Re: Turning GNU into a bottom-up organization

[Samuel Thibault]

Alfred M. Szmidt, le dim. 27 oct. 2019 13:55:59 -0400, a ecrit:
> > > The only way tackle non-free software is to explicitly reject it, at
> > > all times.
> >
> > Then we can write that in a GNU social contract, instead of having to
> > rely on stubborn governance.
> 
> Yet again, you argue that we should have a weaker governance -- that
> "stubborn governance" is what is needed to keep things free.  If
> anything, we should have even more stubborn goverance -- and that can
> only be done by a trusted group of people that are willing to uphold
> the values of the GNU project -- not something a community can do.

It's something the Debian community did do, precisely by having its
developers write down, when applying, that they are willing to uphold
the values of the Debian project (its social contract) before giving
them upload rights. The Debian community did not do what *you* would
want, but it did what was defined in its social contract.

> By ignoring that Debian failed to achive a 100% free software system

It did achieve a 100% free software system according to *its* standard,
which is defined in its social contract. The fact that you would define
it another way is irrelevant to that fact. Debian's social contract
does define it in a different way than yours, yes. And that is what
the commmunity enforced, and it did not fail to do so: the main Debian
archive only contains free software and some references to non-free
software. That is what was promised, and that is what Debian achieved,
without the need for one stubborn head at the top.

> > Writing down the MUSTs to have the community enforce it
> > collectively is better than needing somebody with a stick.
> 
> We already have that written down in the form of the philosophical
> sections on the GNU web pages. No?

Again, see 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-10/msg00002.html

Samuel