FSF announces guidelines for board members
The Free Software Foundation have announced today that they are implementing measures to keep board members accountable to new standards for the good of the organization. This includes a board member agreement covering general responsibilities for board members, and a code of ethics.
Their announcement email states that these documents are the "first products of a six-month, consultant-led review". The content of the documents on first sight appear very reasonable, and it will be interesting what further products will follow.
It is probably fair to say that the impetus for this review arose from the controversy surrounding FSF founder Richard M. Stallman's departure and surprising return as a board member of that organization.
FSF Adopts A Board Member Agreement, Code of Ethics For Board Members
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FSF Adopts A Board Member Agreement, Code of Ethics For Board Members
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @12:14PM (13 children)
Only one of the 13 elements of the code of ethics seems to pertain to anything Stallman did. "7. Members of the FSF's board of directors... will take seriously their position of public visibility and trust."
Most of them seem to be concerned with conflicts of interest and other "mundane," ordinary business ethics.
Have you noticed that of all the people who made use of Jeffrey Epstein's services, none of them have suffered repercussions? The only person to have suffered any retribution because of Epstein is Stallman, who as far as I know never even met Epstein, for defending Marvin Minsky, who as it turns out, never participated in Epstein's pedophilia ring.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @12:20PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @12:26PM
Leslie Wexner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Wexner [wikipedia.org] , former honcho of The Limited stores, got some blowback and lost face as well.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:05PM (8 children)
The people who made use of Epstein's services are too powerful. The normal justice system is incapable of prosecuting them. Honestly, the only way powerful political figures can ever be brought to justice is via vigilantes, ropes and trees.
Just look a Pelosi: she and her husband are infamous for insider trading. Her investigation into the need to prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks based on inside information? Of course, she found that there was no need. Nothing within the system can end her blatant corruption, because she is the system.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:27PM (5 children)
"justice is via vigilantes, ropes and trees.". Lynchings and witch-hunts are not justice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:46PM (2 children)
Agreed, vigilante justice is a quick trip to The Purge.
We all understand the sentiment, and hopefully we will one day progress enough to hold the justice system accountable for blatant corruption. It will be a long hard road and perfection will never be achieved, but it beats the pants off purge style vendettas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @12:19AM (1 child)
You're telling me we don't have vendettas NOW run by the Federal Govt against individuals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @03:43PM
They don't care about niggers and spics and drug-addicted faggots and poor people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:20PM (1 child)
Neither is letting the guilty walk free because they're too influential to convict.
One of the primary function of a justice system is to visibly deliver justice so that the victims do not feel the need to take things into their own hands, inviting vigilantism and a cycles of violence growing into never-ending feuds.
If some group puts themselves outside the reach of the justice system, then they have declared open season on themselves by the alternative.
An old saying comes to mind. Not directly applicable, but in a similar vein:
"Those who make peaceful reform impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." --JFK
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:33PM
RIP JFK. Any more questions?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:52PM (1 child)
No, the people that reelect her are.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @12:07AM
You mean the DNC?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @04:55AM
Stallman is an advocate of socialist software. Capitalist software won't be happy until his head is on a pike.
Capital is eager to use misandry and the sexual objectification of men.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @09:10AM
Stallman knew more people involved with Epstein than just Minsky, through various academic functions. Why do you think Stallman wrote that defense of pedophilia and necrophilia?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @01:05PM (2 children)
They are not newsworthy, they keep putting out lists of software tht needs to be developed without making any contribution to said development, it's just "we justify fleecing donors by claiming we do advocacy without actually producing anything of value, not even free software."
And since it's been brought up, what has Stallman produced in the last 20 years? emacs is dead, abandonware, vi (vim) won. So long suckers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:36PM
It's a good point. Sounds like the modern university structure...
1. Stack Leadership positions with Very Important People.
2. Announce things that need to be done.
3. ???
4. Non-profit
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @02:04AM
You are wrong about everything.
Except for vi - emacs has been rotting corpse for long time, and only zombie luddites pretend to use it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Saturday December 18 2021, @01:28PM (20 children)
And if Stallman is wrong, I don't want to be right!
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday December 18 2021, @02:12PM (19 children)
The tragedy of Richard Stallman is, he's both a guy who has done - and still does - sterling work for free software and for the good of us all, someone that we should all be eternally grateful for, and also someone who thinks, said and did inappropriate things, whom you don't want to be associated with.
As a public figure representing the FSF, he should be forcibly removed - even if it brings a great loss to the FSF.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @02:29PM (6 children)
Stallman IS the FSF. Without him, it is absolutely nothing... Of course, GPL finally dying in a fire would be a good thing for the sane and truly free BSD license, so maybe we should do that.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @04:12PM (4 children)
>> Without him, it is absolutely nothing.
