> I'm sorry, but being a rude and obnoxious person doesn't mean the local lynch mob gets to decide when you have to step down from the foundation you created in

> I'm sorry, but being a rude and obnoxious person doesn't mean the local lynch mob gets to decide when you have to step down from the foundation you created in the name of ensuring human freedom for generations to come. No, but considering that his is a position of mostly PR and management nowadays, the majority of the community can agree that having a rude and obnoxious person as their visible head is neither doing any favors to their external image nor helping them move forward internally. Linux has won in the server (and others) by being the better technical product. Linux has lost the desktop war (and laptop, and mobile unless you count android) by being the inferior product in terms of UX, ease of use and in general ignoring everything that isn't pure technical areas. As the parent comment said, this was fine when tech was mostly isolated from mainstream users, but it doesn't cut it anymore. We need new kinds of people, and new visions, for new kinds of challenges. This is not a judgement of him as a person or his former work, mind you. It's a judgement of the qualities that we'd hope for in a leader/public face and whether RMS fits the role nowadays.