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title: Thoughts on GNU and Richard Stallman
date: 2019-09-17 14:05
tags: planet-fsfe-en, free software, gnu, rms
---
Richard Stallman has [resigned as president and from the board of
directors of the Free Software
Foundation](https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns). I
welcome this decision.
As a co-maintainer of GNU packages (including Guix, the Guix Workflow
Language, the Guile Picture Language, etc), and as a contributor to
various other GNU software, I would like to state that while I'm
grateful for Richard Stallman's founding of the GNU project and his
past contributions to GNU, it would be wrong to continue to remain
silent on the negative effects his behaviour and words have had over
the past years. His actions have hurt people and alienated them from
the free software movement.
When I joined GNU I used to think of Richard as just a bit of a quirky
person with odd habits, with a passion for nitpicking and clear
language, but also with a vision of freeing people from oppression at
the hands of a boring dystopia mediated by computers. Good
intentions, however, aren't enough. Richard's actions over the past
years sadly have been detrimental to achieving the vision that he
outlined in the [GNU
Manifesto](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html), to benefit all
computer users.
GNU's not Unix, but Richard ain't GNU either (RAGE?). GNU is bigger
than any one person, even its founder. I'm still convinced that GNU
has an important role to play towards providing a harmonized,
trustworthy, freedom-respecting operating system environment that
benefits all computer users. I call upon other maintainers of GNU
software to embrace the responsibilities that working on a social
project such as GNU brings. The GNU Manifesto states that "GNU serves
as an example to inspire and a banner to rally others to join us in
sharing". Let us do that by welcoming people of all backgrounds into
GNU and by working hard to provide a healthy environment for fruitful
collaboration.
|
