compilers to actually push Guile core forward?

> I don't think the conditions exist currently for good collaboration
> between me and Mark, so I am not sure how this will play out in the
> future.

This is a problem that needs addressing. It’s something teeming
that can cut not just Guile but all of GNU apart.

> questions of "how much pedophilia advocacy is too much pedophilia
> advocacy" or "how much creepiness towards women is acceptable" should
> have any bearing on the development of an implementation of Scheme.

These are two very different loaded questions.

As I wrote above, the articles you linked to are not advocating for
pedophilia by any stretch of the word. They are advocating against
restricting teenagers out of a puritan moral code. We should not
mislable others with deeply insulting markers.

How much creepiness towards women is acceptable is another question. My
personal opinion is that first of all we cannot afford giving free reign
to people who actively drive away women:
https://www.draketo.de/english/politics/predators

But this is not just a discussion within Free Software, it is one within
all of IT.

And it is also true for people who actively drive away people for
holding an opinion they don’t like, as is currently happening with RMS
(when going by the references I saw given by people who condemn RMS).

We need to keep communication friendly.


Therefore I want to share something I originally wrote for Freenet:[5]

---
We’d be pretty naive to think that we weren’t targeted. And we have to
keep this in mind when we communicate: We don’t only have to look out
for bad code, but also for influences which make us take up toxic
communication patterns that keep us from moving forward.

The most obvious fix is: Stay friendly, stick together, keep honest and
greet every newcomer as a potential ally. And call out disrupting
behaviour early on: If someone insults new folks or takes up huge
amounts of discussion time by rehashing old discussions instead of
talking about the way forward - in a way which actually leads to going
forward - then say that this is your impression. Still stay friendly:
Most of the time that’s not intentional. And people can be affected by
outside influences like someone attacking them in other channels, so it
would be important to help them recover and not to push them away
because their behaviour became toxic for some time (as long as the time
investment for that is not overarching).

Overall it’s about keeping the community together despite the knowledge
that some of us might actually be aggressors or influenced from the
outside to disrupt our work.
...

> Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
> stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
> the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
> GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
> like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?

To me the mission of GNU and the FSF is important: Reaching a world
where most software is Free Software and where developers earn money
from working on Free Software.


Whether it is strategically best to have RMS as figurehead,
decisionmaker, or strategist is another question.


Guile is a very interesting project for me — the environment which is
closest to how I want to program — but its importance to me stems from
its embedding into GNU.


Best wishes,
Arne


[1]: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia
[3]: https://www.rechtsanwalt-sexualstrafrecht.de/informationen/weitere-informationen/altersgrenzen-im-sexualstrafrecht/
[5]: https://www.draketo.de/english/freenet/de-orchestrating-phk
[4]: Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)
>   https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)

--
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Andy,

Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release;

The funny thing is, I don't actually have a strong opinion on this
particular change.

What I *do* have a strong opinion on is that you made the decision
unilaterally, without discussion on the mailing list, and without even
consulting your co-maintainers.  The commit was pushed to Savannah less
than 6 hours before you publicly announced a new Guile release that
included this core language change:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?id=20535922147cd5992330962aaa5c4986563fc905
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-08/msg00016.html

Ludovic and I only found out about the change after the public
announcements had already been made.

Can you understand why I consider this behavior to be dictatorial?

> I responded over email asking to talk about the issues;

This is misleading, because in fact you flatly refused to even discuss
the issue of *process*, namely that you made the decision unilaterally.
Instead, you insisted on limiting the discussion to the merits of the
actual change, after it had already been made, included in a release,
and publicly announced.

This kind of thing has happened several times in the past, and you've
always responded the same way, flatly refusing to talk about process,
and insisting on limiting the conversation to the merits of the changes
you had already made.

> in response a
> week later I see that he resigned from maintainership and left the
> Guile group on Savannah.  It was truly a shame for Guile, as Mark is
> an excellent hacker and has done a lot of good work for Guile.

I regret quitting the project.  The bus factor of Guile is far too low,
and it's a very important project.

I was angry.  I think I had a right to be angry.  After 8 years working
on Guile, and 5 years as your co-maintainer, your actions felt extremely
disrespectful to me.  Can you understand why I would feel that way?

> It's true also that, mixed with the sadness, I felt a modicum of relief.
> It has never been easy to work with Mark.  I could toil on Guile for
> weeks, taking time away from my family, and then wake up to receive a
> private mail excoriating me for my work.

I did not excoriate you for your work.  Rather, I complained bitterly
about being blindsided by changes that you included in the 2.2.0 release
against my wishes.

Still, I should have balanced my complaints with congratulations for
your contributions.  I'm sincerely sorry that I failed to do that.  I
didn't have it in me at the time, and your refusal to talk about process
left an open wound that has festered and never really healed.

> Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up
> his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was
> ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that
> could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking
> Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania.

This is a severe mischaracterization of what I actually wrote.

First of all, I never said that it was the "only reason", or even that
it was "a reason".  I merely said that you had an "interest" in deposing
Richard, by which I meant that you had something to gain from it.

Secondly, there was a specific purpose to raising my grievances on the
internal mailing list.  It's because you are vigorously arguing for
collective decision making within GNU, while at the same time you are
acting in a dictatorial manner within the Guile project, failing to even
consult your co-maintainers on core language changes.  I think that's
hypocritical, and I said so.

> Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> recent events".
>
> Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.

