15 ms·

rms-open-letter.github.io

128 points by p4bl0 6y ago

edoceo 6y ago
Wow. Calls for the entire FSF board to step down. And signed by more than a few names that carry weight.
- kazinator 6y ago
  Which is why I'm hesitatingly doing a rare thing and clicking on vouch. This is a real thing happening in tech, by people who are serious; we can't just stick our heads in the sand and flag it out of the way. Edit: too late; by the time I typed that, it was vouched into undead status.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    It needs another vouch now. I was at least one of the people who vouched earlier, I think this is an important thread to be seen on HN. It is weird to me that HN kneejerk flags this, when they didn't flag the FSF announcing his re-placement on the board. They're both equally important and equally controversial.
techmememe 6y ago
At least we know who the people who have been working against software freedom by attacking an individuals past are now. The cancel culture are the undersigned SJWs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 6y ago
I can't think of anything more likely to harden the FSF board in defense of Stallman than leaders of the OSI being prominent in a group calling for the FSF board to step down for having tolerated him.
runningmike 6y ago
Why a public letter? This action should be done using non public pressure. It’s a bit like who does not sign approves this imho strange action from the fsf board. And still no good public response from the fsf on this delicate issue. Using the Gpl is already a statement for many Foss devs. The fsf should take care not to pollute the gpl with rms issues.
- geofft 6y ago
  There was non-public pressure, from members of the FSF board in fact, in the past, when he stepped down: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html It's clear that didn't work.
  - runningmike 6y ago
    Bradley M. Kuhn was one of the few who wrote a good retrospective in public and his own role. I can not imagine that he showed up at libre planet this year to receive his deserved award if he knew upfront that rms was back on the fsf board...
    - geofft 6y ago
      There's some extremely heavy subtext in Conservancy's press release about it, which was published after the news: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ > In his acceptance speech, Bradley gave advice to software freedom activists, noting that all should follow a few simple principles: take care in the words they choose in their communications, be prepared to "speak truth to power" (both to powerful proprietary software companies and to other Free Software leaders), stubbornly refuse to use or develop proprietary software, and find ways to bolster and coordinate with other important social justice causes, such as those that seek to ameliorate systemic bias and combat climate change. > Bradley also acknowledged that his work in collaboration with Conservancy's Executive Director, Karen Sandler, has allowed them “to achieve accomplishments in Free Software that neither of [them] could achieve working alone”. While thrilled to receive this individual honor, Bradley views his collaboration with Karen and Conservancy's staff as an excellent example of how software freedom activism is bigger than any single individual's achievements or views. Bradley added: “we succeed with the best results for the future of software freedom when we work together, set aside personal ambition, and reject cult of personality.”
draw_down 6y ago
The title/URL are dishonest: This isn't about RMS, it's a lot bigger than that. These people want to take out the whole FSF.
pfortuny 6y ago
“ Our communities have no space for people like Richard M. Stallman” So your community is essentially stallman-phobic. I see. Edit: even worse, they will not continue holding HIM (not his behavior) acceptable. This is ridiculous virtue-signaling while at the same time hateful and ignorant of the meaning of words.
- codezero 6y ago
  Stallman isn't a group or class of protected people - he's an individual and actions have consequences, and unfortunately I think you'll probably see this is not a case where those consequences have an effect on RMS.
  - pfortuny 6y ago
    Everybody is protected by law AFAIK.
    - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
      This is why no one has ever been fired from any job, ever.
    - nsp 6y ago
      But no one has the legal right to be on the leadership of the FSF? He's not being charged with crimes as far as I know
    - codezero 6y ago
      I'm responding to your appending "phobic" to the end as if that was a symmetrical response to something like trans-phobic which refers to a protected class in the US - these get _special_ protections that individuals do not get. RMS is probably a protected class for his disability, but that doesn't prevent him from being excluded for actions unrelated to that. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service doesn't equate to "RMS is a bad person" if RMS happens to not be wearing a shirt, it just means he won't served based on that. This org isn't RMS phobic, they are - against the actions / views RMS has perpetuated, and from his position of power, so they would like someone else to be in power, that's a pretty simple request, and I am sure there are a lot of qualified people to lead who haven't brought so much baggage along with them. That said, this is clearly just a polarizing issue that folks don't really appear capable of discussing because I mean, what's there to discuss, are you on the FSF? Do you know RMS? Have you worked with that org at all? I haven't!
neolog 6y ago
The list of opinions [1] may be interesting to people. I think they're probably very common opinions. [1] https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Regarding Down Syndrome, those who carry pregnancies are coming to a similar conclusion as Stallman (prenatal testing in many cases leads to termination of the pregnancy): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-las... EDIT: Sidenote: We were offered embryo genetic testing and selection as part of IVF rounds. Didn't give a second thought to not selecting unhealthy embryos.
  - spacechild1 6y ago
    Another side note: here in Austria, prenatal diagnostics is even covered by health care for women older than 35.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- amanzi 6y ago
  So many of those quotes really need to be read in the context of the original posts. I have read them all in the original context and have also read the journalistic reports on them that conveniently omit the context. There are others who have broken down the claims and compared them with the original quotes and it's really criminal how RMS has been misrepresented.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  It's a common opinion that possessing child pornography shouldnt be illegal?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
teddyh 6y ago
Again, in order to make sure this link is available in these comments: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
- geofft 6y ago
  That link does not tell the complete story: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and... https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 Don't believe everything the media tells you. Tech news sites only report on what they read in public sources, which leads them to wildly inaccurate conclusions like the idea that objections to Stallman started with his comments about Epstein, or that there was no objection to him from inside the free software community.
uncledave 6y ago
For me, the undersigned list has now become a shitlist of projects with folk who are more concerned about public image, perception and signalling than engineering. I am quite frankly tired of this. I don’t give a crap what RMS thinks or says quite frankly or this lot. What did being divisive ever solve? All they are doing is creating more problems, more animosity and discrediting us all.
rvz 6y ago
> We are calling for the removal of the entire Board of the Free Software Foundation. Ready for round 2? Let's see who u-turns first.
rubin55 6y ago
How does this not produce gnashing of teeth and rage in people? Seriously, what the fuck is up with this holier-than-thou virtue signaling bullshit? Good to have a list of people that apparently approve of this kind of thing so I know what to avoid.
