On 2021-03-31 17:04, Giacomo Tesio wrote:
Hi Jeff,
thanks for fixing your affiliation, but let me note that it doesn't
change a dime for the geopolitical-diversity issue that affects GCC
since before RMS joined the Steering Committee.
Not to argue counter to the observation that there is clear bias in
terms of large US and
EU corporations, but I wonder how that lines up with the affiliations of
the major
contributors over the recent past to GCC. Quickly eyeballing the output
of -
'git shortlog -s -n --all releases/gcc-9.1.0...master'
Seems to show a similar bias in participation. I don't think that's some
intentional subversive plot hatched over a decade by bigcorp.com and
bigcorp.de to undermine GNU. It reflects the economics of whose willing
and able to commit to that work as a full time undertaking.
The idea of making the SC more diverse over time, as well as what needs
to be done to improve the diversity of the community of active
contributors are important. I'm just not sure how it 'moves the needle'
on the bias toward a bigcorp.com and bigcorp.de affiliated contributors
who are paid to work on GCC full time and the SC necessarily has to
represent that constituency of contributors as well.
there to keep the faithful from wander astray.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2021 17:35:36 -0600 Jeff Law wrote:
To me, and to billions of people, this shows a huge cultural bias.
It's more historical than anything.
Power is always justified through history and it always affects history.
We are looking at how to increase diversity on the committee, but
that's a separate and distinct issue from removal of RMS.
Oh well, sure, but luckily the solution is just as fast and easy as
it was to remove RMS: pick just one person for each nationality and
remove the others.
While the GCC Steering Committee won't still be representative of all
nationalities that contributed and will contribute to GCC, you
instantly reduce the huge imbalance in the representation of the
USA interests.
I'm sure you can see how this is way more urgent than removing RMS,
since, according to the other members of the SC, he was pretty inactive
and ineffective anyway.
Once you have removed the exceeding member from the page (and the SC,
obviously) you will be able to identify new member from others
countries.
But please, HURRY UP!
RMS was just a potential treat to GCC image, but these power imbalances
on such a fundamental piece of sofware pose (and posed) a way more
severe issue and on a global scale!
People all over the world, whatever their country, should be sure to be
treated fairly and equally by the GCC leaders even if they want to
contribute something that does not match the culture or interests you
represent.
Giacomo
