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Open letter calling for the removal of the FSF board of directors over the reinstatement of RMS
(rms-open-letter.github.io)
Anytime RMS's name comes up in FSF circles:
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2021
29 points (73.8% liked)
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Anyone major player in efforts to eliminate the idea of copyleft from their conception of an open ~~exploitation~~ source community must be drooling over this divide.
Indeed. This is a dark day for the free software movement, and I am concerned about the future of the FSF (RMS or otherwise).
For the record, I have always admired RMS as a hacker and philosopher, and consider him one of the most influential people, of the last 40 years, in tech. That said, after careful investigation of the facts I have come to the same conclusion as this letter, that he is doing more harm than good and the FSF and wider free software community should have distanced themselves from him in 2019. Now that the FSF has reversed its decision and brought him back, we have this to deal with now.
However, while I agree with the criticism of RMS presented by this letter, I can't bring myself to sign it. Specifically, I am concerned with what they credit him with (emphasis mine):
While these ideas have been popularized in some form by Richard M. Stallman,
They do a fairly good job of minimizing his (very important, IMHO) contribution to free software and tech in general. Also note the "in some form" phrasing, which to me implies that they take issue with the way RMS actualized the movement (that he founded). Contrast this with Guix's statement from 2019,
We, the undersigned GNU maintainers and developers, owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Stallman for his decades of important work in the free software movement. Stallman tirelessly emphasized the importance of computer user freedom and laid the foundation for his vision to become a reality by starting the development of the GNU operating system. For that we are truly grateful.
My worst fear is that the writers of this letter, and some or many of its signatories, see this not as a way to preserve the GNU/FSF founding philosophy while moving forward, but the first salvo in a damnatio memoriae campaign against RMS and his philosophy. I would have liked to believe we could leave RMS the person behind while holding true to the founding philosophy and principles (copyleft, the four freedoms) but I lost all hope of that with this letter.
Well put. That guix letter escaped me previously and respect for his efforts lends much to their credibility imo.
Personally, I need to do more research on the issue. The original history up through the split around netscape ipo, oreilly and linus is familiar but the last 20 years is not. On the surface it looks like extinguish is working.
This mirrors my thoughts exactly. I was going to sign it until I saw that nearly half the authors are OSI/Debian folks.
As the issue has been more and more unpacked I'm also hearing there are agendas for wanting to bring down the FSF itself by other role-players (there is a growing ethical software movement that is at odds with no holds barred open source, as well as increased commercialisation of open source). RMS of course always steps straight into a controversy and is very binary about what he believes in. This has been good, as well as bad, for open source. Because of this too, he was not the best spokesperson for FSF, as he did not even engage on platforms that were proprietary in any way, yet those were the folks that needed to hear his message.
Times and feelings have changed and the binary attitude just does not go down well. That said, I believed his heart has always been in the right place regarding open source, and I'd certainly want to have heard more detail about why he said what he did (remembering that RMS is rather direct and not very empathetic in his way of expressing himself). Knowing his personality and way of speaking in general, I'm just wondering if he should not rather have had some counselling instead, versus being banished altogether. He's obviously made a lot of enemies along his journey as he never pulled any punches whether it was a government, BigTech, or others he was addressing. Clearly he should not be thinking out aloud. I don't agree with what he said but am not sure he deserves the same censure that child molesters and rapists have received. I really think he needed support in terms of changing the way he thinks about some non-OSS matters especially when it comes to human beings.
Anyone know if he made any statement at all about what he said? Maybe I missed that.
His heart's in the right place (with much needed self-criticism regarding super regressive shit he's put out in the world) in general, but when it comes to free software there's the incredibly relevant problem of his unwillingness to recognize the contribution of women to the field and FOSS in particular. In an 07 interview:
I don’t have any experience working with women in programming projects; I don’t think that any volunteered to work on Emacs or GCC.
That was bullshit then, and it's bullshit now, and if you don't think you can trace a straight line from that sort of shit to the over-representation of cis white men in tech idk what to tell you.
Between that and the decades of interpersonal harassment that many women experienced at MIT, sorrynotsorry he's not redeemable at least when it comes to being a worthy representative.
Not to discredit the message based on the messenger, but why would anyone publish something like that on fucking GitHub of all places? Do they want people to not read it? Are they even part of this community that cares about software freedom? Just what in the fuck was the thought process here?
Signing it requires making a PR, and people in support of this letter most likely have a github account already.
lol, I didn't release at the beginning. funny.
However, seems like both letters were posted on github. Agh... btw, would I be wrong if I said github could arbitrarily remove any of the letters with the justification that it breaks their code of conduct or something similar?
the other letter getting posted on github is a lot funnier imo
They can email too if preferred to not use GitHub.
Nothing false about what you said but the people that don't want to use GitHub will probably not like using email to perform PRs, taking into account that, although they are not using their proprietary code, they are still promoting and making use of a privative cloud service.
I think this really hurts the FSF. Open source software is one of those communities that gets really toxic and countless talented people have been turned away because they didn't feel welcome.
I understand stalman was very important to the movement but can't board members just maintain a relationship with him outside of the organization if he really still has an important vision? I think putting him back on the board really sends the wrong message.
