06.29.20

Gemini version available ♊︎

The GNU Project is Bleeding Into Microsoft (Updated)

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 3:35 am by Guest Editorial Team

By Thomas Grzybowski

The bleeding roses

Summary: “A large part of this “loss of integrity” is simply a lack of desire to resist competition, or even recognize the nature of the threat.”

WITHIN the conduct of human endeavors we usually think of Work in the categories of various forms of interpersonal reporting hierarchies, even if sometimes modified into something of a web. You can see these hierarchies when we discuss politics or corporate structures. Yet these paths of influence can often cross nominal boundaries, such as state or national boundaries, or corporate boundaries. Sometimes we can see the boundaries breaking down, with new inter-and-intra-community structures forming. In this flux I see the the GNU Project bleeding into Microsoft.

There are a number of empirical signs of the breakdown of boundaries between Free Software and Microsoft, such as the “Windows Subsystem for Linux”, but most insidious is the movement of GNU development processes onto the Microsoft-hosted platform, GitHub.

If one goes to the GNU Home site where they list their official packages there are some alarming observations to be made:

When you click on: https://gnu.org/software/nana/
Where you actually end up is: https://github.com/pjmaker/nana/

I find this deceptive and very concerning. For a number of important reasons, hosting GNU development on a proprietary Microsoft platform should be verboten. And for users to be programatically redirected away from the GNU site to the Microsoft site is ethically criminal, and foreboding institutional death.

Now try these other GNU projects:

https://gnu.org/software/macchanger

https://gnu.org/software/jwhois

https://gnu.org/software/fribidi

https://gnu.org/software/httptunnel

https://gnu.org/software/which/

https://gnu.org/software/guile-dbi

A sad situation. Interestingly, most of these redirections seem to have made fairly recently, not long after Richard Stallman was ousted. (see update here)

And then there are other disturbing development projects – if you take a look: GNU Bison consistently sees quite a lot of very current activity on GitHub (https://github.com/akimd/bison); and Flex, an important component of GNU Bison, is located entirely GitHub, provided under a BSD license.

https://gnu.org/software/flex/flex.html –> https://github.com/westes/flex ; https://github.com/westes/flex/blob/master/README.md .

GNU Radio, also a GNU project, goes a step further and conducts the major parts of its development cycle on GitHub. It’s not clear that they use the GNU sites for anything other than mirrors.

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio/

https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-dpd/

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio/pulls/

https://github.com/gnuradio/gnuradio/issues/

The growth and attraction of GitHub is based upon a number of factors, especially the social nature of the software development environment. Microsoft primes the pump for a “network effect” through the GitHub project sponsorship program:

https://help.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-source-community-with-github-sponsors/about-github-sponsors

Monetary grants given to projects make moving there more attractive, and the monies can be used by the project leader to make the project more attractive to developers. Because the Free and Open Source Software world is interconnected, as each particular migration or action takes place, the effects connect to the community on a global scale. As more and more developers and users become focused towards Microsoft GitHub, the resources and interfaces there become increasingly difficult to resist depending upon, and the paths or streams of community influence become too strong. The GNU Project is being swept away in a river of powerful influences.

Some folks have seen the process described above as a “loss of GNU integrity”, and it is that. But a large part of this “loss of integrity” is simply a lack of desire to resist competition, or even recognize the nature of the threat. Most importantly and most immediately the very core machinery of the Free Software Movement is being undermined and swept away by strong currents into a Microsoft-controlled domain: github.com

Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Linux Foundation Demotes Mr. Linux, Linus Torvalds, to Third (in Salaries), Only Uses Him for the Name

    The Linux [sic] Foundation‘s tax filings (divulged by the Nonprofit Explorer) show that it now pays “CHRIS ANISZCZYK” and “JAMES ZEMLIN” more than it pays “LINUS TORVALDS”, sans bonuses. Torvalds fell to third place already. Mr. Zemlin pays himself over $1.2 million a year. He doesn’t even use Linux. He lacks credentials and accomplishments (except for selling out to companies like Microsoft), but he keeps pandering to power and money (Bill Gates). It should be noted that the Torvalds bonus was added only after backlash had erupted.



