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1title: DRAFT Answering frequently asked questions
2author: The GNU Assembly
3date: 2021-04-20 16:00:00
4---
5
6**DRAFT**
7
8Following the [Assembly
9kick-off](https://web.gnu.tools/en/blog/2021/04/kicking-off-the-gnu-assembly/),
10we received lots of questions and read comments that deserved answers.
11This post attempts to answer the most common questions.
12
13# Meta-question: why so much confusion around GNU/FSF?
14
15Good question! A common belief is that GNU and the Free Software
16Foundation (FSF) are the same thing. This is untrue: GNU is not a
17registered non-profit, it’s an informal association among contributors,
18separate from the FSF. The FSF is oblivious to technical matters in
19GNU.
20
21The FSF supports GNU development primarily in three ways: by taking care
22of copyright assignments (for the few GNU packages that require it), as
23a [fiscal sponsor](https://www.fsf.org/working-together/fund) for a few
24projects, and by providing infrastructure like
25[Savannah](https://savannah.gnu.org). For the most part, the FSF
26“supports GNU development” in the same way that Microsoft “supports” the
27development of projects hosted on GitHub.
28
29# Is this a fork of GNU?
30
31No. The [software in question](/en/software) is not being forked and
32the people who write that software remain the same.
33
34What changes is how these people organize themselves beyond their
35individual projects—from a
36[BDFL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life)
37top-down model to a [community-oriented, consensus-based
38model](https://gnu.tools/en/documents/governance/).
39
40# Is this backed by FSF/OSI/SFC/XYZ?
41
42No, it’s not! The Assembly was founded by GNU maintainers and
43contributors and receive no support, financial or otherwise, from any
44three-letter-acronym organization. Evil Corp™ isn’t helping either.
45
46# Is this _against_ FSF/OSI/SFC/XYZ?
47
48Nope! The Assembly is not a _reaction_ to the three-letter acronym of
49your choice—it’s first and foremost a _constructive_ project.
50
51Is it at odds with the three-letter acronym you have in mind? Maybe!
52But we’re interested in _building_ something more than in arguing about
53what others are doing.
54
55# You’re just a minority anyway
56
57That’s not a question, but you’re right: about [30 people](/en/people),
58mostly appointed GNU maintainers, endorsed the [Social
59Contract](/en/documents/social-contract) so far and may participate in
60the Assembly. The number keeps increasing but is still a fraction of
61the number of contributors to GNU packages: there are 300+ GNU
62maintainers “on file”, though not everyone and [not each project is
63active](https://wingolog.org/archives/2020/02/09/state-of-the-gnunion-2020),
64[some](https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-governance/blob/main/aoa.md)
65[even](https://www.r-project.org/foundation/)
66[left](https://lwn.net/Articles/529522/)
67[years](https://wingolog.org/archives/2009/12/13/gnu-gnome-and-the-fsf)
68[ago](https://discourse.gnome.org/t/relation-between-gimp-and-gnome/2376/8)
69for all practical purposes despite being [still
70listed](https://www.gnu.org/software)—these projects have their own
71governance model and rules, independent of “the rest of GNU”. To put it
72differently, significant parts of GNU territory is no longer controlled
73by the central government, if we dare such an analogy.
74
75Anyways, is being a minority a problem? We don’t think so: we hope this
76platform appeals to many GNU contributors and contributors-to-be, but we
77can do great things even without on-boarding everyone!
78
79# Why now? Is this really about <current event>?
80
81While current events certainly motivated the decision to make our
82efforts more visible, the desire for stronger collaboration
83between GNU packages and for communal decision-making as it
84pertains to a shared vision has been the subject of many
85discussions among GNU maintainers and contributors over the past
86decade or so.
87
88# Why didn’t you try to effect change from the inside?
89
90We did! It goes back to [at least ten
91years](/en/blog/2021/04/kicking-off-the-gnu-assembly/). The project was
92met with enthusiasm from some and hostility from others. That’s fine,
93we don’t have to agree!
94
95Unfortunately, GNU would host project-wide discussions on private
96mailing lists, so these discussions and soul searching were only known
97to “insiders”. The Assembly is determined to have transparent
98processes; everything we did, starting with the drafting process of the
99Social Contract in 2019–2020, was done publicly.
100
101# Do you support PDP-11 assembly?
102
103Some us write assembly code (not sure about
104[PDP-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11) though), but all this is
105about [a different kind of
106“assembly”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_assembly).