GSC 1.0 endorsement

[Werner Koch]

Hi!

I, maintainer of the packages GnuPG and Libgcrypt,
endorse version 1.0 of the GNU Social Contract,
available at .


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner

-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.


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Re: State of the GNUnion 2020

[Jean Louis]

* DJ Delorie  [2020-02-11 23:26]:
> 
> a...@gnu.org (Alfred M. Szmidt) writes:
> > You make the incorrect assumption that the health of the GNU project
> > should be measured in how many new projects are adopted or released --
> > instead of what our goal is to provide a free operating system.
> 
> Are we DONE producing that operating system?  No?  If not, why not?

I am running here Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre system, so it exists.

And I was using GNU/Linux operating system since 1999 with success Now
it is 21 years. You may find various installable GNU versions:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

> Aren't all those developers who finished their packages working on
> other, new packages?

Isn't that up to them to decide? There is and should not be any
coercion.

> Why aren't the package counts continuing to increase, if the
> developers are otherwise unoccupied?

You are probably referring to GNU packages. You may invite those new
packages or new software to GNU, or contribute, and everybody is free
to help the GNU project, see: https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html

And if you see the FSF endorsed free operating system distributions,
as long as the free software is being distributed, the purpose is also
being fulfilled, both for FSF, as purpose for FSF is among others to
distribute free software, and for GNU project, as purpose was always
to create a fully free operating system.

> I think, package activity *is* a valid metric if the goal is "all
> packages in the OS are free."

As GNU operating system already exists, in my opinion, what should be
measured as main statistic is number of free GNU operating systems
actually installed on a computer.

That is the purpose.

However, that statistics is harder to measure. Thus what is measurable
is download statistics.

You could inquire with various free distributions about the download
statistics.

> If a set of developers finish a package, and don't start on a new
> one, I think that says something interesting about the health of GNU
> and its community.

Maybe "health" is not a proper adjective, as GNU is not a human body,
it is operating system.

In that sense, if I look only into those GNU operating systems which
are endorsed by the FSF, they are releasing and distributing free
software. Trisquel, Hyperbola, Guix, etc. they are releasing,
distributing, maintaining free software.

Then if we wish to speak by using the adjective "healthy", I see the
GNU project very healthy, there are ways to submit bugs, improvements,
close security holes... and

YOU are free to contribute to make it healthier.

Jean

Re: Endorsing version 1.0 of the GNU Social Contract

[Andreas R.]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 12:14:20PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
> 
> a...@gnu.org (Alfred M. Szmidt) writes:
> > The wiki does not represent the views of the GNU project.  Nor will it
> > be hosted on GNU infrastructure, as was made quite clear by the head
> > of the GNU project.
> 
> I think we all agree on this, and repeating it is not adding anything to
> the conversation.  The wiki has clearly been described by its creators
> as a tool for the *maintainers*.  

The wiki has been described as a tool for *all* GNU maintainers, even though
it's only available to a certain subset of GNU maintainers willing to agree 
to new stipulations that were never part of being a GNU maintainer. 

The wiki's layout is ambiguous in its branding and text. This has been pointed
out and several posts have been made to this list that mistook gnu.tools
as an official channel. Thankfully the ambiguity is being addressed as the 
wiki in some descriptions now identifies itself as the gnu.tools community. 

Until this distinction becomes more clear, pointing out the difference helps
prevent misunderstanding.

Re: about the GNU promise

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 16:32:53 -0500, nylxs wrote:
> On 2/6/20 5:36 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> The goal is to acknowledge that GNU is not the only free software
>> provider, and that the GNU Project (socially) and the GNU System
>> (technically) has to work with these other free software projects.
>
>
> That is because you fail to understand the importance of Free Software,
> because honestly, you are so corrupt and greedy that you can't be
> educated, and you can not be helped.

Personal attacks weaken your argument and are not appropriate for this
list.

And despite my disagreements with Ludo on the topics under discussion, I
very strongly disagree with your characterization of him.

-- 
Mike Gerwitz


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Re: Proposals for the new GNU/FSF relationship

[Ludovic Courtès]

Dear FSF,

In response to your call for input regarding the future of the FSF/GNU
relationship, Mark Wielaard posted proposals back in December on behalf
of several GNU maintainers:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-12/msg00026.html

To date, we have not received any feedback.

The first of these proposals was:

> * leadership
>
> We believe GNU leadership includes the GNU maintainers who should have
> this discussion together with the FSF.  That way, the FSF can support
> the GNU Project as a whole.
>
> More generally, we think it is time for the GNU Project to collectively
> define its governance structure, in a way that includes all
> stakeholders, and that the FSF should facilitate this process.