The facts are plain.  The bus factor in Guile is shockingly low.
Ludovic's attention is almost entirely focused on Guix, and he hasn't
worked much on the compiler since the 2.0 days.  A lot has changed since
then, as you and I both know.  Besides you, I'm the only person in the
world who is able to work on contemporary Guile compiler internals.

> I don't know what to conclude about RMS's motivations -- is it
> retaliation?

A stronger case can be made that your attempt to block my return to this
project is retaliatory.

You might be comfortable with a bus factor of close to 1 on modern Guile
compiler internals, but that would be an irresponsible decision on your
part, as anyone without an axe to grind can plainly see.

Frankly, it should not be your decision to make.  There's no question
that I'm qualified, and that there's a dire lack of other qualified
candidates.

> And what role is Mark looking for?  Are we to have commit wars or
> something?

Absolutely not.  I will always seek your input on important changes, and
I ask that you show me the same courtesy.  I'm simply looking to return
to the same role that I previously held in this project for the last 5
years.

For what it's worth, despite our disagreements, I still sincerely
believe that you are acting in good faith, and fighting for what you
believe is right.  I hope that you can believe that I'm doing the same.

       Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mike Gran]

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 03:14:06PM +0200, Andy Wingo wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has
> been simmering for years burst into public.  For a while it resubmerged
> into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile
> project.

I did read the whole of this email and looked at some of the links.

My big surprise about recent events is how much people still care
about the GNU brand identity.  I believe it to be a relic and a bit of
a historical curiosity.  I'm surprised at how impassioned this debate
has become.  It is good how some believe that GNU is worth saving.

So GNU, the brand, must mean something to y'all.  I know what it is
*supposed* to mean.

I hope y'all work it out.  I've met a few of you, and you seem nice.

> Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
> stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
> the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
> GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
> like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?

GNU Guile is, for me, a weekend pastime.  The people on the project
seem alright.  I've learned some programming tricks.  It is cool that
sometimes stuff I wrote gets used.  It is cool that it has a bit of
status to it, and that via my association with Guile, I got to give a
FOSDEM talk on games.  There have been a couple of dispiriting
interactions back in the day that made me disappear for months at a
time, but, mostly positive compared to other volunteer groups I've
worked with.  If it remains a fun place to hang, I may keep throwing
in my rare and random contibutions.  If it doesn't, I won't.

I am not discomfited by RMS's existence or association with GNU, or
his alleged skeeziness.  Never having been to Boston or having met RMS
or any other GNU or FSF employee, I have no idea who does paid work
for GNU or the FSF or what they do all day, really.  For me it is just
an descriptive adjective for a type of orthodoxy, like 'Dogme 95' for
film, or 'organic' for food.  And it is the orthodoxy that matters.

Regards,

Mike Gran

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Neil Van Dyke]

Dear fellow Guile people,

I'm a long-time libre software and Scheme person, who recently 
subscribed to the Guile lists.  After so long away from Guile, I was 
very happy to return and see an active developer community around it.  I 
appreciate everyone's labor-of-love efforts here, in some of the best 
spirit of libre software.

I'm troubled to hear, in the last month or so, some concerns that have 
been discouraging people in libre software, including Guile. I've long 
been aware of some ways people have been alienated from libre software, 
but not of some of the more discouraging things I've heard recently.

Discouragement tends to mean losing people.  One of our primary goals is 
the opposite of losing people -- welcoming and gaining the collective 
benefits of *many more* people, participating and contributing.

Being welcoming is a continual learning process, for all of us. Like 
many topics, the more I learn, I realize the less I knew.  It's very 
humbling.  What I think we can do is embrace that humility -- to ask, to 
listen, and to try.  (I don't claim to be at all good at this, 
personally; only that it seems to be a very constructive aspiration or 
guideline, to try to remember.)

I'd also like to propose that we try to extend that humility to 
supporting others, as we all continually learn from mistakes. Making it 
safe/permissible to recognize, learn from, and correct mistakes seems 
part of a healthy environment.  We're all human, built on learning from 
mistakes, and it's OK.  Some situations might eventually prove to be 
"irreconcilable", but we should try to consider the possibilities, 
perhaps with a touch of aspirational idealism and creativity, and 
considering the good that might come from each possibility we can 
imagine, before we decide which paths to pursue.

I hope that everyone currently involved with Guile will continue to be 
involved, not get discouraged and leave -- even as we all continue 
figuring out how to be more welcoming to everyone, and figuring out how 
to correct some past alienation of people, which I think has also harmed 
us collectively.

Thank you, and best regards to everyone.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

Mark H Weaver writes:

> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
>> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
>> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
>> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
>> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release;
>
> The funny thing is, I don't actually have a strong opinion on this
> particular change.
>
> What I *do* have a strong opinion on is that you made the decision
> unilaterally, without discussion on the mailing list

I have been worrying a bit about this change because I do not see how to
implement it in Mes.  I did not speak up because I believe that our
bootstrapping efforts should not hold Guile development back.

> Ludovic and I only found out about the change after the public
> announcements had already been made.
>
> Can you understand why I consider this behavior to be dictatorial?

Yes, I can see that now.  However, having met Andy I could not have
imagined that something like that could have been his motivation.  It
would be great if we all could spend some time together.

> For what it's worth, despite our disagreements, I still sincerely
> believe that you are acting in good faith, and fighting for what you
> believe is right.  I hope that you can believe that I'm doing the same.

When you left that was pretty discouraging for me: I enjoyed and much
appreciated your recent help with the Guix bootstrap.  Thank you for
that!  I am happy you have decided to come back.