- creamytaco 6y ago
  100%. This is a modern day witch hunt by dangerous fanatics that think they can gang up against and cancel someone they don't like. I'm glad they put their names down as I want nothing to do with these people.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    I was so disappointed in reading Federico Mena Quintero's name in the list. I have respect on him as a Mexican developer and open source evangelist. To think that a lot of people here In Mexico laugh at the crazy Political Correctness and overreaction of Americans... I would think he would be more on the side of just getting shit done, live and let live.
- uncledave 6y ago
  This. Fuck ‘em all. This creates more divides, more animosity and discredits us all. It is not welcome.
- jcastro 6y ago
  Have you not ever met the guy? Yeesh.
  - uncledave 6y ago
    I have. He’s less of an asshat than my father. At best my father got called a prick. We didn’t form a consortium of people to cancel him. That’s just batshit crazy.
    - jcastro 6y ago
      Multiple decades of bad behavior, people are tired of it and don't want to work with him. You can't force people to work with someone who treats them like shit.
knz_ 6y ago
At what point do the police get involved? This is a guy who openly supports pedophilia on his webpage and has been catching flack for it for years. He even defended Epstein. Anyone defending RMS or signing his paychecks at this point needs to have their home and devices searched, at the very least.
verytrivial 6y ago
Having read the apparently damning set of things RMS has said linked from the page, they sound very similar to the sorts of things I would have thought when I was an unsocialised 10 year old. All 'reasoned' in some technical sense, but hurtful, misguided, ignorant, impolite and basically no longer defensible. To be honest these sort of 'internally consistent but clangingly bad' takes on morality and social norms come out a lot in ASD people. The puritanical bent to RMS's prognostications on Software Freedom are also like this: if X then Y, and it MUST BE Y, and I don't care how you feel about it. I have no idea if this is in play here. It sounds like he is being excluded based upon his views (they mention "actions" but this seems to be 'act' of sharing his views?) but not actually taken to task or challenged about them?
- threatofrain 6y ago
  I understand seeking to exclude Stallman from leadership, because I'd be pretty disappointed if my org leader kept getting caught in completely unforced errors far outside of mission focus, such as on issues of pedophelia, rape, or Epstein. When a person becomes a leader, the calculus on them is no longer on whether they are merely an acceptable individual. What is troublesome is that this letter seeks to oust the entire FSF board.
  - detaro 6y ago
    The FSF board that just decided to put Stallman back. Seems like an obvious conclusion for people strongly opposed to him and the culture around him. Before he left there was always going to be the defensive argument of "but what are they gonna do, throw out the founder?", which is now more "they looked at the entire package and decided that yes actually, that's what we want from a fellow leader".
  - bitwize 6y ago
    > What is troublesome is that this letter seeks to oust the entire FSF board. Seeking to oust the entire FSF board is kind of the point of the entire exercise -- Stallman or no Stallman. As long as the FSF board is committed to the Four Olds, there will be an army of twitterati searching their entire blog, mailing-list, and social-media history for the six words that will hang them. As long as the FSF and other institutions remain authoritative and outside the control of the "woke" (who are really lickspittle agents of corporate interests mixed with a few assorted grifters), they will be considered hostile and a threat, to be dealt with accordingly: subverted and neutralized, or failing that, destroyed. The next step is to gain control of the OSI so as to change the Open Source Definition.
zokier 6y ago
I'm kinda confused what FSF was even thinking reinstating RMS. This was such a obvious reaction and consequence. Either they should have stood by RMS in the first place, or they should have let the matter be. But flipflopping like they did is pretty silly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
temp0826 6y ago
No room for redemption these days
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > No room for redemption these days Yeah, especially since it seems like the comments he's being condemned for here are ones he's since disavowed: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman... > "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it," Stallman wrote. "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per [sic] psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."
howeyc 6y ago
No. Someone having opinions you don't like isn't reason enough to ruin their life. Put me in the anti-rms-open-letter camp. We all interact with people that have strange opinions everyday, we just usually don't hear them, let's all move on.
- untitaker_ 6y ago
  By that standard my life is already ruined, as I too am not on the FSF's board.
  - tacoforlunch 6y ago
    Are you an excellent developer that has spent their life towards FSF activism rather than working for $BIG_CORP?
throwaway3229 6y ago
Their reasoning for kicking him off is pretty weak. I'm taking these quotes from the list of incidents linked from the first. > Especially chilling is when Stallman addresses the accusations that Marvin Minsky sexually assaulted one of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking victims This incident as it was initially reported was fabricated. This letter admits that but tries to reify those fabrications by twisting his words. Saying that maybe his friend Minsky didn't realize what was happening is not defending Epstein or rape. > He regularly and repeatedly makes comments about “the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as ‘rape’ even if they are willing.” The US criminal code is not above criticism. From Stallman or anyone else. > He recommended that, should someone find out they are pregnant and the child tests positive for Down’s syndrome “the right course of action for the woman is to terminate the pregnancy.” Not really an uncommon opinion. The movement to not abort down syndrome babies was really an offshoot of the pro-life movement. Stallman is vocally not pro-life, and you really shouldn't expect him to be. If he believes sometimes abortion is the right choice, more power to him. > RMS has spent years on a campaign against using people’s correct pronouns. This is poorly disguised transphobia. Having literary standards is not transphobic. There's no evidence Stallman ever prevented someone from participating because of their identity. There's no evidence Stallman doesn't mean what he says or that he says and speaks coded language only his detractors understand. These signees should do better. EDIT: Removed "Stallman-phobic" wording. Even if that's an apt description the phrasing has proved distracting in a different comment thread.
- neolog 6y ago
  Stallman recommends the singular gender-neutral pronouns "person/per/pers" [1]. [1] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
- untitaker_ 6y ago
  This really has nothing to do with whether you find those positions agreeable or not. You have to understand that the core argument here is that Stallman is unfit to lead an organization that is supposed to be welcoming to all kinds of people, and that includes people with down syndrome or rape victims. The point is that constantly being the center of controversy is not helping here, not that any of those positions are reasons to make him homeless (which is still very much a step further than removing him from a position of power). >There's no evidence Stallman ever prevented someone from participating because of their identity. The standard for being in a leadership position is usually much higher than the one that a regular employee/IC is held up against. Stallman is the public face of an organization comprised of a lot of people. Everything he says publicly is representative of what the FSF stands for.
DiabloD3 6y ago
