Mail sent today.
From: @dachary
To: bkuhnBonjour Bradley,
We’ve not discussed in a long time but it seems the universe conspired to bring us together once more and I’m happy about that
You probably remember, from when I held my position as a Vice President of the new born FSF Europe in 2001, that I value transparency very much. In the recent years I pushed it even further than before and everything I do and say within the forge federation projects since January 2021 is public. There has been maybe a dozen of private conversations since but that’s about it. And I’m publishing this email here[0] as well, in the same spirit. One of the most difficult aspect is to reassure people I’m in contact with that this is a personal thing and not a moral imperative I would dare to impose on anyone. I would completely understand if you’re not comfortable with it, just say the word.
Today I learned about the take over of the Gitea project by a for profit corporation and raised my concerns on mastodon[1]. You are, by far, the wisest person I know when it comes to face difficult situations in Free Software. And this is a really difficult one. There are a lot of ideas floating around, ranging from “it will be fine there is nothing to worry about” to “give up Gitea right now”. And we all need to take a breath, collect all the information, all the ideas and come up with strategies that will benefit the general public. Because that’s what you and I have always tried to do.
I’ve had the privilege to get to know a number of wonderful people in the forge federation world over the past two years. All of them committed to the common good, realistic, hard working and imaginative. We discussed most of today, trying to not overreact and evaluate the situation. I believe we all realize this is a time sensitive topic: some opportunities, such as launching a fork of Gitea, have a better chance of success when it happens quickly. But there is a subtle difference between being quick and being hasty (probably not the right English idiom but you get what I mean).
Would you be willing to brainstorm all this in a public videoconference with everyone involved? Again, I totally understand why you would be reluctant to engage in such a discussion in public. People could wrongly interpret what you say and it could backfire on SFC which is the last thing I want. Feel free to answer me in private if you’d like and I promise to not disclose your answer.
Cheers
[0] SFC & Gitea: Software forges strategies
[1] Loïc Dachary: "The Gitea Ltd company took over the @Gitea projec…" - Mastodon