Greetings,
jannneke

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> | GNU LilyPond http://lilypond.org
Freelance IT http://JoyofSource.com | Avatar® http://AvatarAcademy.com

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mikhail Kryshen]

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Andy,

If you've long had issues with RMS, then why do you still want to be
with GNU?  You don't have to participate in GNU to be part of the free
software movement.  Is it that you see GNU as an important platform for
your political activism?  Is it about donations?  Identity?  Pride?
What is it so significant that it made you stoop to harassment and
defamation?  Or could it be that you act purely on emotion under
influence of the widespread moral panic?

You are trying to publicly destroy a person for his opinions that you
chose to interpret in the most unfavorable way possible.  But consider
that your interpretations are wrong — just the possibility of it makes
your actions totally morally unacceptable.

I respect you as a programmer and contributor to free software, but this
act of yours is a severe disgrace.

-- 
Mikhail

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Hello all,

I just realized that I made a mistake, and my mistake has caused people
to strongly condemn RMS for something that he did not actually do.

RMS has not yet appointed me as a co-maintainer.  To my knowledge, the
only thing he has done so far is to *ask* me if I wanted to be appointed
co-maintainer.  I answered "yes", but I've not yet received any further
messages from him on this topic.  I also note that I'm not listed as a
maintainer in the official list of maintainers.

I misinterpreted RMS's question as an offer, and that was my mistake.
The fault is mine, and mine alone.  RMS should not be blamed for it.

       Mark


Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> recent events".
>
> Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> wrote:
> But now that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put
> Mark back into this role without the consent of either active Guile
> co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely
> disappointed and I do not approve.

Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
> undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
> semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
> under their feet at any time.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > They published their "Joint Statement" on gnu.org because they know they
  > have support from a faction of the FSF board.

I don't think so.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

Please don't ask for a fork in Guix.  Forking is not a desirable
outcome.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Nala Ginrut]

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hi Andy, I think Mark has explained something, I hope you can rethink about
it calmly. It seems a misunderstanding.

A decade ago I came to Guile community, and I've learned many things from
the people here. Andy, Mark, and Ludo are the people I really respect.
However, someday if they start to blame each other, what can I do now?
No one can keep a very good relationship after so many years of
cooperation. Obviously, in a cooperation relationship, there're always
compromises and misunderstandings.

I think I can understand why many people dislike RMS. When I become a GNU
maintainer and start the first conversation, I realized RMS is not so easy
to talk.
IIRC, when I first time to contact RMS with mails, at least the first 20
private emails are quarrels. ;-)
However, I still find a way to work with him, because I think his paranoia
is the essential factor to push free software so far.

So if anyone dislikes RMS because of that, I fully understand you and I
don't think you have to endure. You may find your way out.
But I don't think the moral concerns and personal life should affect a
technical community. We're different people from different cultures.
Please let me remind that LGBT was considered immoral previously. Let's be
more diversity.

I gradually realized that people blame RMS recently is not because of his
misinterpreted comments, it's trivial, just an excuse. I think some people
just can't endure RMS, that's the essential reason. I don't know, I'm not
sure any new leader of GNU was elected, whether she/he will be still blamed
like this, after all, no one is perfect.

To my understanding, Guile is very important for GNU operating system. And
we've helped to push it so far till today. Are we doing it wrong?
If Guile quit GNU, then what's its position? IMHO, Guile is on a very good
track these years. If Guile quit GNU, is it competitive enough to other
Scheme implementation?

I'm the kind of pragmatism people. I hope you can think about it carefully.
After all, the decision includes all our efforts for many years.

But anyway, any of you will not lose my respect. Because I don't think
anyone is wrong here, you just try to insist on your faith kindly.

Best regards.



On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 9:08 AM Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I just realized that I made a mistake, and my mistake has caused people
> to strongly condemn RMS for something that he did not actually do.
>
> RMS has not yet appointed me as a co-maintainer.  To my knowledge, the
> only thing he has done so far is to *ask* me if I wanted to be appointed
> co-maintainer.  I answered "yes", but I've not yet received any further
> messages from him on this topic.  I also note that I'm not listed as a
> maintainer in the official list of maintainers.
>
> I misinterpreted RMS's question as an offer, and that was my mistake.
> The fault is mine, and mine alone.  RMS should not be blamed for it.
>
>        Mark
>
>
> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> > from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> > appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> > recent events".
> >
> > Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> > or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> > my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.
>
> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> wrote:
> > But now that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put
> > Mark back into this role without the consent of either active Guile
> > co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely
> > disappointed and I do not approve.
>
> Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> > I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
> > undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
> > semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
> > under their feet at any time.
>
>

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Jan,

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> writes:

> Mark H Weaver writes:
>
>> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
>>> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
>>> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
>>> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
>>> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release;
>>
>> The funny thing is, I don't actually have a strong opinion on this
>> particular change.
>>
>> What I *do* have a strong opinion on is that you made the decision
>> unilaterally, without discussion on the mailing list
>
> I have been worrying a bit about this change because I do not see how to
> implement it in Mes.

There's a straightforward way to translate a body containing mixed
definitions and expressions into a 'letrec*'.  It's illustrated in the
commit log, and in the manual:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?id=20535922147cd5992330962aaa5c4986563fc905
  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/tree/doc/ref/api-binding.texi?id=5284b9b9c6cecc404a912acaefce2b883ac0dbba#n284

      Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mikael Djurfeldt]

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For what it's worth:

Then I of course retract what I said about RMS not showing good leadership
by not consulting with Andy and Ludovic. I still support the initiative to
find a new governing structure for GNU. Note also that both the GNU
maintainers statement and RMS himself talk about new governing structure
for GNU (RMS by saying that there has to be good leadership when he is
gone). Maybe there is common ground here?