Can someone explain to me how this is not cancel culture? Us folks on the liberal left end of the spectrum can't complain about the right for employing cancel culture tactics, yet use the same tactics hypocritically. Not only that, if this isn't cancel culture and/or this needs to serve as the one exception, would we not also be required to go for the full nuclear option and stop using not only the GPL family of licenses, but all software that refuses to migrate off said licenses? Merely asking the FSF board to stand down is a meaningless gesture, as the entire foundation would need to cease to exist as it shall always be under rms's shadow. Cancel culture is a dangerous thing, and shouldn't be tolerated in any liberal community that intends to protect the rights of individuals using ideals such as Freedom and Free Speech. Note: Although I dislike how RMS conducts himself in person from time to time, that isn't a good reason to shove him under the bus. He makes arguments with zero tact, but does not make arguments made in bad faith. He clearly is somewhere on the Autism spectrum, and most likely was never diagnosed due to proper diagnosis not being invented until his 20s, and proper treatment not being invented until his 40s. The community needs to make sure we don't become some violent revolution that turns around and eats our own because its convenient.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Us folks on the liberal left end of the spectrum can't complain about the right for employing cancel culture tactics Except in pointing out the hypocrisy of the right, no one on the left is accusing anyone using the right-wing ”cancel culture” buzzword (which differentiates it from the old-standard “political correctness” that it replaced, which was used in internecine disputes within the left before being adopted by the right, but even that was never generally deployed against the right even though they used the same tactics; pretending that the main flow is the other way around reads like false-flag concern trolling.
  - DiabloD3 6y ago
    That didn't actually answer my question. I am maybe one of the furthest left regulars on the HN, and I'm concerned that this open letter is not being made in good faith. I don't care about the etymology of the phrase, it is just the most apt description used by current internet culture. We called it something else before it was named cancel culture, and we shall name it something else in the future, as we shall with all other things. Your red herring does not answer my question.
zingplex 6y ago
I must be missing something. Why was RMS brought back?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
squarefoot 6y ago
Am I the only one who sees the timing and tone of this open letter somewhat suspicious? Technical stuff aside, I am not a RMS supporter or friend, I just exchanged like 5 words and shook his hand once, like huh... maybe 20 years ago at a conference. He may not be a winner in politically correctness, but I would expect a letter like that to be written against someone who actively behaves in some way, not just by being so stupid for making his odd ideas public.
- viklove 6y ago
  > not just by being so stupid for making his odd ideas public We're reaching the point in our society where thought-crime is a reality. You're not allowed to hold certain opinions, and if you do, you can't have a job or participate in the commons anymore. You must be imprisoned, stripped of your ability to provide for yourself, and ostracized from society. Soon, these people will begin to claim political offices and they will have the police and military at their disposal to enact their will. Delete your post history, and lobotomize yourself before they come for the rest of us as well.
taylodl 6y ago
Meanwhile the majority of software we're using was made possible by RMS. Let's not focus on that, let's instead focus on the fact that RMS isn't a saint and doesn't say what we believe to be the "right" things. Yes, RMS has made provocative statements on controversial topics - but I believe throwing out decades of his work and essentially throwing a human being away because you disagree with what he says on hot-topic issues to be much more repugnant than anything RMS has said or done. And this coming from someone who disagrees with most of what RMS has said on these topics.
- cforrester 6y ago
  I don't see anyone talking about throwing away decades of his work. The good that he's done won't go away any time soon. But it's becoming more and more evident that the free software movement can't survive unless it continues to push past the rut in which people like RMS are content to remain.
  - pieter_mj 6y ago
    Is it the author's and signatories' goal to rescue libre software? I don't think so, they couldn't care less.
    - cforrester 6y ago
      The signatories are largely people who work on free and open source software projects, and their stated goal in keeping people like Stallman out of positions of influence within the community is to increase participation in general by discouraging behaviour that drives potential contributors away. Having read a number of articles on both sides of this issue, I see no reason to believe that their advocacy is anything but genuinely motivated by a desire for a better community.
      - modo_mario 6y ago
        >increase participation in general by discouraging behaviour that drives potential contributors away. I seriously feel like this would do the very exact opposite. It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater in a hugely damaging way and who the actual fuck wants to work in such an environment. And why for example do these people regardless of whether they agree with him or not genuinely believe that rms is trasphobic because he thinks there is/should be a gender neutral pronoun that would be better for common usage than they/them. I think the one he suggested sounds stupid and won't find common usage at all...but I definitely do not think he's trans-phobic because of it and that his view on this matter should somehow be a contributing factor to the entire board getting thrown out or him being shunned from anything free software sounds absolutely stupid.
adolph 6y ago
Don’t feed trolls.
h2odragon 6y ago
I was a kid when i heard about RMS, his words moved me and helped me find the courage to be weird, and live to my own principles. I wonder how many of the people personally offended by what they think RMS said have taken it up with him? "Transphobic"? really? I haven't spent more than a few minutes speaking to RMS, and that years ago; but "-phobic" isn't a word i can see applying to him.
the_only_law 6y ago
I can perhaps see how he could be accused of misogyny but how is RMS been ableist or transphobic? Is the former supposed to be some stretch about GNU software accessibility or something?
- tzs 6y ago
  The transphobic thing appears to be because he advocates using gender neutral pronouns, but apparently not the right gender neutral pronouns. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be transphobic. The ableist thing is probably his recommending that women with Down's syndrome fetuses should abort them.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    > I'm not sure how this is supposed to be transphobic. Trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary people often express their preferred pronouns. If you do not use these pronouns to address or refer to that particular person, it is considered transphobic. By far the most common gender-neutral pronouns are "they/them". It does not matter what Strunk & White says -- you are considered a transphobe if you do not use "they" for someone who has an expressed preference for "they". Period. By choosing deliberately not to respect their preferences, you are thought to deny or "erase" their gender identity. You may think this doesn't matter. Ultimately, even in the grand scheme of terrible things that have been done to trans people, it's quite a small issue (the buzzterm is "microaggression" after all), and it certainly doesn't matter in a technical discussion. But securing compliance in small things like this is a dry run in pressure tactics: if people, especially if held in high esteem, buckle under and adopt and enforce the orthodox practice with regard to gender pronouns or other detail, the tactics worked. Ultimately the goal is to use those tactics to sway decisions on issues that matter, like who gets an authoritative say in what constitutes open source and which overarching goals should the movement serve.
