The Free Software Foundation is one of the longest-running missions in the
free software movement, effectively defining it. It provides a legal foundation
for the movement and organizes activism around software freedom. The GNU
project, closely related, has its own long story in our movement as the coding
arm of the Free Software Foundation, taking these principles and philosophy into
practice by developing free software; notably the GNU operating system that
famously rests atop GNU/Linux.
Today, almost 40 years on, the FSF is dying.
Their achievements are unmistakable: we must offer them our gratitude and
admiration for decades of accomplishments in establishing and advancing our
cause. The principles of software freedom are more important than ever, and the
products of these institutions remain necessary and useful – the GPL license
family, GCC, GNU coreutils, and so on. Nevertheless, the organizations behind
this work are floundering.
The Free Software Foundation must concern itself with the following ahead of all
else:
- Disseminating free software philosophy
- Developing, publishing, and promoting copyleft licenses
- Overseeing the health of the free software movement
It is failing in each of these regards, and as its core mission fails, the
foundation is investing its resources into distractions.
In its role as the thought-leaders of free software philosophy, the message of
the FSF has a narrow reach. The organization’s messaging is tone-deaf,
ineffective, and myopic. Hammering on about “GNU/Linux” nomenclature, antagonism
towards our allies in the open source movement, maligning the audience as
“useds” rather than “users”; none of this aids the cause. The pages and pages of
dense philosophical essays and poorly organized FAQs do not provide a useful
entry point or reference for the community. The message cannot spread like this.
As for copyleft, well, it’s no coincidence that many people struggle with the
FSF’s approach. Do you, dear reader, know the difference between free software
and copyleft? Many people assume that the MIT license is not free software
because it’s not viral. The GPL family of licenses are essential for our
movement, but few pe