I also realize that I didn't answer Andy's question about the relationship
between Guile and GNU:

To me, Mike Gran's message was insightful. Read that carefully. I also note
that I'm using GNU tools every day, so it must mean something.

Best regards,
Mikael

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 3:08 AM Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I just realized that I made a mistake, and my mistake has caused people
> to strongly condemn RMS for something that he did not actually do.
>
> RMS has not yet appointed me as a co-maintainer.  To my knowledge, the
> only thing he has done so far is to *ask* me if I wanted to be appointed
> co-maintainer.  I answered "yes", but I've not yet received any further
> messages from him on this topic.  I also note that I'm not listed as a
> maintainer in the official list of maintainers.
>
> I misinterpreted RMS's question as an offer, and that was my mistake.
> The fault is mine, and mine alone.  RMS should not be blamed for it.
>
>        Mark
>
>
> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> > from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> > appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> > recent events".
> >
> > Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> > or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> > my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.
>
> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> wrote:
> > But now that I know that the truth is that RMS, as chief nuisance, put
> > Mark back into this role without the consent of either active Guile
> > co-maintainer, and without even telling them, I am extremely
> > disappointed and I do not approve.
>
> Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> > I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
> > undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
> > semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
> > under their feet at any time.
>
>

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Mikhail,

Mikhail Kryshen <mikhail@kryshen.net> writes:

> Andy,
>
> If you've long had issues with RMS, then why do you still want to be
> with GNU?  You don't have to participate in GNU to be part of the free
> software movement.  Is it that you see GNU as an important platform for
> your political activism?  Is it about donations?  Identity?  Pride?
> What is it so significant that it made you stoop to harassment and
> defamation?  Or could it be that you act purely on emotion under
> influence of the widespread moral panic?

Andy is doing what he believes is right, like so many other people in
this debate.  Let's focus on finding a way to maintain the amazing
community around Guile and Guix, and to carry forward the spirit of GNU.

Please don't impugn the character of others on this mailing list.

Best wishes

Alex

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hello,

pelzflorian (Florian Pelz) <pelzflorian@pelzflorian.de> writes:

> This is very sad.  I appreciate the enormous time investments of all
> of you for Guile.  When you make a decision, I hope you understand the
> other.
>
> Regards,
> Florian

Many incredibly thoughtful emails have been sent to the mailing list on
this subject, and I will struggle to communicate ideas any more clearly
than has been done so far.

I have enormous respect for the work that RMS carried to bring Free
Software, and indeed GNU, into the world.  It is possible to recognise
the great deeds of a person whilst realising they are flawed, like the
rest of us; or that they have also done less than desirable things.

It is possible to believe RMS has done great work, and to believe that
maybe he is not the right person to lead the FSF or GNU.  If you start a
movement, you must realise that at some point you might find yourself no
longer the leader of it.

I believe that if different people, over a long period of time, keep
expressing similar worries about a person, then we need to listen to
those people.

But all the above points are really only tangentially related to the
present conversation.  Here, we are concerned with the wonderful
community that exists right now around Guile and Guix.  And I want this
community to continue to exist, and grow and retain its momentum.

We are all responsible for the wonderful community we have here, and the
way that this debate has taken place on these lists, when compared to
others I have seen is testament to this.

As for the disagreements between the past and present maintainers, I
have enormous respect for all of you, and hope you can together come to
an agreement on how to proceed.  I do believe there is sufficient space
in our community for different perspectives.  We should always start
from a commitment to doing what's right and to ensuring our space is
welcoming to people from all walks of life.

Best wishes,

Alex

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Tadeus Prastowo]

> Sent: Friday, October 18, 2019 at 5:17 AM
> From: "Richard Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>

[...]

> Please don't ask for a fork in Guix.  Forking is not a desirable
> outcome.

Would you agree to abolish the Chief GNUisance role in favor of their proposal of having "GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project"?

Thank you.

> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

--
Best regards,
Tadeus

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Christopher Lemmer Webber]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen writes:

> Mark H Weaver writes:
>
>> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
>>> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
>>> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
>>> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
>>> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release;
>>
>> The funny thing is, I don't actually have a strong opinion on this
>> particular change.
>>
>> What I *do* have a strong opinion on is that you made the decision
>> unilaterally, without discussion on the mailing list
>
> I have been worrying a bit about this change because I do not see how to
> implement it in Mes.  I did not speak up because I believe that our
> bootstrapping efforts should not hold Guile development back.
>
>> Ludovic and I only found out about the change after the public
>> announcements had already been made.
>>
>> Can you understand why I consider this behavior to be dictatorial?
>
> Yes, I can see that now.  However, having met Andy I could not have
> imagined that something like that could have been his motivation.  It
> would be great if we all could spend some time together.
>
>> For what it's worth, despite our disagreements, I still sincerely
>> believe that you are acting in good faith, and fighting for what you
>> believe is right.  I hope that you can believe that I'm doing the same.
>
> When you left that was pretty discouraging for me: I enjoyed and much
> appreciated your recent help with the Guix bootstrap.  Thank you for
> that!  I am happy you have decided to come back.