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
Lots of Open Source Initiative. Can anyone explain to me what the OSI even does and why they seem to have the time to protest RMS? From their website: >For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. So they build bridges? That's a great goal. So what bridge are they building here? Seems more like they are starting a fight. That seems against their stated mission.
devit 6y ago
Stallman is voicing his opinion about things he has scarce or no direct experience in to reinforce his self-image of being smart. These people are attacking Stallman to reinforce their self-image of being "good" and "progressive". Both are deluded. Stallman has no influence on the topics they contend but these people unfortunately have some influence in this matter.
- cforrester 6y ago
  > These people are attacking Stallman to reinforce their self-image of being "good" and "progressive". This is a poor assessment, as it doesn't account for the fact that people cultivate the environment they want to be a part of. Removing people like Stallman from positions of influence within the community changes the tone of the community; while you may believe that change would be for the worse, it's better to acknowledge that others genuinely believe the inverse, rather than dishonestly dismissing it as blind reinforcement of self-identity.
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    Wanting the tone of the community to be a certain way, is one thing. The means of getting there—a public campaign to get someone and everyone who supported him to lose their place in their organization—is its own thing, and some would say it's below the belt, and that exercising this means has its own detrimental effect on the tone of the community, and that it harms the claimed ends more than it helps.
    - cforrester 6y ago
      I would be more inclined to agree if not for the fact that the board invited him back. Standing by him through this would have been bad enough, let alone inviting him back after his resignation. I don't have confidence in a board which believes this to be a wise decision. They shouldn't lose their positions because of Stallman's beliefs, but because of their own unwise decision to return him to a position of greater influence.
      - 6y ago
Bancakes 6y ago
Look at all those leeches waiting for a chance at FSF leadership position.
ltrls23 6y ago
Why is this link flagged? It's an important discussion in the FOSS community and doesn't break any guideline...
- samtheprogram 6y ago
  I came to see if this was posted on HN, found that it was flagged. What's going on?
thereddaikon 6y ago
ESR said that the open source movement would give us better software that was free from the influence of corporations. He was wrong. The last decade has shown the FOSS ecosystem trapped, packaged and resold by companies offering "services". And when the FOSS leadership should have been doing something about it, they devoured each other over modern notions of morality and social justice. Nice to see that big names at Gnome and Debian apparently have nothing better to do than throwing a public hissy fit. Seems these organizations are run by man-children. IBM, Microsoft, Amazon etc are laughing all the way to the bank.
dang 6y ago
Recent and related: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (814 comments)
delsarto 6y ago
I'm not sure publishing a letter via pull requests on a closed-source platform owned by Microsoft is going to convince the Free Software Foundation (it's in the name) on the merits of the argument.
smitty1e 6y ago
May fortune have mercy on those who engage in character assassination. If there is legally actionable evidence against someone, then let there be a court case. Sick of seeing public figures disparaged in this way without proven basis.
thefz 6y ago
> We are also calling for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from all leadership positions, including the GNU Project. GNU, which he created. So basically the point here is to appropriate another man's life work and make it your own putting another label on it.
bhaak 6y ago
What are the people having signed this letter back in 2019 do now? https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... I know what I would do if the organization I do free work for disregards my opinion in such a blatant way. I would just walk away. I wonder how many will do this?
rflec028 6y ago
Please remove log from own eye first. Will review after that.
rflec028 6y ago
Hello Contributors, *RMS* may not conform to your societal standards, but condemning the man (him, or Torvalds, who also comes under fire,) marrs your reputation, and not his. > He has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. I have met RMS in person, (had Chinese food with him, in fact,) and though he may ignore some social conventions, he is a person who has very valuable and unique opinions, and a force to be reckoned with. These accusations appear to be, while not baseless, motivated by an extremely twisted socio-political ideology. *Shame on you for bringing cancel culture into the world of software.* https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io/issues/949 https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io...
kazinator 6y ago
> RMS has spent years on a campaign against using people’s correct pronouns. This is poorly disguised transphobia. In the original publication of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines, he said “there are various ways to express gender neutrality in third-person singular pronouns in English; you do not have to use ‘they.’”14 This text has since been updated, but is still transphobic.15 The main page on his web site includes the statement that “‘They’ is plural — for singular antecedents, use singular gender-neutral pronouns.”16 Wow, this seems to be a complete lie, on the surface of it. When you read all these documents, you find that they care 115% about the issue of how to refer to people in order to respect their gender idenity. The singular gender-neutral pronouns Stallman refers to in [16] are actually gender-neutral: they are ones he invented himself and uses. He's just bothered by the bad grammar of using "they" as a singular, and the ambiguities it causes in sentences where it could plausibly have either multiple people as an antecedent or just one person. Or is there some new development that I'm missing? Are there people who would like to be referred to in plural, due to multiple personalities, so that using singular pronouns makes hurtful assumptions against them? "I am not a 'perse', Mr. Stallman! I am two people: a man named Bob and a female named Stephanie. Please refer to me by the correct pronoun 'they'." ... kind of thing? I admittedly don't keep up with this stuff.
maxharris 6y ago
When they tried to cancel RMS for the first time in 2019, I am ashamed to say that I used it as an opportunity to pile on him on Twitter. I was sore about petty differences such as the architectural crippling of GCC and the viral nature of the GPL. Since then, I have seen user freedoms continue to erode. Statists continue to push for more controls and backdoors on encryption. Repressive governments have the cooperation of the companies that run the mobile device app stores. Desktop operating systems continue to degrade with the addition of advertisements and increasing amounts of DRM, spying and "trusted computing" features that limit what you can do with your own machine. In short, we are one or two steps away from Stallman's nightmare scenario, where the illegal use of debuggers and compilers is considered a crime. I used Stallman's first cancellation to advance my own permissive-licensing agenda (albeit by a very small amount, as I'm an unknown). Introspecting upon the way I reacted initially, I now suspect that this is simply another attempt by powerful interests in government and business (notably, a great deal of enmity against RMS comes from Microsoft and Salesforce) to destroy a man that has dedicated his life to keeping computing free.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  On an aside, I don't think Stallman or the FSF are really part of the tech freedom story anymore, whether on the PR, civil rights, or the technological front. What's the most recent FSF victory?

