15427b22ee9f93d980d19ab4f65df1ea
FSF Too Idle in 2022
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
THE Free Software Foundation (FSF) has been around for 37 years and the GNU Project has been around for over 39 years (it turns 40 next autumn). In terms of software development, 40 years is a massive amount of time! The resiliency of the FSF (and GNU) is undeniable. 24 years ago OSI was trying to sort of replace both of them, but it failed (Microsoft has captured the OSI). SFC is like a second go at it and the Linux Foundation keeps lying about its age (which is 15). Its revenue collapsed in recent years. Its reputation is severely tarnished (among the community, not the corporations trying to attack the community by misusing the brand "Linux").
"The FSF needs to be more proactive and as revolutionary as before. Trying to appease its critics is a losing strategy."But going back to the FSF, it has not been functioning too well in recent years, partly due to attacks on it. The siege against the FSF isn't even over yet. This past year the FSF has been low-profile and relatively quiet. As one supporter put it yesterday, "the fsf completely fails in its mission against the vector of lobbyists. [...] pretending the license is sufficient [...] I think centralization of code repositories hurt the resilience of the movement..."
There's actually a lot more to it. The FSF needs to be more proactive and as revolutionary as before. Trying to appease its critics is a losing strategy.
The video above discusses these points and more. ⬆