Mark played a major role in me learning and being welcomed into both the
Guile and Guix communities so I also felt sad to see him go (especially
in Guix, where I've followed his contributions more closely than in
Guile itself).  I will also say: I don't want to see the Guile/Guix
community shaken apart.  IMO Guile and Guix have been the most positive
communities in GNU in my experience over the last 5 years; I'd like to
see it remain that way.

That said, I think there are two things that are being mixed up in here
simultaneously, and it's making the situation more confusing.  There's
the technical decision-making that Mark is upset by which, I will take
it at face value that this is why Mark wanted to come back as
co-maintainer.  There also is what appears to be what appears to be
retaliation for Andy being one of the people speaking up (I am also one,
but Andy has been more visible given his blogpost) about the governance
problems in GNU and RMS's role in them.

Again, even if Mark's concerns were more about the former issue (the
technical decisionmaking of the project, which it turns out is also a
balancing governance vs who-is-doing-the-work discussion), I think
*RMS's* action of unilaterally re-appointing Mark without notifying or
asking the other maintainers lead to the "could the rug be pulled out
from me at any time?" response many GNU developers/maintainers
(including myself) read into it.  Even if that's what Mark's concern was
(I never saw the internal GNU discussion lists), that definitely created
confusion.

Now to return to the issue of technical decisionmaking in Guile.  For
better or for worse, I think it's true that Andy is the main person
applying hack energy to the Guile codebase.  Mark, I understand your
concern that Andy hasn't communicated clearly the changes he was making
beforehand, and maybe we can improve things there.  Is there a way we
can do that without also applying "stop energy" to that work at large?
I am worried also that language such as calling someone a dictator of
Guile isn't a constructive way to go about it.

 - Chris

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Todor Kondić]

Dear Andy,

As a subscriber to the guile-user list only, I got wind of this discussion indirectly. If you already want a thorough discussion about future from the community members, perhaps including its less technical members (users) would not be such a bad idea (ie guile-user list, too). Consider it an investment.

Let me start by stating that this kind of ego shitstorm (RMS scandal, joint statement, and now Mark; oh and pardon my words ... I do write this email away from work in ten minutes that I have left until the lunch break is over, so it's kind of okay) I have not seen for ages. It was disconcerting to watch the tidal wave expanding trough the entire GNU universe, even our little galaxy.

In the discussion so far people start with platitudes about past work and then pour the worst kind of stuff over the recipient, so I'll skip that.

Now to the topic. The thing that concerns my skin the most.

Believe it, or not, after long time as an avid supporter of GNU Social movement (because this is what GNU means to me) and its core values, I am finally in a position to introduce GNU based software, including Guix and Guile into the research environment where I currently work. I have a Guix-based distro in the works which will encompass the set of tools we as a group develop and I will ship it to our collaborators and already have students using the development versions of it. There are various data processing scripts written in Guile and I can imagine the corpus growing. Isn't this amazing?

So, lets stop here and think for a moment. A month ago, free software movement was on the surface of it in a never better position. There are companies producing laptops, even phones based on fully free firmware ... i mean, i ordered a phone that will run FSF certified GNU Linux distro. This was inconceivable even just five years ago (at least to me). There are serious alternatives to proprietary communication apps, even for voip, etc.

And then, that medium article happens.

You know, there is a big IT department within our institution and telling them I will base some serious work on technologies such as GNU  Guile and Guix did raise a few eyebrows (those not raised are probably the cause of their proprietors not being informed enough).

I think the IT folk shall sooner, or later start laughing in my face. Also, I am starting to question my initial somewhat-risky decision to go the Scheme route.

So my message to maintainers: get your shit together, focus on the core values that brought all of us into this boat, understand we're all imperfect beings and lets keep working on cool stuff. Know that you have users and we're trying to expand your good work. Don't make that harder.

Couple of notes:

1) Are there any ladies on these lists? I am *dying* to hear from them
2) Related to (1) ... a brief look at the maintainers who signed the Joined Statement gives an impression that it leans heavily to the politically Western hemisphere; just a comment, maybe food for thought
3) The RMS scandal was brought to my attention by a female coder colleague who previously knew nothing of RMS's, or FSF's or GNU's work in the "Open Source Community"; another nibble for thought


Now gotta go, sorry for the long email, but I hope that knowing someone in the world tries to put your tools to practical use in
a production environment make you all understand how magic you
produce is more important than what sets us all apart.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Christopher,

Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> I think *RMS's* action of unilaterally re-appointing Mark without
> notifying or asking the other maintainers

Did you not see my recent correction about this?  I CC'd you,
but maybe something went wrong.  Please see:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00031.html

I'll respond to the rest of your post in a future message.

    Regards,
      Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

[resending with fixed headers, for proper threading]

Hi Christopher,

Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> I think *RMS's* action of unilaterally re-appointing Mark without
> notifying or asking the other maintainers

Did you not see my recent correction about this?  I CC'd you,
but maybe something went wrong.  Please see:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00031.html

I'll respond to the rest of your post in a future message.

    Regards,
      Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Christopher Lemmer Webber]

Mark H Weaver writes:

> [resending with fixed headers, for proper threading]
>
> Hi Christopher,
>
> Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
>> I think *RMS's* action of unilaterally re-appointing Mark without
>> notifying or asking the other maintainers
>
> Did you not see my recent correction about this?  I CC'd you,
> but maybe something went wrong.  Please see:
>
>   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00031.html
>
> I'll respond to the rest of your post in a future message.

