High-Priority Proposals for the FSF in 2021
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2021-03-23 17:04:54 UTC
- Modified: 2021-03-23 17:10:08 UTC
Summary: Some personal suggestions or a list of things that would help the FSF succeed and keep growing (and remaining relevant) for decades to come
- Offer a compelling way to replace the GitHub (Microsoft) near-monopoly with something that is self-hosted, preferably decentralised to a certain degree, and without a "Community Edition" (everything is for the community). It's already work in progress based on our understanding.
- Promote the use of existing remote work (or conferencing, teaching etc.) tools, especially ones that aren't controlled by GitHub. Or try to wean them off GitHub. The latter points relates to (1).
- Form a stronger coalition with Free software proponents around the world (numbers are our strength) and keep a distance from the corrupting influence (monopolies) of the Linux Foundation and OSI. In many ways they nowadays represent interests opposite to those of the FSF.
- Tackle the growing threat of increasing complexity as barrier to community participation in particular projects (systemd has earned notoriety for this).
- Speak about the growing threat of Clown Computing; the FSFE has done some work in that area, but many people ignore the warnings and outsource almost everything to third parties (mostly monopolies that spy).
- Create a capsule for presence in Gemini space (protocol), which helps tackle most of the issues the World Wide Web has become notorious for. It can help inspire many more capsules.
- Reinstate old campaigns that call out Microsoft Windows for the threat that it is (it is still a growing threat) to people's freedom.
- Repudiate fake solutions to the software patents threat; some of their purveyors have attempted to enlist GNU projects, in effect bypassing real patent reform attempts, seeking to altogether abolish software patents (even after Alice/35 U.S.C. ۤ 101; SCOTUS, 2014).
- Issue a polite public statement just to explain why the FSF's founder was led to resign; many people would appreciate a frank explanation.
- Tackle the issue of censorship, including (reportedly) censorship of mailing lists of LibrePlanet. Freedom of expression is also a form of freedom that must not be conflated with "trolling".
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Slopfarms Slopping Away at "Linux" and Spreading Microsoft Misinformation
- Slopfarms don't comprehend this as they lack actual comprehension, they're just parrots
- GitHub the Company Has, in Effect, Just Died (Time to Look for Alternatives)
- To Microsoft, what's left of GitHub after dismantling/folding it is some "training set" (people's code, without permission to "train" i.e. misuse under the guise of "GenAI" plagiarism)
- Linux Foundation Says "Housekeeping", "Hung", "Normal", "Native Feature/Support" and "Girl/Girls" Are Offensive Words
- Bombing people is OK, just use the right "terms"
- It Looks More Like Microsoft GitHub Layoffs
- GitHub is just losing loads of money
-
- Links 12/08/2025: More Sabotage of Underwater Cable Ahead of Russian Alaska Summit
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Will Not Miss Microsoft GitHub, It Was Only Good at Harvesting a Lot of Code for Plagiarism-as-a-Service
- investors are apparently willing to lose money for buzzwords
- Links 12/08/2025: Science, Hardware, and Ukraine Excluded From Negotiations About Its Future
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Meditation, OpenStreetMap, Smolweb, and More
- Links for the day
- Google News is Dying: Most of Its Top Stories Now Are LLM Slop With Slop Images (i.e. 100% Fake 'Content')
- Google News has been drowning in this sort of stuff for quite some time
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, August 11, 2025
- Our Predictions Were Right: GitHub Dying as Losses Pile Up (as a Company It Cannot Continue to Exist, It's Not 'Free Hosting')
- GitHub always lost money
- Links 11/08/2025: Meritless Twitter Suspensions and Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Upgrading Debian Bookworm and Better Quality PDFs From Gemini Pages
- Links for the day
- Currys PCWorld Lied a Decade Ago, 10 Years Later It Still Effectively Voids Your Warranty for Installing GNU/Linux Despite It Being Increasingly Mainstream
- Microsoft gatekeepers
- Team GNOME Has Libeled Me for Nearly 20 Years
- we are not dealing with sane people
- Experience With Airlines in 'Web Sites' and in 'Apps'
- In a lot of ways, Stallman Was Right about what JavaScript would turn out to be
- Open Does Not Mean Free
- wiser to ask if some program is freedom-respecting
- The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)
- today's sponsor
- Sabotaging GNU/Linux PCs (and Users) is Not a 'Joke'
- maybe cruelty is the very objective
- How We Process Screenshots of Slop to Suitably Tag Them as Slop
- everything is a single command
- Links 11/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Climate
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 10, 2025
- Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Tea Caffeine Hot and Super ZZ Zero
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Other Serial Sloppers
- Maybe Microsoft wants to dub this "Web5"
- Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Residents Management Company, Automation, and Politics
- Links for the day
- Links 10/08/2025: AOL Ending Dial-up
- Links for the day
- Seductive Mirage or Allure of Complex, Proprietary Coffee Machines (or Similar White Elephants)
- Software is a lot like those things
- Links 10/08/2025: Webrings, “AI Sunglasses” and “AI Eyeglasses”, US Administration Intensifies Attacks on Science and Research
- Links for the day
- Sometimes Newer is Worse
- We generally need to reject this dumb notion that "old" means bad
- The Code Used to Make Techrights Fits on a Seventh of a Floppy Disk (or 100KB When Compressed)
- For the sake of comparison I've just downloaded the latest version of WordPress. The ZIP file is 27.2MB in size, or ~27,200KB.
- What They Tell Young Programmers
- Coding in 2025
- Simpler is Better When Simple is Enough
- Over-complicating things to "sell" new versions is so 1990s
- Links 10/08/2025: From Social Control Media to Prison, New Examples of Windows TCO
- Links for the day
- Sloppy Reporting About Slop, or How The Register MS Lowers Its Standards
- Maybe the management isn't even aware of this
- IBM's Strategy: Cull 'Expensive' Workers, Replace Them With Cheaper Ones
- So far we saw not even one rebuttal or challenge to the claim of Red Hat layoffs scheduled for tomorrow
- If You Attack Somebody Too Much You Legitimise and Strengthen That Somebody
- at the end those attacks add up to a "martyr" status
- The Man Who Helped Microsoft Kill Linux is Trying to Delay Our Lawsuits Against Him
- By conservative estimates, and based on court documents submitted by them, they're prepared to spend over a million dollars on lawyers, fighting against me and my wife
- Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Gen Con 2025 and Framework Laptop
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 09, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 09, 2025
