Re: [Backtotheaugust] Re: Turning GNU into a bottom-up organization

[Jean Louis]

* Adrienne G. Thompson <adriennegayethompson@gmail.com> [2019-10-22 21:15]:
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 3:16 AM František Kučera <konference@frantovo.cz>
> wrote:
> 
> > The problem with this approach is the risk of hostile takeover. There
> > are corporations (e.g. those that profit from proprietary
> > software/cloud) ... that have almost unlimited
> > (from our point of view) financial and developers resources – which
> > allows them to bend such organization according to their needs.
> >
> > So if this is to have a chance of success, there must be a rigid
> > (immutable) constitution which guarantees the principles in the long
> > term. ...
> > <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>. Maybe they should be
> > transformed into a constitutional document (while retaining the original
> > meaning, of course).
> >
> 
> Franta, I made suggestions, days ago, about a constitution for GNU. Let's
> work on this suggestion.

GNU is free operating system.

It has already its constitution in GNU manifesto and other articles of
free software philosophy as written by Dr. Richard M. Stallman.

I do not know how much Stallman in 1984 envisioned the capacity of
distribution of the GNU system in the future from then.

Probably nobody could know at that time would is to happen then in
1990, and 2000, and 2010 and now up to 2020.

While GNU was envisioned to have its own kernel, in 1992, appeared
Linux kernel and first GNU/Linux distribution started sharing in
society.

Those are GNU systems that are using Linux kernel.

Stallman could not possibly predict the course of action.

GNU Manifesto yet changed proprietary Linux kernel into GNU GPL
licensed free software. Stallman held a speech in University in
Helsinki, Linus Torvalds heard of it, and liberated Linux kernel.

What happened then is even very hard to to draw. Please see the
picture of numerous GNU/Linux distributions under various names, since
1992, up to today:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

In that sense GNU project in synergy with so many other free software
projects not only achieved its ultimate goal to provide the free
operating system, it even over-lived itself.

GNU project is ever developing project, but its goal to create fully
free operating system has been fullfiled hundreds of times.

There is still much more to be done regarding users' freedom and human
rights. For example many GNU/Linux distributions contain proprietary
blobs, which nobody can change or inspect, such is not free
software. Linux kernel is distributing proprietary software, while
Linux-libre kernel using exclusively free, and de-blobbed Linux
kernel, see: https://www.gnu.org/software/linux-libre/

GNU Linux-libre is fully free software and official piece of the GNU
project.

There are now multiple fully free GNU operating system distributions,
see: https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

I am user of Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre, see https://www.hyperbola.info

All those new free and partially free system distributions are
descendants of the original GNU project.

The GNU project became planetary project where people form into their
own groups and are developing new free operating systems.

There are many organizations like FSF and many others which 

Based on the above facts and history I really think that GNU need no
constitution in itself.

Whichever group or individuals wish to spread GNU they are free to do
so now, and whoever is loyal to free software philosophy as envisioned
by Dr. Richard Stallman, can follow the path of GNU free operating
system and either make one special GNU distribution or liberate some
other existing distributions or help in distribution of ready GNU and
fully free distributions.

Or one can help program some new software.

Even better, speaking about free software can bring tremendous
success. 

Jean