Re: State of the GNUnion 2020

Dmitry Gutov, le mar. 25 févr. 2020 01:44:02 +0200, a ecrit:
> On 20.02.2020 15:45, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> 
> > > > The activity by itself, yes, but the choice of where to start a new
> > > > project, or starting contributing an existing project, leadership does
> > > > have a lot of importance.
> > > 
> > > What kind of choice? Contributors come and go, largely depending on their
> > > own needs and interests.
> > 
> > Yes, but also, and I believe most likely, depending on their knowledge
> > of project places (github vs gitlabs vs savannah) and the contact they
> > get with the people there. The GNU project is less and less known
> > compared to other free software platforms, so it'll get less and less
> > newcomers.
> 
> That is a problem. But one that wouldn't be solved simply by the
> leadership's say-so. GNU is usually all volunteers, and if existing
> developers don't accept the new project management platform, they won't use
> it.

As I mentioned in another mail, I am not talking about the software
running the platform, but the community around the platform. It's the
contact they get from the community living on a given platform, which
makes the welcoming atmosphere. And there leadership does matter.

> Regarding punishing repeat offenders anyway, as we've seen just recently,
> you can't censor a determined individual on a public mailing list anyway.
> Limit their audience, sure, but banning them outright seems impossible.

That does not mean we can't write that we at least try to do it.

> If we declare that all of GNU should share a certain set of values, and
> especially that maintainers must share the free software values, whatever it
> really means in practice, *that* sounds exclusionary already.

Did you really read what was actually written on 
https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract ?
It does not talk about the values that contributors hold for themselves,
it talks about the values put in the software of the GNU project:

“
The GNU Project provides software that guarantees to all users the Four
Essential Freedoms, without compromise:
”

etc. It does not talk about exclusively using free software etc.

Samuel