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Richard Stallman's return to the Free Software Foundation's board of directors has drawn condemnation from many people in the free software community. An open letter signed by hundreds of people today called for Stallman to be removed again and for the FSF's entire board to resign.
The open letter said:
Richard M. Stallman, frequently known as RMS, has been a dangerous force in the free software community for a long time. He has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. These sorts of beliefs have no place in the free software, digital rights, and tech communities. With his recent reinstatement to the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, we call for the entire Board of the FSF to step down and for RMS to be removed from all leadership positions.
The signature count is over 1200 people at this point.
FFS FSF!
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Have all these people really lost their minds? They seem to me to be acting like outraged children who have never before met the range of opinion that occurs in the real world. As such and in particular they seem to be driven by unbridled hatred of thought or opinion that does not match their own. They seem to desire to "cancel" anything, or anyone, they don't like or don't agree with.
It would appear that they want "free software" to mean "unfree thought".
The seeming lunatics write:
Quote: We believe in a present and a future where all technology empowers – not oppresses – people. We know that this is only possible in a world where technology is built to pay respect to our rights at its most foundational levels.
Well, has RMS said anything contrary to this? He has not as far as I can see. Nothing he is quoted as saying should "oppress" anyone, whether you agree with his views or you do not. They are simply personal views that anyone can agree with, disagree with, concur with, or ignore.
They go on to write that technology should "pay respect to our rights" and one of these rights is freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and yet they are seeking to silence RMS's freedom of speech. They aren't merely expressing an opinion -- they are actually seeking to cancel someone else's views. Do these people recognise their own hypocrisy and oppressive authoritarianism? They rail against oppression and yet seek to practise oppression themselves.
modified 24-Mar-21 11:28am.
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He was a toxic jerk and total creeper. In retrospect the only thing that surprised me was that he managed to last as long as he did before being defenestrated the first time.
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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There's nothing whatsoever in that link other than opinion about his opinions and hearsay.
None of it is an excuse to cancel someone merely because an apparently hysterical bunch of hypocritical oppressors dislike him. And yes, these people seeking to cancel RMS because he does not match their personal preferences most assuredly are hypocrites and oppressors. They claim to believe in rights but demonstrably their beliefs are conditional and subjective; they wish to cancel his rights to freedom of speech for no more reasons than to appease their own desires and preferences.
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My own desire is for people to realize that social currency is a thing and to stop claiming victimhood when an jackhole gets "canceled" because nobody likes him or his nonsense.
People are so entitled these days. They feel entitled to say whatever they want without social consequence. They feel entitled to a platform. They feel entitled to have an audience or a committeeship. Get over it. Nobody owes you a damned thing
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: People are so entitled these days. They feel entitled to say whatever they want without social consequence. They feel entitled to a platform.
Yes - people are too entitled these days. No - to the rest.
There have always been social consequences to whatever one said or did in the public square. In the past, people would eventually forgive or forget bad public behaviour; in the worst case, it was possible to move elsewhere and start over. Today, the Internet remembers everything, and follows one everywhere.
In the sense that everyone (in the US and some other countries) may say whatever they wish in public without official censure, everyone is entitled to a platform. The problem today is that social media have become the technological, but not the legal, equivalent of the town square. Given that very few people visit the town square these days, but many "visit" social media, this is a serious impediment to Freedom of Speech.
I have no solutions to this conundrum that are not worse than the disease.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: In the past, people would eventually forgive or forget bad public behaviour; in the worst case, it was possible to move elsewhere and start over. Today, the Internet remembers everything, and follows one everywhere.
yeah, and only few people are aware of it. Although there have been several prominent cases where the past came to bite some people in the a...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Sure, the Internet presents its own problems, but FSF is not the Internet.
That jackhole isn't owed a position there. He isn't owed forgiveness for the stupid crap he has said, and apparently he made a lot of people angry, and guess what? It's coming to back to bite him.