Oh, I didn't see it... my mistake.  (I am in extreme email backlog mode,
but that's no excuse: I should have read the rest of the thread before
posting.)

I appreciate you clarifying this and do find that dramatically less
jarring than if there was a unilateral appointment.

 - Chris

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Thompson, David]

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 9:33 AM Christopher Lemmer Webber
<cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
>
> Mark H Weaver writes:
>
> > [resending with fixed headers, for proper threading]
> >
> > Hi Christopher,
> >
> > Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> wrote:
> >> I think *RMS's* action of unilaterally re-appointing Mark without
> >> notifying or asking the other maintainers
> >
> > Did you not see my recent correction about this?  I CC'd you,
> > but maybe something went wrong.  Please see:
> >
> >   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00031.html
> >
> > I'll respond to the rest of your post in a future message.
>
> Oh, I didn't see it... my mistake.  (I am in extreme email backlog mode,
> but that's no excuse: I should have read the rest of the thread before
> posting.)
>
> I appreciate you clarifying this and do find that dramatically less
> jarring than if there was a unilateral appointment.

Yes, this is less worrisome.  All I wish is that the maintainer team
be built on mutual respect and cooperation rather than the divine
appointments of a dictator.  I hope everyone can come to an agreement.

- Dave

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Mark,

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> RMS has not yet appointed me as a co-maintainer.  To my knowledge, the
> only thing he has done so far is to *ask* me if I wanted to be appointed
> co-maintainer.  I answered "yes", but I've not yet received any further
> messages from him on this topic.  I also note that I'm not listed as a
> maintainer in the official list of maintainers.

Thanks for clarifying, Mark.  In the current context, I, like others
here, find this action of RMS very problematic.  Far from helping
deescalate tensions, it has evidently poured oil onto the fire and moved
the conflict to Guile, which until now was a safe harbor far away from
the private GNU mailing lists.

It has also complicated our relation, though I’m happy the discussion
we’re having is helping avoid misunderstandings and misconceptions.

Ludo’.

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 11:29:35AM +0000, Todor Kondić wrote:
> You know, there is a big IT department within our institution and telling them I will base some serious work on technologies such as GNU  Guile and Guix did raise a few eyebrows (those not raised are probably the cause of their proprietors not being informed enough).
> 
> […]
> Couple of notes:
> 
> 1) Are there any ladies on these lists? I am *dying* to hear from them
> 2) Related to (1) ... a brief look at the maintainers who signed the Joined Statement gives an impression that it leans heavily to the politically Western hemisphere; just a comment, maybe food for thought
> 3) The RMS scandal was brought to my attention by a female coder colleague who previously knew nothing of RMS's, or FSF's or GNU's work in the "Open Source Community"; another nibble for thought
>


There have been few contributions from women,
e.g. <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2017-03/msg00042.html>
(I do not know what its status is), but I believe bringing GNU Guile
to professional use could help diversify.  Thank you for that!

Regards,
Florian

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mikhail Kryshen]

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Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Mikhail,
>
> Mikhail Kryshen <mikhail@kryshen.net> writes:
>
>> Andy,
>>
>> If you've long had issues with RMS, then why do you still want to be
>> with GNU?  You don't have to participate in GNU to be part of the free
>> software movement.  Is it that you see GNU as an important platform for
>> your political activism?  Is it about donations?  Identity?  Pride?
>> What is it so significant that it made you stoop to harassment and
>> defamation?  Or could it be that you act purely on emotion under
>> influence of the widespread moral panic?
>
> Andy is doing what he believes is right, like so many other people in
> this debate.  Let's focus on finding a way to maintain the amazing
> community around Guile and Guix, and to carry forward the spirit of GNU.
>
> Please don't impugn the character of others on this mailing list.

Sorry for that.  I admit, I got angry.  But I still have a point, so
let me distill it to the bare minimum of the following two
propositions:

1. Defamation is morally wrong and socially unacceptable.
2. A group of GNU maintainers participated in defamation or at least
   endorsed it.

Andy's message contains defamatory allegations.  The "joint statement"
(which is still present on guix.gnu.org) is vague, but its timing
implies strong relation to the recent defamatory media campaign, and the
signatories neither explained why they decided to do it now, nor
acknowledged it as a mistake.

Thus, I believe that the group of maintainers did a serious misconduct
which undermines trust in them and discredits the community.

And this has nothing to do with personality of RMS or his role in GNU.
Believing that RMS is bad for GNU is not an excuse for such actions.

--
Mikhail

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> From: Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>
>> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 11:33:11 -0400
>> Cc: Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>
>>
>> I'm extremely saddened to see RMS pull this move.  It seriously
>> undermines faith for maintainers of GNU projects that ther is any
>> semblance of fair governance, and that the rug can't be pulled out from
>> under their feet at any time.
>
> To reach such conclusions, we'd need to hear a first-hand report of
> what exactly did RMS and Mark say in their (presumed) off-list
> exchange.

Indeed, there was a misunderstanding.  For the record, please see:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2019-10/msg00031.html

    Thanks,
      Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Taylan Kammer]

Hello dear Guilers and Guixers,

I wholeheartedly agree with everything positive that has been said about
Guile and Guix.  Both are amazing projects led by amazing people, and
probably some of the most important components of GNU's future.  I've
been on a long hiatus due to political interests other than software
freedom stealing my focus, but I hope to return eventually.

Really, I cannot stress it enough how refreshing it is to see the levels
of rationality and kindness in the discussions here, when compared to
most other places on the Internet.

