Re: Proposals for the new GNU/FSF relationship

[Jean Louis]

* Andrej Shadura <andrewsh@debian.org> [2020-01-02 17:31]:
> On 27/12/2019 10:39, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> > As volunteers for the GNU Project we are happy that the FSF provides GNU
> > with services like fiscal sponsorship, technical infrastructure,
> > promotion, copyright assignment, and volunteer management.  And we note
> > that the FSF is looking for feedback on this relationship going forward:
> > 
> >   https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-gnu
> > 
> > To that end we have held discussions with other GNU maintainers,
> > developers and other contributors, drafting a GNU mission statement and
> > social contract, identifying stakeholders, delegation models and
> > consensus based decision making.  We would like to share some of the things 
> > we
> > believe should happen to improve the shared understanding of the
> > relationship for the future of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU
> > Project.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As a fellow GNU maintainer of indent, and also a Debian Developer, I
> welcome these public discussions about the relationship between the FSF
> and the GNU project and GNU governance in general.
> 
> I cannot participate in these discussions myself since there’s already
> too much on my plate, but please continue these discussions, they will
> benefit GNU, FSF, Debian and the free software and open source community
> as a whole.
> 
> Thanks for doing this hard work.

Sure, I understand your point.

I do not necessarily agree.

Debian distribution is not endorsed by FSF for reasons explained here:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

Best way to help is not just listen to participation here which is out
of its context, as it was not meant to be public so far I know; but
rather to file bug report in Debian GNU/Linux for provision of
non-free software, which is contradiction to Debian policies. That way
you would better help free software philosophy to take its place in
Debian community.

Other issue:

Helping the "open source" community was not ever the purpose of the
GNU project. In fact "open source" is terminology that free software
supporters rather avoid, as it is hiding the issue of freedom, it was
made intentionally to sell software and promote "better software" for
sake of corporations and their income, which is fine in itself, but it
was hiding free software philosophy to users.

Boxes of "Linux" were sold intentionally avoiding the word "GNU". GNU
GPL licenses were printed so small that one could not read them, would
give up on reading them. Proprietary software was and is still mixed
with non-free to prevent duplication of DVDs on which they are
distributed. So no, GNU project was never about "open source"
community and will never be. Please see:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point

Could you file a bug in Debian and remove the non-free repositories?

Jean