[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> Since the GNU project is a software project, it has no gender to speak > of (it neither lacks one, or has one). So there is little point > trying to define it as some specific gender. And by virtue of being a > free software project, it cannot exclude anyone. The GNU Project overall concerns issues that apply to everyone the same. We develop a system to give computing freedom to everyone. Human rights must be the same for everyone. People vary in how much they value computing freedom, indeed also about how much they value freedom in general. But that does not concern us. We offer freedom-respecting software to every user, and those who appreciate it can use it. Others can ignore it. There may be some practical design issues, in some software packages, for which people of different demographics would like different behavior. For those projects, it would be useful to seek out a diverse set of UI designers and a diverse set of testers. Perhaps we should actively encourage people starting a new package, or adding major features, to do this. It could be useful to look for a group of design commenters to offer suggestions along those lines. "Diversity" in this context would involve more dimensions than the usual list of differences that nondiscrimination law covers, or might cover. For instance, it might include profession, preferred learning style, educational background, personality, and other ways in which people's thinking can vary. Are people interested in working practically on this? -- Dr Richard Stallman Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