I also agree with the concerns regarding respect towards women (and
other political minorities) within the free software movement.  I'm
mostly fond of the Contributor Covenant that was adopted by Guix and
think that the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines can learn from it:

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct.html

There is only one worry that I have surrounding these topics.

It seems to have become rather widespread for people to conflate blunt
political disagreement with personal offense.  While I think there might
be a small list of political positions against which there should be a
zero-tolerance policy (such as neo-Nazism), I think it's otherwise
important to stress that adhering to a code of conduct does not require
a person to adopt political perspectives, philosophies, or worldviews
associated with the political minorities which the CoC intends to
protect from discrimination and harassment.  Expressions of disagreement
with such worldviews, as long as they are worded kindly even if bluntly,
should never be seen as an act of offense.  (Of course, discussions of
ideologies are generally off-topic, but they often arise anyway.)

The GNU Kind Communication Guidelines (GNU KCG) contain a positive
example of this.  The guidelines say that one should not use "wrong"
pronouns for a transgender person.  But a footnote then goes on to
clarify that one may, for instance, opt for gender neutral pronouns.
This effectively allows one to escape the situation of being "forced"
into using language corresponding to a worldview which one may not
personally agree with.

I think it's important to make an active effort to remain mostly
politically neutral like this, because otherwise I can only see the
community splintering.  Not only might some contributors ascribe to
worldviews that offend various political minorities; there is also
significant disagreement among groups which all consider themselves
liberal, progressive, left-wing, or whatever you want to call it.

As a concrete proposal for GNU and Guile, I would suggest to take the
Contributor Covenant, add a section about the principle of political
neutrality and that the rule-set is only concerned with discriminatory
and harassing language and not controlling people's worldviews, then
adopt it for all of GNU, or at the very least Guile and Guix.

(Oh and add "sex" to the list of things based on which one shall not
discriminate against or harass someone.  I proposed it to the upstream
author but apparently they don't believe that sex-based discrimination
is a real thing.)

Optionally, there might be a small list of ideologies which are
explicitly banned.  I would suggest: neo-Nazism, and endorsement of
child exploitation.  Although these two might as well go as unwritten
rules so I'm not sure if that's necessary.


