commit: 08ba93630a03ef364581eb8e2e102388801a7034
parent db8cf886f742da56950d51fdabdda3982a6ba4bb
Author: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:35:42 +0200
The FSF is dying
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+---
+title: The Free Software Foundation is dying
+date: 2023-04-11
+---
+
+The Free Software Foundation is one of the longest-running missions in the
+free software movement, effectively defining it. It provides a legal foundation
+for the movement and organizes activism around software freedom. The GNU
+project, closely related, has its own long story in our movement as the coding
+arm of the Free Software Foundation, taking these principles and philosophy into
+practice by developing free software; notably the GNU operating system that
+famously rests atop GNU/Linux.
+
+Today, almost 40 years on, the FSF is dying.
+
+Their achievements are unmistakable: we must offer them our gratitude and
+admiration for decades of accomplishments in establishing and advancing our
+cause. The principles of software freedom are more important than ever, and the
+products of these institutions remain necessary and useful -- the GPL license
+family, GCC, GNU coreutils, and so on. Nevertheless, the organizations behind
+this work are floundering.
+
+The Free Software Foundation must concern itself with the following ahead of all
+else:
+
+1. Disseminating free software philosophy
+2. Developing, publishing, and promoting copyleft licenses
+3. Overseeing the health of the free software movement
+
+It is failing in each of these regards, and as its core mission fails, the
+foundation is investing its resources into distractions.
+
+In its role as the thought-leaders of free software philosophy, the message of
+the FSF has a narrow reach. The organization's messaging is tone-deaf,
+ineffective, and myopic. Hammering on about "GNU/Linux" nomenclature, antagonism
+towards our allies in the open source movement, maligning the audience as
+"useds" rather than "users"; none of this aids the cause. The pages and pages of
+dense philosophical essays and poorly organized FAQs do not provide a useful
+entry point or reference for the community. The message cannot spread like this.
+
+As for copyleft, well, it's no coincidence that many people struggle with the
+FSF's approach. Do you, dear reader, know the difference between free software
+and copyleft? Many people assume that the MIT license is not free software
+because it's not viral. The GPL family of licenses are essential for our
+movement, but few people understand its dense and esoteric language, despite the
+16,000-word FAQ which supplements it. And hip new software isn't using copyleft:
+over 1 million npm packages use a permissive license while fewer than 20,000 use
+the GPL; cargo sports a half-million permissive packages and another 20,000 or
+so GPL'd.
+
+And is the free software movement healthy? This one gets an emphatic "yes!" --
+thanks to the open source movement and the near-equivalence between free
+software and open source software. There's more free software than ever and
+virtually all new software contains free software components, and most people
+call it open source.
+
+The FOSS community is now dominated by people who are beyond the reach of the
+FSF's message. The broader community is enjoying a growth in the diversity of
+backgrounds and values represented, and the message does not reach these people.
+The FSF fails to understand its place in the world as a whole, or its
+relationship to the progressive movements taking place in the ecosystem and
+beyond. The foundation does not reach out to new leaders in the community,
+leaving them to form insular, weak institutions among themselves with no central
+leadership, and leaving us vulnerable to exploitation from growing movements
+like open core and commercial attacks on the free and open source software
+brand.
+
+Reforms are sorely needed for the FSF to fulfill it basic mission. In
+particular, I call for the following changes:
+
+1. **Reform the leadership**. It's time for Richard Stallman to go. His polemeic
+ rhetoric rivals even my own, and the demographics he represents -- to the
+ exclusion of all others -- is becoming a minority within the free software
+ movement. We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and
+ others besides. The present leadership, particularly from RMS, creates an
+ exclusionary environment in a place where inclusion and representation are
+ important for the success of the movement.
+1. **Reform the institution**. The FSF needs correct its myopic view of the
+ ecosystem, reach out to emerging leaders throughout the FOSS world, and ask
+ them to take charge of the FSF's mission. It's these leaders who hold the
+ reins of the free software movement today -- not the FSF. If the FSF still
+ wants to be involved in the movement, they need to recognize and empower the
+ leaders who are pushing the cause forward.
+1. **Reform the message**. People depend on the FSF to establish a strong
+ background in free software philosophy and practices within the community,
+ and the FSF is not providing this. The message needs to be made much more
+ accessible and level in tone, and the relationship between free software and
+ open source needs to be reformed so that the FSF and OSI stand together as
+ the pillars at the foundations of our ecosystem.
+1. **Decouple the FSF from the GNU project**. FSF and GNU have worked
+ hand-in-hand over decades to build the movement from scratch, but their
+ privileged relationship has become obsolete. The GNU project represents a
+ minute fraction of the free software ecosystem today, and it's necessary for
+ the Free Software Foundation to stand independently of any particular project
+ and focus on the health of the ecosystem as a whole.
+1. **Develop new copyleft licenses**. The GPL family of licenses has served us
+ well, but we need to do better. The best copyleft license today is the
+ [MPL][1], whose terse form and accessible language outperforms the GPL in
+ many respects. However, it does not provide a comprehensive answer to the
+ needs of copyleft, and new licenses are required to fill other niches in the
+ market -- the FSF should write these licenses. Furthermore, the FSF should
+ present the community with a free software perspective on licenses as a
+ resource that project leaders can depend on to understand the importance of
+ their licensing choice such that they understand the appeal of copyleft
+ licenses without feeling pushed away from permissive approaches.
+
+[1]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/
+
+The free software movement needs a strong force uniting it: we face challenges
+from many sides, and today's Free Software Foundation is not equal to the task.
+The FOSS ecosystem is flourishing, and it's time for the FSF to step up to the
+wheel and direct its coming successes in the name of software freedom.