128 points by p4bl0 6y ago

edoceo 6y ago

Wow. Calls for the entire FSF board to step down. And signed by more than a few names that carry weight.

kazinator 6y ago
Which is why I'm hesitatingly doing a rare thing and clicking on vouch. This is a real thing happening in tech, by people who are serious; we can't just stick our heads in the sand and flag it out of the way. Edit: too late; by the time I typed that, it was vouched into undead status.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  It needs another vouch now. I was at least one of the people who vouched earlier, I think this is an important thread to be seen on HN. It is weird to me that HN kneejerk flags this, when they didn't flag the FSF announcing his re-placement on the board. They're both equally important and equally controversial.

techmememe 6y ago

At least we know who the people who have been working against software freedom by attacking an individuals past are now. The cancel culture are the undersigned SJWs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 6y ago

I can't think of anything more likely to harden the FSF board in defense of Stallman than leaders of the OSI being prominent in a group calling for the FSF board to step down for having tolerated him.

runningmike 6y ago

Why a public letter? This action should be done using non public pressure. It’s a bit like who does not sign approves this imho strange action from the fsf board. And still no good public response from the fsf on this delicate issue. Using the Gpl is already a statement for many Foss devs. The fsf should take care not to pollute the gpl with rms issues.

geofft 6y ago
There was non-public pressure, from members of the FSF board in fact, in the past, when he stepped down: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html It's clear that didn't work.
- runningmike 6y ago
  Bradley M. Kuhn was one of the few who wrote a good retrospective in public and his own role. I can not imagine that he showed up at libre planet this year to receive his deserved award if he knew upfront that rms was back on the fsf board...
  - geofft 6y ago
    There's some extremely heavy subtext in Conservancy's press release about it, which was published after the news: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ > In his acceptance speech, Bradley gave advice to software freedom activists, noting that all should follow a few simple principles: take care in the words they choose in their communications, be prepared to "speak truth to power" (both to powerful proprietary software companies and to other Free Software leaders), stubbornly refuse to use or develop proprietary software, and find ways to bolster and coordinate with other important social justice causes, such as those that seek to ameliorate systemic bias and combat climate change. > Bradley also acknowledged that his work in collaboration with Conservancy's Executive Director, Karen Sandler, has allowed them “to achieve accomplishments in Free Software that neither of [them] could achieve working alone”. While thrilled to receive this individual honor, Bradley views his collaboration with Karen and Conservancy's staff as an excellent example of how software freedom activism is bigger than any single individual's achievements or views. Bradley added: “we succeed with the best results for the future of software freedom when we work together, set aside personal ambition, and reject cult of personality.”

draw_down 6y ago

The title/URL are dishonest: This isn't about RMS, it's a lot bigger than that. These people want to take out the whole FSF.

pfortuny 6y ago

“ Our communities have no space for people like Richard M. Stallman” So your community is essentially stallman-phobic. I see. Edit: even worse, they will not continue holding HIM (not his behavior) acceptable. This is ridiculous virtue-signaling while at the same time hateful and ignorant of the meaning of words.

codezero 6y ago
Stallman isn't a group or class of protected people - he's an individual and actions have consequences, and unfortunately I think you'll probably see this is not a case where those consequences have an effect on RMS.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  Everybody is protected by law AFAIK.
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    This is why no one has ever been fired from any job, ever.
  - nsp 6y ago
    But no one has the legal right to be on the leadership of the FSF? He's not being charged with crimes as far as I know
  - codezero 6y ago
    I'm responding to your appending "phobic" to the end as if that was a symmetrical response to something like trans-phobic which refers to a protected class in the US - these get _special_ protections that individuals do not get. RMS is probably a protected class for his disability, but that doesn't prevent him from being excluded for actions unrelated to that. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service doesn't equate to "RMS is a bad person" if RMS happens to not be wearing a shirt, it just means he won't served based on that. This org isn't RMS phobic, they are - against the actions / views RMS has perpetuated, and from his position of power, so they would like someone else to be in power, that's a pretty simple request, and I am sure there are a lot of qualified people to lead who haven't brought so much baggage along with them. That said, this is clearly just a polarizing issue that folks don't really appear capable of discussing because I mean, what's there to discuss, are you on the FSF? Do you know RMS? Have you worked with that org at all? I haven't!

neolog 6y ago

The list of opinions [1] may be interesting to people. I think they're probably very common opinions. [1] https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Regarding Down Syndrome, those who carry pregnancies are coming to a similar conclusion as Stallman (prenatal testing in many cases leads to termination of the pregnancy): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-las... EDIT: Sidenote: We were offered embryo genetic testing and selection as part of IVF rounds. Didn't give a second thought to not selecting unhealthy embryos.
- spacechild1 6y ago
  Another side note: here in Austria, prenatal diagnostics is even covered by health care for women older than 35.
deleted 6y ago
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amanzi 6y ago
So many of those quotes really need to be read in the context of the original posts. I have read them all in the original context and have also read the journalistic reports on them that conveniently omit the context. There are others who have broken down the claims and compared them with the original quotes and it's really criminal how RMS has been misrepresented.
madeofpalk 6y ago
It's a common opinion that possessing child pornography shouldnt be illegal?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

teddyh 6y ago

Again, in order to make sure this link is available in these comments: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

geofft 6y ago
That link does not tell the complete story: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and... https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 Don't believe everything the media tells you. Tech news sites only report on what they read in public sources, which leads them to wildly inaccurate conclusions like the idea that objections to Stallman started with his comments about Epstein, or that there was no objection to him from inside the free software community.

uncledave 6y ago

For me, the undersigned list has now become a shitlist of projects with folk who are more concerned about public image, perception and signalling than engineering. I am quite frankly tired of this. I don’t give a crap what RMS thinks or says quite frankly or this lot. What did being divisive ever solve? All they are doing is creating more problems, more animosity and discrediting us all.

rvz 6y ago

> We are calling for the removal of the entire Board of the Free Software Foundation. Ready for round 2? Let's see who u-turns first.

rubin55 6y ago

How does this not produce gnashing of teeth and rage in people? Seriously, what the fuck is up with this holier-than-thou virtue signaling bullshit? Good to have a list of people that apparently approve of this kind of thing so I know what to avoid.

