Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 10:08 AM Nathan Sidwell <nathan@acm.org> wrote:
>
> You, the SC, have chosen to fix this as a clerical error.  The most
> do-nothing response, other than actually doing nothing.
>
> I am profoundly disappointed that you have not even acknowledged the
> harm RMS has caused.  Using passive voiced 'RMS was added' phrasing.
> You're not explicitly saying that was incorrect, and neither are you
> saying it was correct.   Your language attempts to distance you from
> your choices.
>
> 'we no longer feel the listing serves the best interest'.  'Therefore,
> we are removing him from the page FULLSTOP'. Well, at least that's not
> passive voice, but it is a milque-toast response.   You're not removing
> him from the SC, merely removing mention of him from the listing.
> You're not adding words to the website mentioning this historical
> ambiguity/error/misjudgement (you'd say if you were, right?).  You're
> not adding words acknowledging that RMS's involvement has been
> detrimental and repelled contributors.  Nor are you apologizing.  You're
> not owning your mistake.  You just hope the problem will silently go
> away.  The problem will not go away.
>
> /You/ involved RMS in SC discussions.  /You/ treated him as a member
> thereof.  /You/ gave him controlling rights.
>
> You have misled the majority of GCC developers, and the wider community
> by doing so.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like
> a duck, it's a duck.  (As compiler developers for duck-typed languages,
> you should understand that.)
>
> You involved RMS prior to 2012, and continued to do so after.  Including
> after 2019 when he was no longer at the FSF.  Two instances I personally
> know of:
>
> 1) Sometime around 2005? maybe later, I lobbied to change gcc's
> implementation language to C++.  I failed because I'm lazy and learned I
> was arguing against an RMS effective veto.  (I learned this because Mark
> Mitchell informed me that some SC members were also pushing back against
> RMS's opposition to C++.  I was not privy to the actual SC discussion.)
>   If he was not an SC member, why was he even in that private
> conversation?  The public ML would have been more appropriate place for
> non-SC opinions to be voiced.  Just think, we could have transitioned to
> C++ earlier than we did, if it were not for the SC's inclusio of RMS.
>
> 2) Last year, I asked for libcody to be added as a subcomponent, with
> its Apachev2 license intact.  AFAICT RMS was involved in that licensing
> discussion, /for which I never received a response/.  He was not at the
> FSF then, so he could not render any FSF licensing opinion.  Why was he
> involved?  If he was not involved, how did he learn of it in order to
> ask me questions about C++ modules?  I only emailed the SC and the
> timing is too coincidental to draw a different conclusion.
>
> Interactions I've had with the SC, beyond maintainer appointment, seem
> to run into RMS.  (In the original email I mentioned a third interaction
> about RMS's position on the SC, which didn't do so, but also was
> decidedly one way.)
>
> You, the SC, do not state that you will not continue to involve RMS in
> discussions, just as you have done for the past 20 years.  You merely
> feel the listing is unfortunate.
>
> Your final paragraph is the corporate BS of hollow men.  Nice words, no
> specific actions.
>
> Richard Biener pointed out dysfunction in the SC.  The case of the
> missing question I asked in 2019 also points to that.  This response
> gives me no confidence that things will materially change.  I call for
> the dissolution of the SC, replacing it with a more open, functional and
> inclusive body (which includes, nothing).
>
> nathan
>
> FWIW, I am surprised that you, the SC, chose to respond only to the
> mailing list, and not CC me, the original complainant, of your decision.
>   Perhaps that seems petty, but it is personally insulting.


Nathan, you are clearly angry and frustrated.  I'm sorry about that.

I'm going to give some of my own personal opinions.  I'm not at all
speaking for the committee, and other committee members may disagree.

The steering committee is just a bunch of GCC hackers who originally
self-organized to manage the EGCS fork.  As it says at
https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html, "committee members were chosen to
represent the interests of communities."  I was not on the steering
committee at the time, but I was somewhat involved with thinking about
who should be, and that statement accurately describes what we were
trying to do.  The intent was to ensure that when decisions were made
that covered the GCC project as a whole, all interested groups would
have a representative.

In practice the steering committee makes few decisions.  Naturally,
members of the committee work to improve GCC in various ways.  That
work almost never involves any sort of steering committee discussion.

