This is a big crisis for the free software movement. To briefly review the past few days and weeks: ---------------------------------------------- We learned that MIT and in particular the Media Lab knowingly and secretively made itself a servant of a rich sexual predator and eugenicist. "The prestigious, high power Media Lab? That Media Lab?", one might ask. Well, by way of answer, news of the Lab's corruption in relation to Epstein eclipsed another breaking news story - the Lab's history of raising money via faked demos. That Media Lab. (h/t Dr. Sara Taber - @SarahTaber_bww on twitter - see ) An MIT alum then launched a successful media campaign promoting some falsehoods about emails RMS had sent. Among the noteworthy consequences of her effort, the media spotlight has shifted from the corruption at MIT to the false accusations against RMS. The Free Software Conservancy joined in the false media campaign, making an unsigned personal attack on RMS under the Conservancy's name. (I am also hearing a rumor that someone from the Conservancy might replace RMS at the FSF.) The Free Software Foundation has done nothing to correct the record and, curiously, is the sole source of news about RMS' resignation. A broader crisis: ----------------- My understanding of the aim of the free software movement was formed when I first became active, in the late 1980s, and when I worked, for a time, for the FSF on the GNU project in the mid-1990s. I was never as successful as I hoped in advancing the movement, but I think I did help. I believe that the aim of the free software movement is to get software freedom going *in practice*. What do I mean? I mean a huge cultural and pragmatic shift. I want everyone who uses computers to know, and to figure into their plans, that they and everyone can study the source code, modify it, run it as they see fit, and share it and their modifications. I want everyone to think of these freedoms as practical, useful options for how to solve problems. I have found that, today, if I want to explain the movement for software freedom to someone, that it useless -- even harmful -- to direct them to the FSF web site. The web site is useless for someone trying to understand what the movement is about or to get started switching to libre software tools. The web site offers no real help to developers who are trying to empower users in concrete, impactful ways. The web site content is largely obscure platitudes and self promotion. The organization, these days, seems to be largely "about" itself and nothing more. It appears to me to be falling fast into the trap of being a charity that is mainly concerned with making its executive and employee payrolls. More generally, the GNU project, the movement in general, have lost any central focus on actually getting software freedom into practice on a mass scale. We need a reboot. The historical moment: ---------------------- The climate emergency demands revolutionary change in our systems of production and distribution, rapidly, on a mass (global) scale. It therefore probably also demands significant change in our systems of governance. Software freedom, it seems to me, is tactically critical to our current needs. We need software freedom to implement massive changes to our systems of production and distribution. We need software freedom to facilitate democratized control of social communication, globally. We need that freedom because we can reasonably anticipate that no centralized system of software production and customization can keep up with the scale and scope of changes we must now make. Were the Free Software Foundation in the business of "[promoting] the development and use of free software," I would think it should be analyzing what currently blocks mass adaptation of these tools, in light of current social conditions -- and then working to cure those obstacles. We (as the movement) have lots of "pieces" - software components, minimally compromised hardware, and so forth. We are weak on easily adopted tools, on documentation, on promotion and experimentation about how to make software freedom a widespread practice - a way of solving social needs - rather than "just a theory" or "just a license". We can do it. But the FSF as it stands, and the movement as it stands, aren't helping. One idea for "what next": ------------------------- I don't think, based on the evidence so far, that we can trust the FSF or the Conservancy to "do the right thing". The intentions of the individuals who run those organizations might be good, but we see that in practice they are not doing what they ought to be doing. The occasion of RMS leaving provides several examples, as noted in part above. I think that what is needed is a second-generation GNU project, but one that is squarely focused on deploying software freedom. The original GNU project was, necessarily, focussed on cranking out programs. We needed a replacement for sed(1) and sh(1) and the C library, and so forth. The goal was to accumulate a body of source code that added up to a "complete system". Where the original project cut corners, to achieve that first essential goal, includes: 0. Failing to think collectively about the practical role of software freedom in real and present society! 1. Documentation. 2. Tutorials and training. 3. System integeration of complete systems that do useful things "out of the box". 4. Getting free software into the hands of a mass of people, and helping them get started using it and using it by excersizing their software freedom. Where the movement has got caught up or stuck in the weeds: 1. Trying to directly compete with "social media" as defined by clearly evil Silicon Valley firms. 2. Being content with obscure shit like Debian. Making a big pile of mud rather than a broadly useful tool. 3. Getting caught up in an ego/career game of projects that compete for attention and never cooperate in assembling a useful totality in service of human need. So let's renew the GNU project, but for reals. -t (aka Thomas Lord)