[rms at gnu dot org: What's GNU -- and what's not]

[ams at gnu dot org (Alfred M. Szmidt)]

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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 18:26:51 -0500
From: "Richard Stallman (Chief GNUisance)" <rms@gnu.org>
To: rms@gnu.org
Subject: What's GNU -- and what's not
Message-ID: <20200204232649.GA446@gnu.org>
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The GNU Project is sending this message to each GNU package 
maintainer.

You may have recently received an email asking you to review a
document titled "GNU Social Contract" and then to endorse it or reject
it.  It does not entirely accord with the GNU Project's views.  It was
created by some GNU participants who are trying to push changes
on the GNU Project.

The message also proposed to "define" what it means to be a "member of
GNU", and cited a web page presented as a "wiki for GNU maintainers",
It may have given the impression that they were doing all those things
on behalf of the GNU Project.  That is not the case.  The document, 
the
wiki, and the proposed idea of "members" have no standing in the GNU
Project, which is not considering such steps.  The use of a domain not
affiliated with GNU reflects this fact.

GNU package maintainers have committed to do work to maintain and add
to the GNU system, but not anything beyond that.  We have never
pressed contributors to endorse the GNU Project philosophy, or any
other philosophical views, because people are welcome to contribute to
GNU regardless of their views.

To change that -- to impose such requirements -- would be radical,
gratuitous, and divisive, so the GNU Project is not entertaining the
idea.  Likewise, we will not ask package maintainers to be "members"
instead of volunteers.  If you contribute to GNU, you are already a
member of the GNU community.

The wiki that they set up "for GNU maintainers" represents them, not
the GNU Project.  People are always free to publish what they think
the GNU Project should do, but should not presume it will be accepted
or followed by the GNU Project.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)


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