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Re: A GNU “social contract”?


From: Jean Louis
Subject: Re: A GNU “social contract”?
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:23:31 +0100
User-agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13)

* Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> [2020-01-04 10:01]:
> Hello Mark,
> 
> On Thu, Jan 02, 2020 at 01:42:13PM +0100, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> > > Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org> skribis:
> > > > Yes, I believe we are nitpicking at this point. And we do seem to
> > > > agree. But if we are nitpicking anyway, then I would keep it short and
> > > > to the point. Shorter is better:
> > > >
> > > >   The GNU Project adopts policies that encourage and enable developers
> > > >   to actively defend user freedom.  These policies include using
> > > >   /copyleft licenses/, designed to ensure that users’ freedoms cannot
> > > >   be stripped off, when appropriate.
> 
> this looks very good to me now! The paragraph posed problems since we tried
> to define a consistent policy, and our current practice is somewhat ad-hoc,
> with a few exceptions when there are good reasons. I think your text captures
> the spirit better, and allows for concrete policies to potentially be defined
> elsewhere.

That GNU project does not need "social contract" has already been
discussed and is off-topic in my opinion, it has not been adopted by
RMS, and there is nothing you can do about it. Your attempts to take
over GNU project are futile. So I don't see why you spend so much
energy, I don't believe that your motivation has good intentions, I am
sorry.

In regards to any kind of policy changings or enforcing, you cannot
impose new policies that are contradictory to previous policies, that
does not work in any organization.

Your "social contract" as attempt of hostile take over of the GNU
project in itself is very poor, it is not eloquent, authors did not
take care of definitions and writing, it is too general, not specific,
it is creating mess, not order.

Example is that you wish to impose GNU GPL licenses only for free
software, while GNU project acknowledges other free software licenses
and may recommend them for certain type of works, please see:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

> > Thanks. Attached is an updated version and a diff with this change and
> > a few other small nitpicks mainly aimed at making the text more
> > concise.
> 
> Great, this all looks good to me.

Imagination is free and does not require any licenses.

The fact is that "social contract" is not necessary and not welcome in
GNU, as it is successful project in itself that caused thousands of
other projects to come into existence for reasons that it did not have
any coercion over individuals like your "social contract" imposes. It
is for reason that GNU project allowed individuals to contribute in
the way and manner how those individuals decided to be, and GNU
project never discriminated by any reason, even if those maintainers
or programmers have been programming proprietary software in their
free time, or have been supporting "open source" branding of software
that has the agenda to promote corporations and not freedom. So it
does not matter in GNU project who is who, everybody is welcome to
contribute.

Lack of a "social contract" is the feature of GNU project.

Jean



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