I think a line was crossed when people started lobbying their employers and FLOSS projects to boycott and defund the FSF over this. It started as people registering their disapproval at RMS being in a leadership position again, but demanding the entire board stand down was always going to be provocative, and the language used in these condemnation statements is a bit over-the-top. This was always inevitably going to be divisive.
The FSF is a volunteer-run non-profit with a democratic governance process and grievance procedure. It would’ve been nice to see those avenues pursued before leading lights across the FLOSS world took stronger action. I am also disappointed that some of the signatories don’t understand that you can’t remove toxicity and online abuse from a community by yourself being toxic and abusive online.
I believe the FSF plans to respond now by increasing transparency around appointments to the board. One board member has now resigned, and the current President has announced he will resign once reforms are in place. I’m guessing that’s not going to be enough, so either RMS needs to step down again, or if they decide to hold firm on this decision then the FSF needs to make it clear what exactly RMS’s role is going to be and which checks/balances will be in place.
If there were a third open letter for people who want a compromise, I wonder what that should include. any thoughts?
“we believe that the fair way to resolve the issue is through creation of a formal process in fsf”, or something like that?
because it is to none of our advantage that free software enthusiasts are now cancelling each other based on which letter they signed.
tbh I would love to see an open letter that calls for a moratorium on open letters. Sadly I think it would cause more drama than it resolved! lol :D
We just have to wait for this to play out, unfortunately. Judging by the back-handed statement from the FSF board that was published on Twitter earlier today, I doubt this will all end pleasantly.
Well said.
What’s the back-story, anyway?
a series of serious accusations of misconduct led to his resignation
Stallman is a 68 year old unpopular-with-the-ladies mansplaining type of guy that has a very crude humour and low interpersonal skills. He’s also a bit of a genius when it comes to software. He’s got a laundry list of things he’s said and done that are distasteful towards women. Nothing illegal however. He’s one of those guys that would rather be technically right than anything else.
Unfortunately he’s a victim of mob justice and cancel culture.
I don’t like Stallman, I do respect his contributions to the FOSS movement. I agree cancelling Stallman outside of due process is a really bad look for the FOSS movement.
That is essentially my point. I do not agree with RMS on a good many things and believe he was removed as President with good reason. Despite the respect I have for his four decades of service, my initial reaction to his re-appointment was “that is not a wise decision, they need to rethink it”, and if the open letter had just called for him to stand down from the FSF board, then I would have signed it without delay.
However, I was on the receiving end of an online mob myself in 2019 when I created a free software fork. I know how traumatic the experience is, and I cannot in good conscience be a part of doing that to another human being.
That said, I think it’s clear RMS’s position is now basically untenable because of this public outcry and he needs to do the right thing for the FSF. There’s nothing stopping him from holding talks and campaigning for the cause in future, and if he’s not in a leadership position then people might be reassured that he will be held accountable for any future bad behaviour.
believe he was removed as President with good reason.
Is that because of the
things he’s said and done that are distasteful towards women
?
Or was there another reason to remove him?
(I am very out of the loop)
Correct, he allegedly had a pattern of poor behaviour towards women spanning decades, and a habit of ignoring codes of conduct at conferences. His questionable views on some topics (particularly around the age of consent and people with down’s syndrome) and his strange decision to defend a convicted sex offender were also problems.
“allegedly”.
Supposedly on his blog there is no bad attitude towards women at all, quite the opposite.
There are people who searched it.
He is uncoruptable like Sokrates. Probably the real reason.
The misstreated women is used over and over to stir up drama to remove uncorruptible people.
The uncorruptible part is clearly why every single company are against him.
They fear loosing power to good free opensource software, that does not sell people lives.
This what appears to be a storm in a glaswater drama just makes me trust him even more to be a genuine person.
And I don’t know much about him.
That makes sense. But if there really is a conspiracy, there will be evidence of it too. That’s the kind of thing anyone can research and find the evidence for … if it’s real.
Okay so it’s not that he was doing a bad job or that they found someone else who would do a better job, and it’s not that he broke any explicit FSF rules or refused to obey an FSF rule.
It’s thought-crime, essentially. He had strong and unpopular ideas, sany people disliked him, so he’s bad for the FSF’s image.
But you could argue that that kind of creativity, the inclination to ignore convention and forcefully invent and argue for your own vision of that world - that’s a requirement for the job of leading the FSF.
I haven’t had time to start doing my own research about him (given how influential he was in the course of 20th century history) but I will.
I think I’d like him. He sounds great. I must listen to his lectures (or interviews or whatever he does mostly)
Cancel culture isn’t a real thing. Look at the man… he’s not fit to look after himself, let alonr represent a movement.
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Agreed, but they both have flaws. EFF had a big article posted about how evil social media trackers are posted right along side their twitter and facebook share buttons. I contacted them and asked them to follow their own guidelines and they replied they’d look into it. That was months ago.
As for Tor, a story under an old account called dirtfindr tells of them banning him or her on IRC for bringing up problems with their support of DDG. The chat log is posted there.
But like FSF in varying degrees of flawedness, their massive contributions far outweigh their oversights.
What I like about the FSF compared to the others is that they actually stick to their values. No compromises, you don’t have to run any proprietary JS to view their site, etc.
They actually seem to practice what they preach
Bullshit. Where was the transparency when they decided unilaterally to bring a child-abuse apologist back on the payroll? That shit came out of nowhere, which is why the whole board is being held to account.
It’s a shame that despite his very wrecked state of mind regarding some issues, FSF actually hold some believes that I actually support. The four freedoms including the zeroth is actually a fundamental concept that should be used when developing a software.
His personal blogposts, while rightly controversial, and sensitive, have, like any work of philosophy, simply the form of a thought experiment, if understandably an uncomfortable one. That doesn’t necessarily mean he endorses all of the expressed views. Since Plato philosophy has pondered/raised questions of mortality. Besides being misquoted, I see no primary evidence that RMS actually endorses what he’s being accused of.
of course. the FSF and even RMS himself are great, but he is not suitable to represent the movement as a leader.
Is a backseat board director a leader though? They probably would have had less trouble if they just had him as an “advisor” without voting power.
I would be more happy with that
Och, bunch of bullies ganging up on the weird kid.
Yeah, it is sad to see “inclusive” people rallying against someone who is clearly autistic, for liking to argue semantics at wrong times.
I would support anyone’s ability, neurotypical or otherwise, to express their opinions without a having a witch hunting rabble demanding their employers fire them.
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uphold stallman thought
The FSF has been a waste of resources for decades. They fundraise all day just to send some poor bastard in a GNU costume to Windows release parties. Seeing them choose Stallman as their hill to die on just cements how useless they already are.
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Speak up publicly. Did you use your own real name in the support letter? You should.
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Power in numbers. We can’t stay forever in the closet. Cancel barbarism is plain wrong.
One can speak whatever the hell they want as long as it is not racist, xenophobic or provoking crime
But misogyny is where you draw the line?
Oh come on, nice work twisting the words in their mouth.
Also I’m curious where Stallman has been openly misogynistic, as opposed to just socially clueless.
Not twisting anything, just pointing out the hypocrisy in the quoted text.
Also I’m at work, so I won’t dig in his past behavior on the internet for you now, but I am not the only one mentioning this stuff, which also had a part on RMS’s resign years ago, so there is little reason to still bring his misogyny into question today on 2021. Guy’s a boomer with some outdated boomer views, but being a boomer doesn’t excuse him for not updating his views.
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