creamytaco 6y ago
100%. This is a modern day witch hunt by dangerous fanatics that think they can gang up against and cancel someone they don't like. I'm glad they put their names down as I want nothing to do with these people.
- xtracto 6y ago
  I was so disappointed in reading Federico Mena Quintero's name in the list. I have respect on him as a Mexican developer and open source evangelist. To think that a lot of people here In Mexico laugh at the crazy Political Correctness and overreaction of Americans... I would think he would be more on the side of just getting shit done, live and let live.
uncledave 6y ago
This. Fuck ‘em all. This creates more divides, more animosity and discredits us all. It is not welcome.
jcastro 6y ago
Have you not ever met the guy? Yeesh.
- uncledave 6y ago
  I have. He’s less of an asshat than my father. At best my father got called a prick. We didn’t form a consortium of people to cancel him. That’s just batshit crazy.
  - jcastro 6y ago
    Multiple decades of bad behavior, people are tired of it and don't want to work with him. You can't force people to work with someone who treats them like shit.

knz_ 6y ago

At what point do the police get involved? This is a guy who openly supports pedophilia on his webpage and has been catching flack for it for years. He even defended Epstein. Anyone defending RMS or signing his paychecks at this point needs to have their home and devices searched, at the very least.

verytrivial 6y ago

Having read the apparently damning set of things RMS has said linked from the page, they sound very similar to the sorts of things I would have thought when I was an unsocialised 10 year old. All 'reasoned' in some technical sense, but hurtful, misguided, ignorant, impolite and basically no longer defensible. To be honest these sort of 'internally consistent but clangingly bad' takes on morality and social norms come out a lot in ASD people. The puritanical bent to RMS's prognostications on Software Freedom are also like this: if X then Y, and it MUST BE Y, and I don't care how you feel about it. I have no idea if this is in play here. It sounds like he is being excluded based upon his views (they mention "actions" but this seems to be 'act' of sharing his views?) but not actually taken to task or challenged about them?

threatofrain 6y ago
I understand seeking to exclude Stallman from leadership, because I'd be pretty disappointed if my org leader kept getting caught in completely unforced errors far outside of mission focus, such as on issues of pedophelia, rape, or Epstein. When a person becomes a leader, the calculus on them is no longer on whether they are merely an acceptable individual. What is troublesome is that this letter seeks to oust the entire FSF board.
- detaro 6y ago
  The FSF board that just decided to put Stallman back. Seems like an obvious conclusion for people strongly opposed to him and the culture around him. Before he left there was always going to be the defensive argument of "but what are they gonna do, throw out the founder?", which is now more "they looked at the entire package and decided that yes actually, that's what we want from a fellow leader".
- bitwize 6y ago
  > What is troublesome is that this letter seeks to oust the entire FSF board. Seeking to oust the entire FSF board is kind of the point of the entire exercise -- Stallman or no Stallman. As long as the FSF board is committed to the Four Olds, there will be an army of twitterati searching their entire blog, mailing-list, and social-media history for the six words that will hang them. As long as the FSF and other institutions remain authoritative and outside the control of the "woke" (who are really lickspittle agents of corporate interests mixed with a few assorted grifters), they will be considered hostile and a threat, to be dealt with accordingly: subverted and neutralized, or failing that, destroyed. The next step is to gain control of the OSI so as to change the Open Source Definition.

zokier 6y ago

I'm kinda confused what FSF was even thinking reinstating RMS. This was such a obvious reaction and consequence. Either they should have stood by RMS in the first place, or they should have let the matter be. But flipflopping like they did is pretty silly.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

temp0826 6y ago

No room for redemption these days

tablespoon 6y ago
> No room for redemption these days Yeah, especially since it seems like the comments he's being condemned for here are ones he's since disavowed: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman... > "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it," Stallman wrote. "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per [sic] psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."

howeyc 6y ago

No. Someone having opinions you don't like isn't reason enough to ruin their life. Put me in the anti-rms-open-letter camp. We all interact with people that have strange opinions everyday, we just usually don't hear them, let's all move on.

untitaker_ 6y ago
By that standard my life is already ruined, as I too am not on the FSF's board.
- tacoforlunch 6y ago
  Are you an excellent developer that has spent their life towards FSF activism rather than working for $BIG_CORP?

throwaway3229 6y ago

Their reasoning for kicking him off is pretty weak. I'm taking these quotes from the list of incidents linked from the first. > Especially chilling is when Stallman addresses the accusations that Marvin Minsky sexually assaulted one of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking victims This incident as it was initially reported was fabricated. This letter admits that but tries to reify those fabrications by twisting his words. Saying that maybe his friend Minsky didn't realize what was happening is not defending Epstein or rape. > He regularly and repeatedly makes comments about “the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as ‘rape’ even if they are willing.” The US criminal code is not above criticism. From Stallman or anyone else. > He recommended that, should someone find out they are pregnant and the child tests positive for Down’s syndrome “the right course of action for the woman is to terminate the pregnancy.” Not really an uncommon opinion. The movement to not abort down syndrome babies was really an offshoot of the pro-life movement. Stallman is vocally not pro-life, and you really shouldn't expect him to be. If he believes sometimes abortion is the right choice, more power to him. > RMS has spent years on a campaign against using people’s correct pronouns. This is poorly disguised transphobia. Having literary standards is not transphobic. There's no evidence Stallman ever prevented someone from participating because of their identity. There's no evidence Stallman doesn't mean what he says or that he says and speaks coded language only his detractors understand. These signees should do better. EDIT: Removed "Stallman-phobic" wording. Even if that's an apt description the phrasing has proved distracting in a different comment thread.

neolog 6y ago
Stallman recommends the singular gender-neutral pronouns "person/per/pers" [1]. [1] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
untitaker_ 6y ago
This really has nothing to do with whether you find those positions agreeable or not. You have to understand that the core argument here is that Stallman is unfit to lead an organization that is supposed to be welcoming to all kinds of people, and that includes people with down syndrome or rape victims. The point is that constantly being the center of controversy is not helping here, not that any of those positions are reasons to make him homeless (which is still very much a step further than removing him from a position of power). >There's no evidence Stallman ever prevented someone from participating because of their identity. The standard for being in a leadership position is usually much higher than the one that a regular employee/IC is held up against. Stallman is the public face of an organization comprised of a lot of people. Everything he says publicly is representative of what the FSF stands for.

