Bonum Certa Men Certa

Recent Attacks on GNU and Richard Stallman Based on Distortions, Lies

Boycott Novell food
Photo by Brandon Lozza



Summary: "Much ado about nothing" sums up the recent attacks on the role of GNU inside GNOME; clarifications are hereby presented

YESTERDAY we responded to criticism of GNU inside GNOME [1, 2], noting in part that there is a lot of distortion and thus misunderstanding. Here is a good new post that sheds light on the subject (there are discussions in other languages too).



A very key point was made here by The Source:

Listen people, you don’t have to agree with RMS. He’s not a god or infallible. Just stop lying about the man and what he says. Just stop lying.

If it only happened once or twice, I would be generous and assume it wasn’t malicious. But it is constant, and seems to come too easy to be an honest misunderstanding. I’m tired of trying to determine if a person is misrepresenting RMS because they are a malicious liar, or merely an uninformed moron parroting a malicious liar. It is quickly become a distinction without a difference.

One more thing before I move on: straw man. We see you doing it. You aren’t fooling anyone. It’s disgusting, dishonest, childish and malicious. Stop it. Stop lying.


Over at Linux Magazine, Bruce Byfield proceeds to suggesting that a Free software community does not exist.

To outsiders, the first answer that comes to mind may be hostility to proprietary software in general and Microsoft in particular. In fact, to many outsiders, this is probably the defining characteristic of the community's members. But the hostility manifests itself in everything from rabid denunciations to mild distaste, and I can think of one or two examples of people who do not share it at all.


This is not true, but regular readers are smart enough to know how to respond to it (the "Microsoft hater" paradigm [1, 2, 3]). Linux Magazine also has this inaccurate report which calls Miguel de Icaza a "Novell coworker".

Stallman had also run into conflict with the Gnome initiator and Novell coworker Miguel de Icaza. He had persistently criticized the work on Mono and the involvement of Microsoft in various projects.


The comments are quick to correct the author.

One commenter writes: "This is much ado about nothing, and the article is misleading. Peters and de Icaza said nothing advocating splitting from GNU Project in the foundation-list thread in question. The reference to Stallman's and de Icaza's previous dust-up seems to have given the previous poster the misguided notion that they are involved in this. Any split was entirely proposed (unofficially and non-bindingly) by Philip van Hoof in reaction to a perceived attempt by RMS to control the content of pgo. He also said that he would not seek to bring an actual proposal to to the foundation, but would support anyone else who did. Only other person seriously entertaining the option was David "Lefty" Schlesinger. It's a long and convoluted thread that touches on a number of related and unrelated issues, but it shouldn't be that difficult to get the reporting right. Yes, there was debate over purpose of planet gnome over what should be considered "appropriate" content. No, there's no (as of yet) organized move to dissociate GNOME from the GNU project. Linux press is in tabloid mode in this tempest in a tea pot."

Another commenter writes: "Stallman's comments are actually quite mild - he only says it would be preferable not to see adverts on Planet Gnome. He does not suggest a prohibition, or state that they are evil. The (over)reaction to his comments is (yet another) incomprehensible example of hysterical self-harm within the open source community.

"I guess Peters and de Icaza have some deep-seated insecurities about their new proprietary masters."

One person even says that "Gnome without GNU is a place in Alaska: Nome." It's a reference to the fairly recent Xbox incident.

Last but not least, Sam Varghese points out that the GNOME Foundation wants to hide this under the covers.

A few members of the GNOME Foundation have submitted a petition to the board, asking for a referendum to be held on making the Foundation's mailing list archives private and limited to its members only.


It may be a sensible thing to do when some people abuse the list by distorting Richard Stallman's words and then attacking straw men (not for the first time, either). Those who have looked at what Stallman actually said may find it moderate and polite. Dave Neary too was mature about this and he can hopefully lead this tension to an end. It serves nobody.

"Gates may be gone, but the walls and bars of proprietary software he helped create remain, for now. Dismantling them is up to us."

--Richard Stallman

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October