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Maintainers of GNU projects opposed Stallman's sole leadership

After the Free Software Foundation published call Rethink Interaction with the GNU Project, Richard Stallman объявил, that as the current head of the GNU project, he will deal with issues of building relations with the Free Software Foundation (the main problem is that all GNU developers sign an agreement to transfer property rights to the code to the Free Software Foundation and it legally owns all GNU code). 18 maintainers and developers of various GNU projects responded joint statement, which pointed out that Richard Stallman alone could not represent the entire GNU project, and that it was time for the maintainers to reach a collective decision on a new structure for the project.

The signatories of the statement acknowledge Stallman's contribution to the formation of the free software movement, but also note that Stallman's behavior for many years has undermined one of the main ideas of the GNU project - free software all computer users, because, according to the signatories of the appeal, a project cannot fulfill its mission if the leader’s behavior alienates the majority of those whom the project is trying to reach (reach out to). The GNU Project that the petition's signatories want to build is "a project that everyone can trust to protect their freedom."

The following maintainers and developers signed the letter:

  • Tom Tromey (GCC, GDB, by GNU Automake)
  • Werner Koch (author and maintainer of GnuPG)
  • Carlos O'Donell (GNU libc maintainer)
  • Mark Wielaard (GNU ClassPath maintainer)
  • John Wiegley (GNU Emacs maintainer)
  • Jeff Law (GCC maintainer, Binutils)
  • Ian Lance Taylor (one of the oldest developers of GCC and GNU Binutils, author of Taylor UUCP and Gold linker)
  • Ludovic CourtΓ¨s (author of GNU Guix, GNU Guile)
  • Ricardo Wurmus (one of the maintainers of GNU Guix, GNU GWL)
  • Matt Lee (founder of GNU Social and GNU FM)
  • Andreas Enge (main developer of GNU MPC)
  • Samuel Thibault (GNU Hurd committer, GNU libc)
  • Andy Wingo (GNU Guile maintainer)
  • Jordi GutiΓ©rrez Hermoso (GNU Octave developer)
  • Daiki Ueno (maintainer of GNU gettext, GNU libiconv, GNU libunistring)
  • Christopher Lemmer Webber (Author of GNU MediaGoblin)
  • Jan Nieuwenhuizen (GNU Mes, GNU LilyPond)
  • Han-Wen Nienhuys (GNU LilyPond)

Addition: 5 more participants joined the statement:

  • Joshua Gay (GNU and Free Software speaker)
  • Ian Jackson (GNU adns, GNU userv)
  • Tobias Geerinckx-Rice (GNU Guix)
  • Andrew Shadura (GNU indent)
  • Zack Weinberg (GCC developer, GNU libc, GNU Binutils)

Source: opennet.ru