Kind regards,

- Taylan


On 16.10.2019 15:14, Andy Wingo wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> In the last few weeks, a conversation among GNU maintainers that has
> been simmering for years burst into public.  For a while it resubmerged
> into private GNU lists, but now it has resurfaced to affect the Guile
> project.
> 
> Just for background information, I wrote about my thoughts here:
> 
>   https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu
> 
> The summary is that, like many people in GNU, I have long treated
> Richard Stallman not as a hero, not as a leader, but rather a "missing
> stair" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair) that one has to
> route around.  This approach was never very inclusive -- if you don't
> have much experience in GNU, it's possible to not know about it, and to
> fall in the hole yourself.  On the other hand if you know of RMS but not
> Guile, you might think that Guile developers support RMS.
> 
> However, recent events made me realize this approach was not only unfair
> to newcomers, but unjust as well, as by continuing to work on GNU and
> not saying anything, I was both lending unmerited prestige to RMS,
> enabling his creepy behavior towards women, and additionally, enabling
> his apparent pedophilia-advocacy.
> 
> Regarding this latter point, I wasn't really aware that this was a view
> RMS was promoting, but I am ashamed to admit that I had heard rumors
> that Richard publically advocated sex between adults and teenagers,
> defended sexual harassers, and questioned the experience of victims of
> sexual assault, and I preferred not to listen.  Looking again, and I
> think Richard's web site speaks for itself:
> 
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20170612074722/http://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html#26_May_2017_(Prudish_ignorantism)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#29_October_2017_(Pestering_women)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180104112431/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2017-nov-feb.html#27_November_2017_(Roy_Moore's_relationships)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180509120046/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-mar-jun.html#30_April_2018_(UN_peacekeepers_in_South_Sudan)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#17_July_2018_(The_bullshitter's_flirting)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180911075211/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#21_August_2018_(Age_and_attraction)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20180924231708/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-jul-oct.html#23_September_2018_(Cody_Wilson)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20181113161736/https://www.stallman.org/archives/2018-sep-dec.html#6_November_2018_(Sex_according_to_porn)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190325024048/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jan-apr.html#14_February_2019_(Respecting_peoples_right_to_say_no)
>   https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#11_June_2019_(Stretching_meaning_of_terms)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#12_June_2019_(Declining_sex_rates)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190801201704/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#30_July_2019_(Al_Franken)
>   https://web.archive.org/web/20190903050208/https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#27_August_2019_(Me-too_frenzy)
> 
> Anyway.  So far, so GNU.  A couple weeks ago I thought it an opportune
> moment to declare publicly the views that I have long held privately:
> that I do not consider RMS to be the leader of GNU, and that GNU
> maintainers and other developers with a stake in the project should
> organize to fill the void.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> I pause here to mention that you may not agree with this perspective and
> that is fine.  There are many ways that we can continue to work together
> while this discussion plays out.  Part of the purpose of this mail
> though is to make it clear that there are differences of opinion and
> that the GNU project is in flux.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> Now we get to how this issue affects Guile.
> 
> Before the RMS/GNU/FSF conversation started, Mark Weaver left Guile, for
> essentially unrelated reasons.  He threatened to leave because he wished
> to be consulted before I landed mixed definitions and expressions and
> shipped them in the 2.9.4 release; I responded over email asking to talk
> about the issues; in response a week later I see that he resigned from
> maintainership and left the Guile group on Savannah.  It was truly a
> shame for Guile, as Mark is an excellent hacker and has done a lot of
> good work for Guile.
> 
> It's true also that, mixed with the sadness, I felt a modicum of relief.
> It has never been easy to work with Mark.  I could toil on Guile for
> weeks, taking time away from my family, and then wake up to receive a
> private mail excoriating me for my work.  It was also far from the first
> time he threatened to leave the project if he did not get his way.  I
> have never let the problems between Mark and me into the public sphere
> though, preferring to preserve his reputation, and it is only out of
> necessity that I do so now.
> 
> Yesterday, on internal project-wide GNU mailing lists, Mark brought up
> his personal grievances with me, arguing that the only reason I was
> ignoring RMS was because, in his opinion, RMS is the only person that
> could stop me from being Guile Dictator For Life; that I was attacking
> Richard out of some kind of hypocritical, tyrannical megalomania.
> 
> Naturally I don't think this is the case.  We all have our problems but
> this particular one isn't mine.  It is true that when I get home after a
> long day of work and take care of my family and maybe have a precious
> half-hour or hour here or there, I usually prefer to devote it to
> retiring items from my personal Guile 3.0 to-do list, rather than
> helping others; a failing, perhaps, but not a malicious one.  I always
> tried to enable Mark's work, supporting him becoming committer, then
> maintainer, then trying to keep him on board; but evidently that was not
> enough.  Fair enough; I can't please everybody.
> 
> Still, it was with surprise that I woke up this morning to a request
> from Mark to re-join the Guile project on Savannah, saying that RMS had
> appointed Mark to become co-maintainer, and that Mark assented -- "given
> recent events".
> 
> Now, Richard has no idea about Guile or how it works either technically
> or socially, and has not consulted with me as Guile maintainer, nor to
> my knowledge did he consult with Ludovic.  I don't know what to conclude
> about RMS's motivations -- is it retaliation?  And why would Mark
> assent, especially if he professes to be scandalized by autocratic
> behavior and messianic tendencies?  I can't say as I have no more
> information than this Savannah request.
> 
> It a test, perhaps?  Mark is already aware that I do not consider RMS to
> have a leadership role in the GNU project, but although this position is
> shared by others, it is not a consensus position, and I don't think it's
> Mark's position.  Of course it goes without saying that I don't consider
> this supposed appointment of Mark as co-maintainer of GNU Guile to be
> legitimate in the least, but who else will go along with it?
> 
> And what role is Mark looking for?  Are we to have commit wars or
> something?  I would certainly hope not but I can't tell.  I don't think
> the conditions exist currently for good collaboration between me and
> Mark, so I am not sure how this will play out in the future.
> 
>                                *  *  *
> 
> I guess I shouldn't be surprised that conversation about the future of
> GNU has now reached Guile, but it is still strange to find that the
> questions of "how much pedophilia advocacy is too much pedophilia
> advocacy" or "how much creepiness towards women is acceptable" should
> have any bearing on the development of an implementation of Scheme.
> But, here we are.  The differences of position are real and we need to
> see how to go forward with them.
> 
> Perhaps this moment is an opportunity, to see where the Guile community
> stands.  In that spirit I invite Guile community members to weigh in on
> the issue.  What do you think about Guile's continued relationship with
> GNU?  What about its relationship with RMS?  Finally, what would you
> like to see happen regarding the future of Guile?
> 
> Yours in free software,
> 
> Andy
> 

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mark H Weaver]

Taylan Kammer <taylan.kammer@gmail.com> writes:
> Really, I cannot stress it enough how refreshing it is to see the levels
> of rationality and kindness in the discussions here, when compared to
> most other places on the Internet.

I tend to agree that this is generally a very friendly community.
Obviously this thread has been quite heated, but I think we're handling
it remarkably well, considering.

> I'm mostly fond of the Contributor Covenant that was adopted by Guix

I suggest that we postpone discussion of this proposal for now.  It
might create more divisions between us, at a time when we should be
focused on healing our wounds and coming together as a community.  I'd
be glad to discuss it later.

      Thanks,
        Mark

Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Nala Ginrut]

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On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 11:10 AM Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> wrote:

> It might create more divisions between us, at a time when we should be
> focused on healing our wounds and coming together as a community.  I'd
> be glad to discuss it later.
>
>
+1
I agree that let's keep friendly just like before, after all, at least in
Guile community, there're no essential conflicts among us.
Some words or proposals may be still meaningful, but maybe delay them after
we healed our wounds by these misunderstandings.
Thank you all!

Best regards.



>       Thanks,
>         Mark
>
>

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Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Taylan Kammer]

On 20.10.2019 05:08, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Taylan Kammer <taylan.kammer@gmail.com> writes:
>> I'm mostly fond of the Contributor Covenant that was adopted by Guix
> 
> I suggest that we postpone discussion of this proposal for now.  It
> might create more divisions between us, at a time when we should be
> focused on healing our wounds and coming together as a community.  I'd
> be glad to discuss it later.

Hi Mark,

Sure thing.  It seems like I was missing some context here.  I went
straight into discussing details of the CoC because I had (wrongly I
suppose) assumed that the CoC itself is not so controversial.

It should have occurred to me that there's a reason it's not in Guile
yet despite being in Guix for a while. :-)

Sorry if I threw another controversy into the mix at a bad time.

>       Thanks,
>         Mark
> 


Kind regards,

- Taylan