DiabloD3 6y ago

Can someone explain to me how this is not cancel culture? Us folks on the liberal left end of the spectrum can't complain about the right for employing cancel culture tactics, yet use the same tactics hypocritically. Not only that, if this isn't cancel culture and/or this needs to serve as the one exception, would we not also be required to go for the full nuclear option and stop using not only the GPL family of licenses, but all software that refuses to migrate off said licenses? Merely asking the FSF board to stand down is a meaningless gesture, as the entire foundation would need to cease to exist as it shall always be under rms's shadow. Cancel culture is a dangerous thing, and shouldn't be tolerated in any liberal community that intends to protect the rights of individuals using ideals such as Freedom and Free Speech. Note: Although I dislike how RMS conducts himself in person from time to time, that isn't a good reason to shove him under the bus. He makes arguments with zero tact, but does not make arguments made in bad faith. He clearly is somewhere on the Autism spectrum, and most likely was never diagnosed due to proper diagnosis not being invented until his 20s, and proper treatment not being invented until his 40s. The community needs to make sure we don't become some violent revolution that turns around and eats our own because its convenient.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Us folks on the liberal left end of the spectrum can't complain about the right for employing cancel culture tactics Except in pointing out the hypocrisy of the right, no one on the left is accusing anyone using the right-wing ”cancel culture” buzzword (which differentiates it from the old-standard “political correctness” that it replaced, which was used in internecine disputes within the left before being adopted by the right, but even that was never generally deployed against the right even though they used the same tactics; pretending that the main flow is the other way around reads like false-flag concern trolling.
- DiabloD3 6y ago
  That didn't actually answer my question. I am maybe one of the furthest left regulars on the HN, and I'm concerned that this open letter is not being made in good faith. I don't care about the etymology of the phrase, it is just the most apt description used by current internet culture. We called it something else before it was named cancel culture, and we shall name it something else in the future, as we shall with all other things. Your red herring does not answer my question.

zingplex 6y ago

I must be missing something. Why was RMS brought back?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

squarefoot 6y ago

Am I the only one who sees the timing and tone of this open letter somewhat suspicious? Technical stuff aside, I am not a RMS supporter or friend, I just exchanged like 5 words and shook his hand once, like huh... maybe 20 years ago at a conference. He may not be a winner in politically correctness, but I would expect a letter like that to be written against someone who actively behaves in some way, not just by being so stupid for making his odd ideas public.

viklove 6y ago
> not just by being so stupid for making his odd ideas public We're reaching the point in our society where thought-crime is a reality. You're not allowed to hold certain opinions, and if you do, you can't have a job or participate in the commons anymore. You must be imprisoned, stripped of your ability to provide for yourself, and ostracized from society. Soon, these people will begin to claim political offices and they will have the police and military at their disposal to enact their will. Delete your post history, and lobotomize yourself before they come for the rest of us as well.

taylodl 6y ago

Meanwhile the majority of software we're using was made possible by RMS. Let's not focus on that, let's instead focus on the fact that RMS isn't a saint and doesn't say what we believe to be the "right" things. Yes, RMS has made provocative statements on controversial topics - but I believe throwing out decades of his work and essentially throwing a human being away because you disagree with what he says on hot-topic issues to be much more repugnant than anything RMS has said or done. And this coming from someone who disagrees with most of what RMS has said on these topics.

cforrester 6y ago
I don't see anyone talking about throwing away decades of his work. The good that he's done won't go away any time soon. But it's becoming more and more evident that the free software movement can't survive unless it continues to push past the rut in which people like RMS are content to remain.
- pieter_mj 6y ago
  Is it the author's and signatories' goal to rescue libre software? I don't think so, they couldn't care less.
  - cforrester 6y ago
    The signatories are largely people who work on free and open source software projects, and their stated goal in keeping people like Stallman out of positions of influence within the community is to increase participation in general by discouraging behaviour that drives potential contributors away. Having read a number of articles on both sides of this issue, I see no reason to believe that their advocacy is anything but genuinely motivated by a desire for a better community.
    - modo_mario 6y ago
      >increase participation in general by discouraging behaviour that drives potential contributors away. I seriously feel like this would do the very exact opposite. It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater in a hugely damaging way and who the actual fuck wants to work in such an environment. And why for example do these people regardless of whether they agree with him or not genuinely believe that rms is trasphobic because he thinks there is/should be a gender neutral pronoun that would be better for common usage than they/them. I think the one he suggested sounds stupid and won't find common usage at all...but I definitely do not think he's trans-phobic because of it and that his view on this matter should somehow be a contributing factor to the entire board getting thrown out or him being shunned from anything free software sounds absolutely stupid.

adolph 6y ago

Don’t feed trolls.

h2odragon 6y ago

I was a kid when i heard about RMS, his words moved me and helped me find the courage to be weird, and live to my own principles. I wonder how many of the people personally offended by what they think RMS said have taken it up with him? "Transphobic"? really? I haven't spent more than a few minutes speaking to RMS, and that years ago; but "-phobic" isn't a word i can see applying to him.

the_only_law 6y ago

I can perhaps see how he could be accused of misogyny but how is RMS been ableist or transphobic? Is the former supposed to be some stretch about GNU software accessibility or something?

tzs 6y ago
The transphobic thing appears to be because he advocates using gender neutral pronouns, but apparently not the right gender neutral pronouns. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be transphobic. The ableist thing is probably his recommending that women with Down's syndrome fetuses should abort them.
- bitwize 6y ago
  > I'm not sure how this is supposed to be transphobic. Trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary people often express their preferred pronouns. If you do not use these pronouns to address or refer to that particular person, it is considered transphobic. By far the most common gender-neutral pronouns are "they/them". It does not matter what Strunk & White says -- you are considered a transphobe if you do not use "they" for someone who has an expressed preference for "they". Period. By choosing deliberately not to respect their preferences, you are thought to deny or "erase" their gender identity. You may think this doesn't matter. Ultimately, even in the grand scheme of terrible things that have been done to trans people, it's quite a small issue (the buzzterm is "microaggression" after all), and it certainly doesn't matter in a technical discussion. But securing compliance in small things like this is a dry run in pressure tactics: if people, especially if held in high esteem, buckle under and adopt and enforce the orthodox practice with regard to gender pronouns or other detail, the tactics worked. Ultimately the goal is to use those tactics to sway decisions on issues that matter, like who gets an authoritative say in what constitutes open source and which overarching goals should the movement serve.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

