Dear Giacomo,
I want to reply specifically to you because you, like me, are a
new contributor, and I have a few questions and a few points that I
think are salient in this discussion.
> As an Italian I'm having a hard time trying to follow your reasoning
> about Stallman being a problem to attract new talents.
>
> I could understand such statement if he had committed actual crimes,
> was legally persecuted, processed and condemned like Reiser.
>
> But while I try, I cannot really understand why you think that his name
> in the Steering Committee would drive away people from contributing GCC
The first is that I don't want to get into the conversation about
how the FSF handles Stallman. Other than them having my Copyright
assignment (something I also need to take a look at), the FSF does not
write the code. GCC's contributors, like you and me, do. My biggest
problem with Stallman right now is not about whether or not he likes
US-ians or if he's a good person:
My problem is Dr. Richard M. Stallman stands credibly and
factually accused of Doxxing and GCC contributor/participant and
knowingly manipulating the project for his own personal reasons.
When I say this, I want to be clear: when Mark sent his e-mail I
followed up with multiple GCC contributors to determine how factual
his claim actually was. Multiple people have independently
corroborated that Stallman did what Mark said, and worse, and their
quotes of Stallman's words line up word-for-word. In fact, what
Stallman did was worse than what Mark described, and has happened
multiple times before. Stallman is willing to attack and engage in
cancel culture of his own contributors. What his reasons are, I don't
know and I do not want to know: my bottom line here is that Stallman
is a danger to GCC contributors and is harmful to them.
I make no argument based on my ethnicity, skin color, which side
of the globe I come from. Dr. Stallman's demonstrated behavior is that
he can - and WILL, and HAS - shown up into places where he has very
little to offer technically and utterly derailed or otherwise harmed
individuals or peoples **and their code contributions**.
So, it boils down to this for me: either GCC is a place where all
contributions are welcome, or GCC is a place of hypocrisy, where
contributions are welcome except when Stallman (or someone else in a
position of power) lobbies a non-technical, non-factual argument
against you and jumps from their high tower to slam down on
rank-and-file contributors and participants. You cannot have it both
ways.
That is why I switched from "wait and see" to "absolutely not".
I am not going to wait for the day somebody high up enough on the GCC
ladder doesn't like me enough to decide that he's going to
shoulder-slam my contributions with non-technical claptrap, nor am I
going to recommend other people to this project if anyone can do that
to them. Which brings me to another important point...
> I do not really know if the removing Stallman from the Steering
> Committee would attract more US people in GCC development. Or if it
> would attract more US people that now prefer to work in LLVM only
> because of they feel somehow bad working with Stallman in the SC.
>
>
> But I can assure you that, as Pankaj Jangid said before me, many many
> people are attracted to GCC, as users and developers, BECAUSE of
> Stallman presence, because they know that something like this
> https://medium.com/@giacomo_59737/what-i-wish-i-knew-before-contributing-to-open-source-dd63acd20696
> will not happen to them.
>
>
> World wide, people do not LIKE Stallman, but we TRUST him on this.
> Just like the GPLv3, RMS is not perfect, but it does ONE THING well.
You state it here and many others say it throughout the thread
that Stallman is the only reason they contribute to GCC, or similar
Free Software projects. This deeply concerns me, because the
underlying implication is if that Stallman were to disappear, right
this second, all of you would be gone. Yet, on the other hand, we say
that this is the "Free Software MOVEMENT". A movement cannot be
destroyed because one person disappears; if that is the case, it is
not a movement, but a ring of personality around an individual. Either
this is a Free Software Movement, or this is Stallman's Free Software
Shindig. I contribute to GCC because I expect that when Stallman is
gone and I am Stallman's age, there will still be a Free Software
Movement. Stewarded by the FSF or the CNCF or the {insert gathering of
like-minded OSS contributors and enthusiasts and hard workers here}.
Is this not the case for you and others?
If Stallman is the only thing holding this movement together, I
would like to know this now so I can invest my time in an actual
movement elsewhere, independently of whether or not he remains on the
Steering Committee. (I still believe he has no place to have a
position of power on the Steering Committee, and instead should just
be a normal contributor, like everyone else, because he has proven he
is irresponsible and dangerous with such power.)
Sincerely,
JeanHeyd
