GCC association with the FSF

[Gabriel Ravier]

On 4/8/21 6:43 PM, Christopher Dimech via Gcc wrote:
>> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2021 at 3:00 AM
>> From: "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com>
>> To: "Jonathan Wakely" <jwakely.gcc@gmail.com>, "David Malcolm" <dmalcolm@redhat.com>
>> Cc: "GCC Development" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>, "Mark Wielaard" <mark@klomp.org>
>> Subject: Re: GCC association with the FSF
>>
>> On 07/04/2021 19:17, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc wrote:
>>> On Wed, 7 Apr 2021 at 15:04, David Malcolm wrote:
>>>> For myself, I'm interested in copyleft low-level tools being used to
>>>> build a Free Software operating system, but the "GNU" name may be
>>>> permanently tarnished for me; I have no wish to be associated with a
>>>> self-appointed "chief GNUisance".  I hope the FSF can be saved, since
>>>> it would be extremely inconvenient to have to move.
>>> This matches my feelings. If the FSF can be saved, fine, but I don't
>>> think GCC needs to remain associated with it.
>>>
>>> If the GNU name is a problem, rename the projects to be simply "GCC",
>>> "Glibc", "GDB" etc without being an initialism.
>>>
>> It should remain an acronym, but it should now stand for "GCC Compiler
>> Collection".  That allows the project to be disassociated from the GNU
>> name while still subtly acknowledging its heritage.
>>
>> I am a gcc user, but not a developer or contributor.  I think it is
>> important to appreciate the good RMS has done for the software world,
>> and to accept history as it has happened rather than how we wish it had
>> been.  But going forward I don't think any project or organisation has
>> anything to gain by association with RMS, but will have much to lose.
>> To a large extent, he has done his job - the free and open source worlds
>> are now far too big and well-established to fail easily.  The time for
>> fanaticism, ideology and childish (ref. "Chief GNUisance") and
>> anti-social leadership is over - pragmatism, practicality and
>> cooperation are the way of the future.  It is time for the FSF to say to
>> RMS, "Thank you for all you have done.  Now move over for the next
>> generation, have a happy retirement, and please don't spoil the future
>> for the rest of us".  (We still need a few ideologists involved, to
>> remind us of important principles if anyone strays too far.  It's like a
>> healthy democratic parliament requiring a few representatives from the
>> greens, communists and other niche parties - you just don't want them
>> running the show.)
>>
>> For me as a person, I cannot condone certain aspects of RMS' behaviour.
>>   I strongly disapprove of "proof by accusation and rumour" or "trial by
>> public opinion", but there is enough documented evidence in his own
>> publications and clearly established personal accounts that no one can
>> be in doubt that his attitudes and behaviour are not acceptable by
>> modern standards and are discouraging to developers and users in the
>> FOSS community.  (And yes, I mean FOSS here, not just free software.)
>>
>>  From a practical viewpoint, I am concerned that opinions about him will
>> spread.  If the gcc project is not disassociated from anything involving
>> RMS, I fear the project will suffer from that assosiation, no matter how
>> unfair it may be.  At some point, someone in the public relations
>> department at IBM, Google, Facebook, ARM, or other big supporters of the
>> project will get the impression that the FSF and GNU are lead by a
>> misogynist who thinks child abuse is fine if the child consents, and
>> will cut off all support from the top down.  The other companies will
>> immediately follow.  The gcc lead developers like Ian, Jonathan, Joseph
>> and Nathan will be given the choice of leaving gcc or leaving the job
>> that puts food on their tables.  gcc is not a hobby project run by
>> amateurs in their free time - it is a serious project that needs
>> commercial backing as well as the massive personal dedication it receives.
> If RMS in not indispensable, Ian, Jonathan, Joseph and Nathan are likewise
> not indispensable.  Someone could that over and make their own project and
> lead it how they wish.  There are many projects where the original author
> knows best where to lead.  Classic examples include medical project Gnu
> Health and my project.  Although can also mess a project up, mistakes are
> allowed.  Einstein did not get his ideas from committees, neither did Stallman.
> At work, I have never encountered any committee that done me any good.

RMS is not indispensible because he does not contribute to GCC and 
doesn't bring much to it, and otherwise takes more away from it. If you 
were to remove all of Ian, Jonathan, Joseph and Nathan you would be 
removing ~13% of active contribution to GCC (counting in commits). If 
you also remove all the major contributors that are from corporations 
(counting a major contributor as someone with 10 or more commits), 
you're removing ~63% of active contribution. If you also remove the 
major organizations contributing to GCC, like Adacore and the GDC 
project, you're removing ~18% more of active contribution, meaning 
you're left with 19% of active contribution. While I do not doubt that 
all of the contributors that would remain are talented individuals, GCC 
would undoubtedly, in the best case, heavily suffer from the loss of 3 
to 4 fifths of active contribution and become much less appealing as a 
compiler, and in the worst case simply die out. While each of the 
individuals forming any of those groups aren't indispensable, as a 
group, they certainly are indispensible to GCC unless you think GCC can 
really survive with 3/5 times less contributions to it.


> A good book to read is Maskell's "The New Idea of a University".
> If some think serious maintainers care about some public relations
> group at IBM, Google, or Facebook, they are highly mistaken.  I
> don't care.
>
> Stallman can think whatever he likes.  There exist many valid opinions
> on questions like exactly how young people can be to get married or be
> depicted in pornography.  New Hampshire law allows 13 year olds to get
> married.  The only problem is that many western people are too far
> freaked out in relation to children, sex, and colonial guilt.
>
>> It is my opinion - entirely personal, and as a long and happy user
>> rather than a developer, and not speaking for my company or anyone else
>> - that gcc would be a stronger project if it were to separate from the
>> FSF and GNU.  It should have a "board of directors", or steering
>> committee, or something similar - but these should be selected
>> democratically and openly in some manner, perhaps by votes from major
>> contributors and/or subproject maintainers.  This board or committee
>> could have representatives from the gcc developers, from major
>> commercial contributors, from major users (Linux kernel people, Debian
>> folk, etc.), from target manufacturers (Intel, ARM, etc.), from ordinary
>> users - in short, it should represent the people who have most interest
>> in the future success of the project.
>>
>> It might also make sense to gang together with other important toolchain
>> projects, such as the binutils folk.
>>
>>
>> David Brown
>> (A mostly happy embedded gcc user.)
>>
>>
-- 
_________________________
Gabriel RAVIER
First year student at Epitech
+33 6 36 46 16 43
gabriel.ravier@epitech.eu
11 Quai Finkwiller
67000 STRASBOURG