I think you want the steering committee to issue a statement about
RMS's behavior.  I think that is approximately as likely as collecting
the GCC maintainers together to issue a statement about RMS's
behavior.  It's not impossible.  But it's not something anybody is
really trying to do.

Speaking for myself, personally, I will say that RMS has harmed
people, and he has to the best of my knowledge never acknowledged that
harm.  As such he should not be in a leadership position of any
organization.  The FSF should not have put RMS back on the board.  And
RMS should not be in a leadership position for GCC in particular.


Going back to the GCC steering committee, you make several accusations
(I think that is a fair word to use here).  Again I'm going to give my
own personal reactions.  I'm telling the truth to the best of my
recollection, but I can't prove what I say.


> /You/ involved RMS in SC discussions.

Yes, we did.  He never actually said anything in any discussion that
he did not start himself, but he was CC'ed.

> /You/ treated him as a member thereof.

Yes, we did.  He never actually voted on anything, and I don't know
what we would have done if he had, but he was treated as a member.

>  /You/ gave him controlling rights.

No, we didn't.  The pattern of his interactions with the steering
committee, which were infrequent, was that he would ask us to do
something, and we would explain why we were not going to do that.


> You have misled the majority of GCC developers, and the wider community
> by doing so.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like
> a duck, it's a duck.

Sorry, I don't quite understand this one.  It's not clear to me how
the committee misled anyone.


> 1) Sometime around 2005? maybe later, I lobbied to change gcc's
> implementation language to C++.  I failed because I'm lazy and learned I
> was arguing against an RMS effective veto.  (I learned this because Mark
> Mitchell informed me that some SC members were also pushing back against
> RMS's opposition to C++.  I was not privy to the actual SC discussion.)
>   If he was not an SC member, why was he even in that private
> conversation?  The public ML would have been more appropriate place for
> non-SC opinions to be voiced.  Just think, we could have transitioned to
> C++ earlier than we did, if it were not for the SC's inclusio of RMS.

I wasn't on the committee at the time so I don't know what happened.
But honestly, as one of the main people who got GCC to convert to C++,
I don't think it could have happened any earlier.  For several years
at the GCC Summit, later the GNU Cauldron, I asked for a show of hands
for how many GCC developers were willing to convert to C++.  There
were strong and significant objections from numerous maintainers long
after 2005.  Certainly there were significant objections when I made
my presentation at the GCC Summit in 2008.  In 2010 the steering
committee (which I was not on at the time) approved the use of C++ for
GCC.  Even then it took several more years to make the switch.

So, yes, if RMS's concerns were the only reason that the steering
committee did not permit using C++ for GCC In 2005, that was wrong.
He should not have had a veto on GCC internal decisions.  But we
should not extrapolate from that to think that anything would have
happened differently on the technical side.

> 2) Last year, I asked for libcody to be added as a subcomponent, with
> its Apachev2 license intact.  AFAICT RMS was involved in that licensing
> discussion, /for which I never received a response/.  He was not at the
> FSF then, so he could not render any FSF licensing opinion.  Why was he
> involved?  If he was not involved, how did he learn of it in order to
> ask me questions about C++ modules?  I only emailed the SC and the
> timing is too coincidental to draw a different conclusion.

Yes, we definitely dropped the ball on that.  Sorry.  If that ever
happens again I would encourage you to ping.

I checked the mailing list archives.  Jeff and I expressed support for
using libcody.  Nobody else said anything.  Certainly RMS didn't say
anything, and it would have been astonishing if he had.  But, yes, he
was CC'ed.


> Richard Biener pointed out dysfunction in the SC.  The case of the
> missing question I asked in 2019 also points to that.  This response
> gives me no confidence that things will materially change.  I call for
> the dissolution of the SC, replacing it with a more open, functional and
> inclusive body (which includes, nothing).

I'm fine with that in principle.  But it's like everything else with
GCC, and with free software in general: someone has to do the work.
We can't literally replace the SC with nothing, at least not unless we
do a much bigger overhaul of the GCC development process: someone has
to decide who is going to have maintainership rights and
responsibilities for different parts of the compiler.

Again, I'm sorry for the ways in which the steering committee has made
you feel angry and frustrated.

Ian