Re: delete abortion joke

[Don Barry <don at sirtf dot com>]

I support, 100%, Richard Stallman in this.  Let me explain why.

Those who insist on "consensus" and "democracy" may or may not be
well-intentioned, but the devil is very much in the details.

My guess is that none of those criticizing Richard here are actually
members of the FSF.  Yes, they are employed to work on FSF projects, but
their decision was made by corporate interests, not by solidarity with
the interests on the principles upon which the FSF was founded.

What does it mean to let "democracy" among this much broader layer of
people non-aligned with the FSF prevail?  It means effectively, a
rejection that FSF represents something more than simply the pragmatic
advantage of software with source code available.  It means,
realistically, dissolving the Free Software Movement into the "Open
Source" domain, which was, if we are to be honest, was a *reaction
against*, and not a friendly alliance with, the free software ethos.

If there is to be democracy, it should be within those who signed on to
the FSF for its mission, and who see there's a component to its work
beyond that of simply providing a base of software for corporations to
build upon and profit from.

The "threats", such as they are, to fork glibc are no different from
various other projects which have emerged that are hostile to the FSF,
and who see the body of work which emerged from its efforts of many
years as fruits they would love to take, but which are saddled,
unfortunately in their eyes, with such things as the GPL and its Golden
Rule base.  They cannot repudiate the GPL, of course, but they could,
with a sufficient independent period of stewardship, effectively neuter
it through assurances that no actual enforcement was likely, and in any
event divorce it from the larger body of advocacy which the FSF has
engaged in.

I have run GNU software since the early 1980s.  I was deeply moved by
the GNU Manifesto, and though I see the necessity, as a socialist, to go
even deeper into the structure of society to realize its aims, those
aims are ones in which I am in full agreement, as far as they go.  I
have seen others arrive to take and benefit from the GNU world over many
years, with a certain gleam of how they could profit from GNU software,
with little thought to the overall ethos that made it possible in an
earlier epoch that did not have broad industrial contribution.  And I've
seen industrial contributors, tied by profit and its thousands of
threads, enter as the majority contribution for some central GNU
projects, but without the slightest interest, and even some hostility
to, the GNU mission.

As to the language of "safe spaces" and "triggering" that have been used
to float the idea of an expropriation (or failing that, a neutering of
the role of RMS), that's plainly political cover, chaff to obscure the
hostility to RMS and the FSF.  Identity politics, in alliance with
postmodernism, has a long right-wing history, promoted deeply by the
Democratic party, to weaken actual "left" thought.  In reality, what is
being proposed is the compartmentalizing of people's prejudices as a
social good, including prejudices against the founding principles of the
GNU projects, by declaring any mention of those principles, or even
statements vaguely in line with them, "triggering" and thus to be
expunged.

What does it say when a certain layer declares unacceptable the
elementary and even rather banal defense of rights like abortion through
satire which is so trivial that it hardly requires a defense?  There
isn't the slightest progressive content in their criticisms.  It is
unashamedly and unabashedly right-wing.