[GTALUG] The FOSS world's most famous _____ is back...

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Wed, 24 Mar 2021 at 23:17, Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

>
> > IMHO the complete brouha is political correctness run amok!
>
> It's been suggested - initially by Neil Gaiman¹ - that the term used
> above should be replaced by “treating other people with respect”. Your
> first paragraphs read quite differently if we make the substitution:


There are numerous reasons why that substitution is wholly unreasonable and
itself quite agenda-driven. The explanation of why is massively off-scope
here but I'm happy to engage offline.
To me, it is trivially demonstrable that the FSF has both engaged in
political correctness -- as a primary tactic -- and is now a victim of it.
But IMO that point is actually quite irrelevant to the justified criticism
of the FSF's self-inflicted wound. What's left to see is how deep it was.

I would request that we return to the matter at hand - - - - computers and
> computing and its tools


GTALUG ... and to a broader extent the wider FOSS community ... has always
engaged in both technical and non-technical activities. In the past it has
participated in trade shows, run instalfests, and had speakers providing
very un-technical explanations of the benefits and the challenges for the
IT mainstream using and developing FOSS software.

There's room for both tech and advocacy, and GTALUG has broadly managed the
balance well over decades.

The FSF -- as distinct from the GNU project -- is an utterly non-technical
entity. It produces no code; it manages no projects. It deals with politics
and IP law and morality and media. If someone wants to advance the position
that discussing the FSF is out of scope in GTALUG because its role is
non-technical, that's a legitimate take but quite inconsistent with the
group's history.

- Evan
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