Lots of Open Source Initiative. Can anyone explain to me what the OSI even does and why they seem to have the time to protest RMS? From their website: >For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. So they build bridges? That's a great goal. So what bridge are they building here? Seems more like they are starting a fight. That seems against their stated mission.

devit 6y ago

Stallman is voicing his opinion about things he has scarce or no direct experience in to reinforce his self-image of being smart. These people are attacking Stallman to reinforce their self-image of being "good" and "progressive". Both are deluded. Stallman has no influence on the topics they contend but these people unfortunately have some influence in this matter.

cforrester 6y ago
> These people are attacking Stallman to reinforce their self-image of being "good" and "progressive". This is a poor assessment, as it doesn't account for the fact that people cultivate the environment they want to be a part of. Removing people like Stallman from positions of influence within the community changes the tone of the community; while you may believe that change would be for the worse, it's better to acknowledge that others genuinely believe the inverse, rather than dishonestly dismissing it as blind reinforcement of self-identity.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  Wanting the tone of the community to be a certain way, is one thing. The means of getting there—a public campaign to get someone and everyone who supported him to lose their place in their organization—is its own thing, and some would say it's below the belt, and that exercising this means has its own detrimental effect on the tone of the community, and that it harms the claimed ends more than it helps.
  - cforrester 6y ago
    I would be more inclined to agree if not for the fact that the board invited him back. Standing by him through this would have been bad enough, let alone inviting him back after his resignation. I don't have confidence in a board which believes this to be a wise decision. They shouldn't lose their positions because of Stallman's beliefs, but because of their own unwise decision to return him to a position of greater influence.
    - 6y ago

Bancakes 6y ago

Look at all those leeches waiting for a chance at FSF leadership position.

ltrls23 6y ago

Why is this link flagged? It's an important discussion in the FOSS community and doesn't break any guideline...

samtheprogram 6y ago
I came to see if this was posted on HN, found that it was flagged. What's going on?

thereddaikon 6y ago

ESR said that the open source movement would give us better software that was free from the influence of corporations. He was wrong. The last decade has shown the FOSS ecosystem trapped, packaged and resold by companies offering "services". And when the FOSS leadership should have been doing something about it, they devoured each other over modern notions of morality and social justice. Nice to see that big names at Gnome and Debian apparently have nothing better to do than throwing a public hissy fit. Seems these organizations are run by man-children. IBM, Microsoft, Amazon etc are laughing all the way to the bank.

dang 6y ago

Recent and related: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (814 comments)

delsarto 6y ago

I'm not sure publishing a letter via pull requests on a closed-source platform owned by Microsoft is going to convince the Free Software Foundation (it's in the name) on the merits of the argument.

smitty1e 6y ago

May fortune have mercy on those who engage in character assassination. If there is legally actionable evidence against someone, then let there be a court case. Sick of seeing public figures disparaged in this way without proven basis.

thefz 6y ago

> We are also calling for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from all leadership positions, including the GNU Project. GNU, which he created. So basically the point here is to appropriate another man's life work and make it your own putting another label on it.

bhaak 6y ago

What are the people having signed this letter back in 2019 do now? https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... I know what I would do if the organization I do free work for disregards my opinion in such a blatant way. I would just walk away. I wonder how many will do this?

rflec028 6y ago

Please remove log from own eye first. Will review after that.

rflec028 6y ago

Hello Contributors, *RMS* may not conform to your societal standards, but condemning the man (him, or Torvalds, who also comes under fire,) marrs your reputation, and not his. > He has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. I have met RMS in person, (had Chinese food with him, in fact,) and though he may ignore some social conventions, he is a person who has very valuable and unique opinions, and a force to be reckoned with. These accusations appear to be, while not baseless, motivated by an extremely twisted socio-political ideology. *Shame on you for bringing cancel culture into the world of software.* https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io/issues/949 https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io...

kazinator 6y ago

> RMS has spent years on a campaign against using people’s correct pronouns. This is poorly disguised transphobia. In the original publication of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines, he said “there are various ways to express gender neutrality in third-person singular pronouns in English; you do not have to use ‘they.’”14 This text has since been updated, but is still transphobic.15 The main page on his web site includes the statement that “‘They’ is plural — for singular antecedents, use singular gender-neutral pronouns.”16 Wow, this seems to be a complete lie, on the surface of it. When you read all these documents, you find that they care 115% about the issue of how to refer to people in order to respect their gender idenity. The singular gender-neutral pronouns Stallman refers to in [16] are actually gender-neutral: they are ones he invented himself and uses. He's just bothered by the bad grammar of using "they" as a singular, and the ambiguities it causes in sentences where it could plausibly have either multiple people as an antecedent or just one person. Or is there some new development that I'm missing? Are there people who would like to be referred to in plural, due to multiple personalities, so that using singular pronouns makes hurtful assumptions against them? "I am not a 'perse', Mr. Stallman! I am two people: a man named Bob and a female named Stephanie. Please refer to me by the correct pronoun 'they'." ... kind of thing? I admittedly don't keep up with this stuff.

maxharris 6y ago

When they tried to cancel RMS for the first time in 2019, I am ashamed to say that I used it as an opportunity to pile on him on Twitter. I was sore about petty differences such as the architectural crippling of GCC and the viral nature of the GPL. Since then, I have seen user freedoms continue to erode. Statists continue to push for more controls and backdoors on encryption. Repressive governments have the cooperation of the companies that run the mobile device app stores. Desktop operating systems continue to degrade with the addition of advertisements and increasing amounts of DRM, spying and "trusted computing" features that limit what you can do with your own machine. In short, we are one or two steps away from Stallman's nightmare scenario, where the illegal use of debuggers and compilers is considered a crime. I used Stallman's first cancellation to advance my own permissive-licensing agenda (albeit by a very small amount, as I'm an unknown). Introspecting upon the way I reacted initially, I now suspect that this is simply another attempt by powerful interests in government and business (notably, a great deal of enmity against RMS comes from Microsoft and Salesforce) to destroy a man that has dedicated his life to keeping computing free.

threatofrain 6y ago
On an aside, I don't think Stallman or the FSF are really part of the tech freedom story anymore, whether on the PR, civil rights, or the technological front. What's the most recent FSF victory?