But this is exactly the kind of toxic behavior that turns people away: Going on holy crusades and endlessly debating about technicalities.
Putting him back on a back-seat of the board of directors was a bi-partisan move of no real significance to the operations of the FSF, but a peace offer to bridge a significant rift in the support base of the FSF.
Pointing out toxic behavior is not toxic behavior.
Its not a holy crusade to hold people accountable and realize that reinstating stalman sends a bad message to the kinds of people that stalman has made feel unwelcome.
Pointing out toxic behavior is not toxic behavior.
It is when the folks doing it are doing so out of bad faith. Nearly half the authors of the OP are OSI/Debian folks, and I haven't seen a single one of them call out Raymond or Perens for the nearly-identical misogyny they're shedding crocodile tears over in this letter. Both of them were in leadership positions at the OSI more recently than Stallman at the FSF (until this week I guess).
RMS needs to go, but I will not put my name on their cooption of feminism in service of a long-held grudge towards the FSF.
Issue is that people outside of that beef are going to see this as the FSF being reactionary. And who can blame them? The guy got metoo'd, the position is utterly ceremonial and does nothing but voice support for a grown man that had to be told the issue with "but what if the child consents."
This benefits no one but Stallman himself. That it so clearly doesn't even benefit the FSF makes it seem as though it's a move meant to spite women in FOSS for saying anything. If he was at least going into a position to do actual work then arguments about him showing remorse would be relevant, but instead the FSF's credibility among non-chuds is getting questioned so that Stallman can try to salvage the legacy he tarnished himself.
I disagree with the second part. This was clearly intended to the benefit of the FSF. Just look at the comments and votes here. There is a significant portion of the FSF support base who disagree with RMS's cancellation and it is threatening to tear the FSF apart. These are not "chuds" for the most part, but rather deeply insecure male nerds with bad social skills, who see RMS as one of them. Apparently this was a miscalculation though, as one side of the conflict still feels vindictive and is not willing to go along with a reasonable peace offer to the other side.
It is really a sad state of affairs and this kind of behavior is threatening IMHO the very existence of the FSF, because who wants to put effort into a movement where the current supporters apparently spend more time hating each other than trying to overcome their disagreements?
If it were a "resonable peace offering" there would be no controversy. What you're describing is just pandering to reactionaries and then acting surprised anyone with a modicum of genuine concern about women in tech takes issue with that.
If people were mad RMS had to leave over his decades of sexual harassment, then good. They need to self-crit, not demand the FSF make a gesture to signal that they never really wanted to condemn his actions.
It would honestly be more of a compromise if RMS was going to do actual work, but it's a ceremonial position, it exists purely as a fuck you. FSF did very little with RMS in actual positions of power and it'll accomplish nothing by associating with him now when RMS hasn't even demonstrably done anything to address his previous harm other than let people know he had to be convinced that "but what if the child consents" was a shit take.
FSF entirely brought this down upon itself trying to appease a faction that has no place in the free software movement, and now it is endangering its fundamental goals as people associate the movement with that faction.
1000% agreed.
My rationale above is why I'm not signing the OSI's open letter. But RMS needs to go, there's no way in hell you'll see my signature on the other one. So I wrote my own.
Hey, thank you for the response. I would like to educate myself on this more, do you have any links to read about the behavior of raymond or perens?
FSF is software movement and those are his personal views he has not expressed them with in FSF. Also there is no pure evil with those thoughts, please let him discuss whatever he wants in his personal website...
I agree wholeheartly. That's why I wrote a kind of "reply" here: https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io/issues/672
Stallman is the kind of guy who will be diefied once he's dead.
Sigh that was really unnecessary and will make quite a few people sympathize with RMS even if they agree with the allegations against him.
First of all, the guy is a 68 year old ex-hippy boomer with likely some sort of mental health issues. Let him sit a few years more on the board of directors as a quiet founder and just let it be...
And aside from apparently unpleasant behavior against students (something shockingly common with professors... and anyways irrelevant to his FSF role), the main allegations expressed in their annex don't really hold up.
The first point about relativizing child abuse, is true (and was a very common view in hippy circles), but RMS has publicly stated even before all this that people convinced him to change his mind about it. Maybe that isn't fully true, but people deserve the benefit of doubt that they can change their mind.
The second point about down syndrome is a very common majority view-point in most of the world, and I wager even in the US it is secretly held by the majority. And it is also hypocritical, as in essence criticizing it, is questioning the right of a woman to have an abortion...
And the last point about gender pronouns... well come on... I 100% agree that we as society should start adapting our language to be more accommodating to trans persons, but this is a 68 year old boomer we are talking about. And his views on it aren't even especially transphobic, but just somewhat pedantic about "correct" language use.
I don't agree, it feels like you are excusing stalman for his behavior because other people also behave the way stalman does. That is not how that works ESPECIALLY when someone represents the figurehead for an entire movement/community. Is stalman significantly more toxic than many 68 year old white men? He definitely isn't alone in his behavior but the point is its one thing if its your retired uncle who behaves this way and its another if its someone who has a ton of responsibility to shape a community.
Stalman's time has far past.
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