  2. HMRC is Just Taking Taxpayers' Money and Not Enforcing the Law (or Selectively Enforcing It for the Political Masters)

    What we've been demonstrating or highlighting so far this year is a defunct system of accountability, wherein the government officials and their associates are essentially above the law; can they endure the negative press that entails?



  3. GNU/Linux Decade in India: From 1.5% to 13.5%

    The world's largest population is quick to move away from Windows; not many adopt Apple (Indians don't care for overpriced junk), so GNU/Linux is growing fast



  4. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 08, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 08, 2023



  5. Links 09/06/2023: Microsoft's 'Online' ("Clown"/OneDrive) Storage Goes Down Again, Files Cannot be Reached

    Links for the day



  6. What Will Happen After All Major News Sites Die Isn't Pretty

    With webspam, chaff, sponsored puff pieces and worse things being presented as "the news" we're running out of actual purpose for the World Wide Web



  7. HMRC 3 Weeks Later: No Action, Same as 'Action Fraud' (Your Tax Money 'at Work')

    When people need police enforcement against a crime it turns out that police is “MIA” (missing in action); it might matter that Sirius worked with the British government, so there’s a reduced incentive to affirm crimes were committed and then arrest the perpetrators



  8. Links 08/06/2023: Istio 1.18 and FreeIPMI 1.6.11

    Links for the day



  9. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Sourcehut, Gemini Identity, and BBS Comments on Cosmos

    Links for the day



  10. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 07, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, June 07, 2023



  11. The Need to Evolve on the Internet

    Tux Machines is one year away from its twentieth birthday and its increased focus on protocols aside from HTTP/S is paying off; Tux Machines also weaned itself off all social control media, including Mastodon and Diaspora (they're not the future, they're the past)



  12. EPO Management is Still Bullying the Staff (While Breaking the Law and Violating the European Patent Convention)

    Overloaded or overworked EPO workers are complaining about further deterioration at the workplace and their representatives say "this management style may well contribute to feelings of disengagement, depression, or even burn-out"



  13. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Not Responding After 20 Days (Well-Founded Report of Tax Fraud) and British Police Pretending Not to Exist

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ have helped unearth a profound problem in the British law enforcement authorities; What good is a monopolistic taxman (called after the British Monarchy even in 2023) that cannot assess its own tax abuses? Or abuses connected to it via a contractor? Meanwhile, as per what I was told, the police is not responding to my MP and that’s ANOTHER scandal (police not only refusing to act against crimes, committed against many people, but moreover not responding to elected politicians)



  14. Links 08/06/2023: Cinnamon 5.8 and Leap 15.5 Release Mature

    Links for the day



  15. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Emacs and Thoughts on Bubble

    Links for the day



  16. Links 07/06/2023: Reddit Layoffs and OpenGL 3.1 in Asahi Linux

    Links for the day



  17. Gemini Links 07/06/2023: Jukka Charting Geminispace

    Links for the day



  18. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 06, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, June 06, 2023



  19. NOW LIVE: Working for the Public — Universities, Software and Freedom - a Talk by Richard Stallman at Università di Pisa (Italy)

    As noted a few hours ago, Richard Stallman is delivering a talk at Università di Pisa this morning



  20. Richard Stallman's Talk is in Two Hours and There's a BigBlueButton Livestream

    Dr. Stallman is in Italy to give talks at universities this week; he will soon give a live talk, accessible in his site or directly at the source



  21. Links 06/06/2023: Angie 1.2.0, New EasyOS and EndeavourOS Released

    Links for the day



  22. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: OpenKuBSD, GrapheneOS, and More

    Links for the day



  23. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day



  24. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day



  25. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)



  26. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day



  27. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day



  28. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023



  29. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day



  30. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts