>My problem with RMS is that "FSF" now stands for "Fierce Stallman Fanbase" rather than "Free Software Foundation".
I cannot see it being any other way really. He is the founder. He sets the tone. He know exactly what he wants FSF to be.
Maintaining the core principles (especially if they are uncommon) of an organization is really, really hard if you have ever attempted it. You have to actively avoid, or even let go of people who are not near totally aligned with the principles .
The organization and ideas should transcend an individual.
The organization right now seems headed for irrelevance, when the ideas seem to be really more needed now that ever. Right now he’s and his camp are in charge, so if he and the group want to run it into the ground so be it.
Hopefully the ideas live on and some group can carry it forward.
I always thing back to media goblin as something that should be something more than it is. Though I’ll note it’s a “gnu” project which might mean it’s part of the FSF? It’s kinda a mess, but it seems whoever is running that is doing something different with the branding (I knew someone who was a big fan of Mediagoblin)
>The organization and ideas should transcend an individual.
It is never the case is my observation (as much as I want you to be correct). Any attempt to detach individual form the goals/idea of an organization leads to bureaucracy, incompetence, and perhaps most importantly authoritarianism of the evil kind. ( there are relatively benign versions of authoritarianism )
>when the ideas seem to be really more needed now that ever.
Can agree here, but who really steps up? who really want to make that sacrifice at great cost to one's personal comfort? It's easy to criticize RMS, ( or similar people) when one is a arm chair philosopher.
MediaGoblin was headed by Chris Lemmer-Webber. It hasn't been in very active development for quite a few years now, as most of the interest in this space has moved to PeerTube. PeerTube relies on a W3C standard protocol, called ActivityPub, that the very same Lemmer-Webber co-authored. MediaGoblin is officially part of GNU, but PeerTube isn't.
I cannot see it being any other way really. He is the founder. He sets the tone. He know exactly what he wants FSF to be.
Maintaining the core principles (especially if they are uncommon) of an organization is really, really hard if you have ever attempted it. You have to actively avoid, or even let go of people who are not near totally aligned with the principles .