Showing headlines posted by schestowitz

The OSI in 2020 (or even prior years; since Microsoft started paying it) is led by corporations rather than people and the Open Source Definition (OSD) no longer seems to matter

We’re led to think that after Stallman’s departure women are suddenly “safe” or “welcomed”; the truth of the matter is, Stallman was never a barrier to their acceptance and the real obstacle is women’s perception that they’re used as pseudo-political pawns

The next step towards FSF success would be mending its relationship with Richard Stallman through the GNU Project

More and more management positions at the employer of Linus Torvalds are picked up by people who receive massive salaries from Microsoft (millions of dollars)

The Linux Foundation became what it fought in a matter of a few years; it seems like a lost cause at this point and it actively harms Linux in a variety of ways

The next FSF award may be given to Richard Stallman himself; but it might also be given to a person largely responsible for ‘ousting’ Stallman, which would be catastrophic

The ‘cancel culture’ seems to be canceling people who speak about software freedom, under the guise of the real motivation being manners (when one lashes out at those who attack Free software and free speech)

Sometimes the facts speak for themselves (or pictures speak louder than words)

Surely I, being acting president and then half-acting president, must suck as a manager. I probably do indeed, but it's not so simple.

Some people try to tell me that the criticism I’ve got, inside the FSF and outside, since the Free Software Sept 11, are not about my being supportive of RMS, but about my making public statements referencing him at all.

Being cancelled is no fun. In my case, it was for standing for a friend who got canceled for defending someone else from an accusation that was later proven false.

“We simply need to make the movement less corporate, and more grassroots.”

Don’t fall for the whole “Open Source has won!” spiel; You know we’ve lost the battle (and were in effect gradually conquered) at OSI and elsewhere when those who speak for the OSI are Michael Cheng (Facebook), Max Sills (Google), and Chris Aniszczyk (Linux Foundation); they say “Open Source Under Attack” (FOSDEM talk) but their employers are the ones attacking and they downplay openwashing

The so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation (LF) nowadays helps Microsoft cement its monopoly — the very opposite of what ages ago it said the LF would do

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is rotting away as an advocate against software patents; Patents on algorithms are still being granted (even when courts repeatedly reject these) and Red Hat’s Chief Patent Counsel remains Manny Schecter, one of the loudest proponents of such patents (citing the likes of Adam Mossoff this week, in effect Koch operatives); this is a very big problem because Free software projects come under a barrage of lawsuits, using patents like those IBM lobbies ferociously to legitimise

The “OS war” may be over (Linux — typically with GNU — as de facto standard in most technical sectors including Microsoft's), so the war on this inevitable paradigm change has shifted to licensing and GitHub is a major attack vector

Microsoft’s decades-long modus operandi has been forgotten by far too many (possibly unknown to the younger generation); it’s worth reminding ourselves how it works

Free software” is a confusing name/term. The “free” here means freedom. So it is freedom software. But to exercise freedom you need something more. What is that? You have to own the software. Therefore, free software is about ownership of software.

We continue to see additional evidence which serves towards reinforcing our view that the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation is actually hostile towards many things that are associated with Linux (unlike those looking to exploit/hijack Linux for proprietary ends)

Thomas Grzybowski’s explanation of why GitHub poses a risk to software freedom and what can be done about it