emacsdevel

Don't forget XEmacs!

Many regular contributors to GNU projects didn't like RMS's involvement in the first place. He makes no technical contribtions, and he tends to post politically divisive flamebait-ey topics to the email lists. He'll also undercut his appointed maintainers by posting his own musings about decisions that have already been settled by the maintainers. More than once, he's used an effective "veto" power to force sub-optimal architectural choices in an effort to make sure GNU projects can't easily interoperate with non-GPL software. Refusing to expose gcc functionality through a library interface is the best-known example (which directly led many developers, researchers, and organizations to adopt clang and LLVM), but there are others, including a veto of Emacs features that would make it easier to talk to clang to power IDE-like features.

Most regular contributors found this behavior frustrating, and would discuss it privately, although rarely if ever discuss it on-list. These are people who are absolutely committed to free software, they were just sick of dealing with RMS. Wingo's stated attitude seems pretty typical: RMS was damage that needed to be routed around.

After developing this reputation, it's not shocking that most maintainers and contributors accepted his resignation from the FSF with a shrug. They were sick of dealing with him anyway - they're not going to protest to try to get him back.

Stallman hasn't been a significant technical contributor to any GNU project for more than a decade. Making important contributions to a project doesn't mean you own it forever - it's a bittersweet fact that groups, organizations, and companies can grow and evolve in ways that are incompatible with their original founder sticking around.

The FSF owns the copyright to most GNU projects, and RMS has resigned from the FSF. It's unclear why he would continue to have any formal authority beyond his personal power of persuasion.

It's an unfortunate fact that the GNU projects and their email lists have always attracted difficult people. If your organization is founded on inflexible ideological commitment (as the FSF is) then you will end up appealing to a lot of inflexible, idealistic people who are very committed to having things go their way. RMS has been one of the worst offenders in many well-documented ways, but every GNU project I'm familiar with has had its share of "missing stairs", who are often among the most vocal people on the project's -devel email list. Many of them are extremely proficient technically, but abrasive to others in ways that they might not recognize.

For newcomers to the projects this can lead to unpleasant interactions that push people away from volunteering on the projects.

At the same time, this shouldn't push you away from getting involved with a GNU project if you find it interesting. Many of the projects are full of kind, helpful, hardworking people. The maintainers in particular are mostly excellent. If you have an unpleasant interaction, I'd encourage you to reach out to one of the maintainers in a private message to ask for advice on how to contribute and work with the community. Often they can help by pointing you to specific people to talk to and interact with.