The GNU project is leaking into Microsoft

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27 points·gilad··3 comments

One of the benefits of using git is that it doesn't really matter where the upstream is. You are getting the whole thing when you clone, so development is distributed. I'm not really sure what the problem is here. If Red Hat or Canonical gave free hosting, would we be seeing the same complaints?

There's still a GNU website, even if subsections redirect somewhere else. I'm so tired of all this purity policing. You want GNU to use something other than github? Build that platform, don't make it commercial (because obviously that's that problem, right?), make sure it has all the same features, and then offer it to GNU to use for free.

The problem is that github is not just a place to host a git repository. It's also a bugtracker, release publisher, wiki etc. Microsoft is by no means held to use free software for those facilities. This means there is a good chance at eroding the use of free software which is counter to the FSF goals.

Ensuring free software does not depend, for its maintenance and continued development, on non-free, closed software, and on companies whose profits are based on the licensing of such software, is not "purity policing", it's part of the essence of the project.

PS - Commerciality in itself is not the problem. Perhaps you should read about the GNU project's "philosophy" page to understand what it's about:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/

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