That's not true. Stallman may have made a few contributions like writing Emacs, GCC and make, but the FSF did the heavy lifting of hiring a consultant to create a Code of Conduct.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Saturday December 18 2021, @07:29PM (2 children)
CoCs are poison and should be abolished at all places where people interact with other people.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:48PM (1 child)
Found the sovereign citizen moron! This will hopefully pain you to hear, but SN has a CoC [soylentnews.org], so you probably don't want to hang out around here anymore.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Sunday December 19 2021, @02:18PM
That's not a CoC, you cowardly twatwaffle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:39PM
One measly code of conduct? Where's the diversity statement? What about the acronymed corporate motto??? They've barely scratched the surface.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @02:41AM
Did you know that RMS is responsible for the BSD license too?
When work was underway at UC Berkley to clean the BSD unix sources of all ATT copyrighted code, Stallman repeatedly visited and urged them to release the result under a free license. He, of course, wanted them to use the anti-parasite GPL license, but he had a partial victory. While not released under the GPL, BSD was still released under free license. And, yes, the very concept of a free (libre) license originated with RMS.
The BSD license preserves the "right" to take the work of others while not offering the same opportunity to access the source code, including any changes they may have made, to their own customers/users. This is the main thing the BSD license allows that is forbidden by the GPL. I personally would not consider the BSD license when releasing my own projects. The GPL discourages parasites. But, if you want to work for free, and never even be permitted to even share the benefit of improved features added to your project by others, that is your business.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday December 18 2021, @02:45PM (3 children)
What, in particular, do you object to?
AFAIKT, all he did was rub some people the wrong way and refuse to condemn a friend based on inuendo.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @09:12AM (2 children)
Stallman has outright defended pedophilia and necrophilia, with some rather infamous opinion pieces.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @03:15PM (1 child)
Those are hardly extreme views among hard progressives these days. A professor recently got in hot water over his defense of the former, for instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:05PM
He loves freedom too damn much.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday December 18 2021, @04:49PM (2 children)
I bet you could say roughly the same things about Batman. Just saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:44PM (1 child)
Well, let's try.
The tragedy of Batman is, he's both a guy who has done - and still does - sterling work for free software and for the good of us all, someone that we should all be eternally grateful for, and also someone who thinks, said and did inappropriate things, whom you don't want to be associated with. As a public figure representing the FSF, Batman should be forcibly removed - even if it brings a great loss to the FSF.
I'm not feeling it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @01:08AM
I'm Toejam!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @01:15AM
He speaks the truth when it is unpopular. That is the only 'inappropriate' thing he says, thinks, or does, and it is his single most important contribution to the FSF. His opponents spread innuendo against him because he lives in his office and has an off-beat sense of humour, but those aren't wrong Removing him from the FSF because of non-conformity would utterly destroy the organization, because that is the goal of the ones seeking his removal. They are the ones who should be forced out, not him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @01:32AM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:58AM (2 children)
So is Windows7. And almost every game ever made after a couple years.
Software is like DNA. Threads of it pass on and survive but every single implementation dies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @01:36PM (1 child)
Seriously? Emacs is abandonware, and nobody has released a new, improved version in a couple of decades. Games? There are plenty that have newer sequels to older releases. Windows? There was Vista, 8x, 10 will be around for years to come.
The lack of users of emacs says it all. There's no urge to work on it because nobody is using it. As for the FSF, exactly what has it done of any real-world consequence in the last few years? Aside from self-important press releases in an attempt to raise their profile and money to run the FSF?
They're wannabe toll booth collectors, milking the open source movement for personal gain, nothing more. It's like the old joke - The road is paid for - why are you still collecting tolls? To pay to run the toll booths. Both the FSF and Stallman could die tomorrow and it would be of zero consequence going forward. Life and events have passed them by. They're simply not relevant any more, same as emacs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @12:22AM
This is a shame because vi is fundamentally inferior in basic design to emacs.
Really, a more archaic editor you couldn't imagine.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Sunday December 19 2021, @02:00AM (1 child)
None of the ethics guidelines pertain to the importance of making information free. I can admit to seeing the value in preventing conflicts of interest or abuse of power over employees, but isn't open source itself an ethically founded position? That unnecessary restrictions on information causes harm to all, with the mechanics of software as no exception?
"Board members will take reasonable measures to protect the freedom of access to software source code" wouldn't be putting an undue burden on anyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @01:41PM
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Monday December 20 2021, @04:24AM (1 child)
As far as I can see, Codes of Conduct are simply weapons to be used by politically oriented members of an organisation against their enemies. The less precise they are the more flexible a weapon they become. RIP FSF
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @02:25PM
At FSF events, the Board of Directors published a CoC. When people outside the Board of Directors violated the code, they were removed. When people on the board violated the code, nothing was done. People resigned from the FSF over this. If the Board didn't like their own CoC, they could change it. There is no excuse for this.