Re: conflicts in the gnu project now affect guile

[Mikael Djurfeldt <mikael@djurfeldt.com>]

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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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