The announcement posted on February 6th on gnu.org¹ reads:

  Alex Oliva, Henry Poole and John Sullivan (board members or officers
  of the FSF), and Richard Stallman (head of the GNU Project), have been
  meeting to develop a general framework which will serve as the
  foundation for further discussion about specific areas of cooperation.

This does not include GNU maintainers who, as stewards for their GNU
packages (and for some of them also as signatories of an agreement with
the FSF for the Working Together Fund), are part of the GNU leadership
and should be equal partners.

Could you make sure GNU maintainers can take part in these discussions?

Thanks in advance,
Ludo’.

¹ https://www.gnu.org/gnu/2020-announcement-1.html


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Re: Endorsing version 1.0 of the GNU Social Contract

[DJ Delorie]

a...@gnu.org (Alfred M. Szmidt) writes:
> The wiki does not represent the views of the GNU project.  Nor will it
> be hosted on GNU infrastructure, as was made quite clear by the head
> of the GNU project.

I think we all agree on this, and repeating it is not adding anything to
the conversation.  The wiki has clearly been described by its creators
as a tool for the *maintainers*.  We all agree that official
communications go on gnu.org.  But as much as we all support RMS's
position as project head, tools that work for one person (RMS,gnu.org)
do not scale to the hundreds of maintainers (who use git,wikis,irc).

If it's important to you to declare that all communications not-from-RMS
"do not represent the views of the GNU project" you'll just spend all
your time posting on mailing lists, irc, and usenet; disclaiming every
message by every person working on any GNU package.

Disclaimer: This email does not represent the views of the GNU project.

Re: State of the GNUnion 2020

[DJ Delorie]

a...@gnu.org (Alfred M. Szmidt) writes:
> You make the incorrect assumption that the health of the GNU project
> should be measured in how many new projects are adopted or released --
> instead of what our goal is to provide a free operating system.

Are we DONE producing that operating system?  No?  If not, why not?
Aren't all those developers who finished their packages working on
other, new packages?  Why aren't the package counts continuing to
increase, if the developers are otherwise unoccupied?

I think, package activity *is* a valid metric if the goal is "all
packages in the OS are free."

If a set of developers finish a package, and don't start on a new one, I
think that says something interesting about the health of GNU and its
community.

Re: I suspect that there is no such thing as a "GNU Social Contract"

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   The wiki is free to use for all GNU Maintainers. I would like to open
   the wiki up further for others to use, but for now we're taking small
   steps.

One step would be to clarify that this wiki or the anti-social edict
are not affiliated with the GNU project.  You could even add the GNU
projects offical stance on the whole notion of the GNU social
contract.

Re: Endorsing version 1.0 of the GNU Social Contract

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

The wiki does not represent the views of the GNU project.  Nor will it
be hosted on GNU infrastructure, as was made quite clear by the head
of the GNU project.

Re: State of the GNUnion 2020

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

You make the incorrect assumption that the health of the GNU project
should be measured in how many new projects are adopted or released --
instead of what our goal is to provide a free operating system.  This
isn't a popularity contest.  It shouldn't be suprising that there will
be some kind of stagnation or decline with a very mature, and old
project like GNU.

The cadence of releases seems quite arbitrarily skewed too, there are
plenty of projects that do not make releases, and ones that have a
longer cadence of three years.

Your analysis reminds me of the old story of Methodist ministers in
New England and Cuban rum being imported to Boston.  Like that
statistical tidbit, you've really not shown anything.  

Re: about the GNU promise

[Marius Bakke]

nylxs  writes:

> That is because you fail to understand the importance of Free Software,
> because honestly, you are so corrupt and greedy that you can't be
> educated, and you can not be helped.

Please keep personal attacks out of these discussions.  I encourage you
to read again the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines at
.

Thanks.


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Re: Endorsing version 1.0 of the GNU Social Contract

[Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss)]

On 2020-02-06 09:32, Andrej Shadura wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On 01/02/2020 13:39, fredomatic wrote:

I, Frederic Y. Bois, maintainer of package GNU MCSim, endorse version
1.0 of the GNU Social Contract, available at
.

Thanks!

As the maintainer of GNU indent, I also fully agree with and endorse 
the

proposed GNU Social Contract. It’s time the GNU project followed the
lead of other free software projects and adopted one.


If were to examine, on every major project hosting site, every
project that has any sort of free software license file (GPL, MIT,
BSD, ...) in the root directory, I strongly suspect that the vast
majority of such repositories would be found without any
"social contract" document.

Therefore, if following the lead is what is important, perhaps the
project wielding these social contracts ought to be dropping them.