So what? Is that a reason to complain? No. It's not. It's a reason to accept that some people are just too stupid for the position they aspired to, just like might be the case with this guy, and his ambitions at FSF. His mouth got in his way. Maybe he'll learn from it, but by now, you're right the Internet has made his public statements part of the permanent record. All the more reason to consider the cost of running your mouth in a public forum.
I'm not losing any sleep over it..
Real programmers use butterflies
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We already have an enormous issue in tech with making it an environment that women want to work in. Having someone so openly hostile at the top of a major industry body is blind to that. It has a real effect on working environment.
His comments on a rape case were deeply offensive to more than half the population (almost all women and a significant number of men). At a time when, quite rightly, it is coming to light just how much women have to put up with from misogynists (or worse), reappointing him as head of the FSF sends all the wrong messages.
He has every right to say what he does, the FSF has the right to re-employ him, and the rest of us have the right to call them out for it and take whatever actions we desire to address it.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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I vehemently dislike Richard Stallman, and not because of his views on contemporary social issues. I dislike him because of his views on how software should be developed and distributed.
Let's be honest here - what's the endgame if you are a Stallman-ite? Source code for all software must (not may, but must) be provided with its distribution. Anyone can take your software, modify it, and distribute it. Sounds great, no? Your competitors grab the source for Widget 1.1, announce a maintenance release 1.15, and distribute it. You start receiving tech support calls claiming that your software injects malware in to your customer's networks. It displays random porn sites to children. You get the idea.
Stallman's notions put an effective end to commercial software development. Writing software becomes valueless in that scenario, as there is no longer any incentive to do so. I'm sorry, but I've been earning my living building software for a little over 40 years. I don't think a twit who's never earned a dime writing software should be anywhere near making policy for an entire industry.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
Stallman's notions put an effective end to commercial software development. Writing software becomes valueless in that scenario, as there is no longer any incentive to do so.
... which is why no major commercial companies release software under GPL. Oh, wait...
Your FUD is at least a decade past it's Best-By date.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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FWIW, I stand by my statements about Stallman's views, which were based on his public writings and quoted statements.
The good news is that what either of us thinks about software development will be irrelevant soon enough. In my case it will be due to my retirement. For him, my impression is that the FSF grows ever more 'fringe', as it were.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I haven't looked into Stallman's opinions on how software should be distributed. If they're as you say, he is indeed foolish for the reasons you give, but I have no problem with him expressing his opinions. But if he want laws to enforce these opinions, he is immoral.
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Bryan Cantrill has been helping to shape open source for decades, and he now feels it has become too rules-based and not principles-based. I had principles once. I hated being sent to their office.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: I had principles once. I hated being sent to their office.
For poor spelling? 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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And even worse grandma. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Kent Sharkey wrote: he now feels it has become too rules-based and not principles-based.
So... another day in Agile? 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Does anyone have the self-control to actually resist those shelves full of impulse purchase snacks at most checkouts Candy, Will Robinson, CANDY!
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So this isn't NASA's Mars rover?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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The .NET team has put together a collection of free resources to help you speed up your cloud-native application development journey. For those with 'aggressive' managers
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The goal will be to rebrand most of Verizon's media franchises as Yahoo products, and to focus on selling subscriptions to those products via a rebranded subscription portfolio called "Yahoo Plus." Everyone loves Yahoo and is willing to pay for it, right?
Dang, wish I hadn't just used that bit about raising the dead
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Finally, I'll have better access to... uh... never mind.
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Wow, this is going to go well.
It smacks of a decision made by executives you have never heard of Yahoo (except in terms of being one of their properties).
Maybe, just maybe, Yahoo's image will be revitalised and modernised. Or perhaps it might go on being a (admittedly still big) also-ran.
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Verizon has a media franchise?
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Starting in the late 1980s, a group led by Rob Pike and UNIX co-creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed Plan 9. "Ah, yes. Plan 9 deals with the resurrection of the dead."
You can tell they're old, because they still use, "cyberspace" unironically.
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