Hundreds of Free Software Supporters Tuned in For 'FSF40' Hackathon

The Free Software Foundation describes how "After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and "put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out..."

Based on how many of you dropped in over the weekend and were incredibly engaged in the important work that is improving free software, either as a spectator or as a participant, this goal was accomplished. And it's all thanks to you!

Friday started a little rocky with a datacenter outage affecting most FSF services. Participants spread out to work on six different free software projects over forty-eight hours as our tech team worked to restore all FSF sites with the help and support of the community. Over three hundred folks were tuned in at a time, some to participate in the hackathon and others to follow the progress being made. As a community, we got a lot done over the weekend...

It was amazing to see so many of you take a little (or a lot of!) time out of your busy schedules to improve free software, and we're incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. It really energizes us and shows us how much we can accomplish when we work together over even just a couple days. Not only was this a fantastic sight to see because of the work we got done, but it was also a very fitting way to conclude our fortieth anniversary celebration events. Free software has been and always will be a community effort, one that continues to get better and better because of the dedicated developers, contributors, and users who ensure its existence. Thank you for celebrating forty years of the FSF and fighting for a freer future for us all.

Wonder if any of them asked the big question

[Digital Avatar]

After 40 years, IS PROJECT GNU DONE YET?

At some point you have to ask whether giving these people more money and more effort is really worth it: Because if GNU is done, then what do they need it for? If GNU isn't done, why couldn't they get it done in FOURTY YEARS?

Re:Wonder if any of them asked the big question

[ffkom]

You have a strange notion of what "GNU" is. If you refer to the GNU Hurd kernel, that was indeed released very late, and at a time when it was already clear it had been surpassed by Linux in popularity so far that it would never catch up. But all the many free software packages that were published as GNU projects have been used quite a lot, and still are, and of course software is never "done" because it can always be improved. For the most part, GNU, GPL and FSF has striking success and influence on both commercial and non-commercial software.

Re:

[Digital Avatar]

That software can always be improved does not mean it cannot be "done" in the sense of conforming to specification. Does the GNU Project HAVE a specification that we might know if and when it is done?

Re:Wonder if any of them asked the big question

[test321]

Which software project do you think is ever going to be "done" ? LibreOffice was first released in 1985, do you expect it to be done soon? Are KDE (since 1998) and GNOME (since 1999) done? GNU delivers the foundation for every linux computer and every linux-based cloud, they'll need forever maintenance of that code.

Re:

[Digital Avatar]

Requiring maintenance does not mean that it cannot ever conform to its stated specification. Does the GNU Project have a formal specification so we can know when it's done? I mean, they haven't just been bilking people for forty years where we can never tell if they're making any tangible progress, RIGHT?

Re:

[test321]

Most software developed as part of the GNU project don't have a specification. The GNU project includes GNOME and GCC which need development forever. There is a long list of other GNU projects in the same situation.

Re:

[unixisc]

Are we talking about HURD? Also, one of the reasons all those basic GNU tools are being re-written in Rust is so that they can re-license them under something other than GPL

Was it announced here ? First I heard of it

[greytree]

I read multiple tech sites per day and only heard about this here, now it's over.

I think FSF need to work on their marketing.

Where do I sign up...

[packrat0x]

... for the standardized flags and options taskforce?