Find Free Software a New Voice

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 10/08/2011 11:47 PM, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> Hi Stan, Steve,
> I think I mentioned once before, let's think about who *is* worthy to
> be the voice of Open Source rather than who who *isn't*. IMHO, RMS
> should be ignored at this point. He made great contributions in the
> past, but now it's time for a different voice.
>
>  - yba
>
You sit around discussing the matter as if you are the board of
directors of the "free software" organization. Except there is no such
organization.

We've been through this when we founded Hamakor. We aimed for it to
represent the free software movement in Israel, except this is, of
course, impossible. The free software movement in Israel is composed of
individuals committed to the idea, and they bear no obligation of any
kind to any one. All Hamakor could hope to do was to provide a voice
that the community, by and large, could agree with. I am glad and proud
to say that we succeeded in doing just that, and to a great extent
BECAUSE we were aware that nothing awards us the privileges we were
claiming, and we had to earn it.

There is a process that threatens any successful grass root movement, of
being hijacked by close but non-identical agenda. People were worried
that Microsoft might try to take over Hamakor, but looking back, that
was never a real threat. The real threat, one that will never go away,
is of someone who does not, prima facia, seem alien taking over. Just
like Greenpiece was taken over by the anti-globalization movement (which
is not the same as environmentalizm), and just like Human Rights Watch
was taken over by the anti-Israeli movement (at least in the middle east
section), Hamakor was, is, and shall (hopefully) always will be in
danger of  being taken over by similar but not identical agendas. That
is why I objected to Hamakor being too active in the anti-biometric or,
more recently, the social uprising. It's not that these are not worthy
causes. It's that these are not Hamakor's causes.

With RMS the process is stranger, because rather than have a persona
change that causes this hijacking, this is one man's inability to
distinguish between personal and organizational agendas on the one hand
(such as the Israeli visit fiasco). On the other hand, a personality
attribute that used to be an asset (his drive to do "what's right"
regardless of, well, anything) that turned, due mostly to the fact that
the very movement he founded was so successful, to a liability.

Maybe RMS should be replaced, but replaced with what? You cannot replace
him as head of the FSF. Only the FSF can, and that is, pretty much,
controlled by RMS. You cannot replace him as FOSS's spokesman, as he has
not "held" that position for quite some time (and many of the other
candidates, such as Linus, have turned out to be assholes too, on
occasions).

So we can discuss this matter as much as we want, but we did not give
RMS this position, and we can certainly not take it away.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com

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