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Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

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Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#21

Post by throwaway3699 »

na85 wrote: post #11
underseacables wrote: post #3

That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so…

>look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore But he's not valuable any more, that's the thing. He hasn't written code in like 30 years and to the best of my knowledge all he does is go around giving the same tired lecture over and over. This pretend apology does nothing to…

Writing code isn't that valuable. Many people contribute to coreutils (& other GNU projects) but there is only one RMS. His position is an ideological one.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#22

Post by crazypython »

danpalmer wrote: post #4

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past peo…

https://stallmansupport.org/

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#23

Post by kmeisthax »

This past month has completely destroyed my confidence in FSF leadership. I hope they can earn it back.

Say what you want about the open letter - and it is an inaccurate open letter - the fact is that most people who had legitimate criticisms of RMS's leadership decided to sign onto it anyway. You might argue that this is malice. I'd argue that the open letter's ultimate conclusion - wipe the FSF management slate clean - was still warranted. Remember: the FSF did not attempt to defend, explain, or rehabilitate Stallman's behavior or character. That was individuals within the community doing that - and themselves making the mistake of, say, ignoring other, better criticisms of RMS's behavior than misreading his personal quirks as inherently sexist.

I find it hard not to read the FSF's conduct as anything but "let's just quietly bring RMS back once the mainstream media gets off our case". They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. The Minsky e-mail was just a catalyst, like putting a spoon in superheated water. If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then actually toning it down, this could have worked. It's possible for the FSF to actually still do this, despite having been apparently(!?) caught on the backfoot... but that's going to be far harder than if they had actually messaged this properly.

Since nobody's head is actually going to roll for this terrible PR nightmare, I can only hope that the organization tries to tone down RMS's toxic behavior, and maybe we'll get something useful out of deliberately reopening year-old (or for some, decade-old) wounds. Still, I feel like this is akin to Mozilla's crippling Google dependency - it's not like RMS is going to live forever, he's pushing 70. His number will come up sooner or later. His remaining tenure with the FSF should be wholly dedicated towards making the organization relevant to those who aren't already "in the know" so that we have suitable replacements when we lose RMS.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#24

Post by throwaway8581 »

newacct583 wrote: post #12
danpalmer wrote: post #4

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past peo…

Which is frustrating, because this really should be a circumstance where a genuinely sincere apology should be... acceptable. RMS isn't accused of trafficking here, after all. He jumped in to a heated discussion to defend Minsky (one of his heroes[1] who had been fingered as a john in the Epstein affair). And in the process he deployed a line of argument[2] that probably sounded reasonable to a spectrum personality w…

Who cares what he thinks about Minsky paying for sex? It’s hard to imagine something less relevant to his job.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#25

Post by na85 »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #21
na85 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore But he's not valuable any more, that's the thing. He hasn't written code in like 30 years and to the best of my knowledge all he does is go around giving the same tired lecture over and over. This pretend apology does nothing to…

Writing code isn't that valuable. Many people contribute to coreutils (& other GNU projects) but there is only one RMS. His position is an ideological one.

To a first approximation, zero people at the global scale are proponents of Stallman's FSF.

Free Software deserves a better figurehead.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#26

Post by ghaff »

DasIch wrote: post #9
underseacables wrote: post #3

That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so…

What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.

Exactly. So this >30 year old organization spends a paragraph to basically say they're crippled as an organization without RMS.

Imagine a company welcoming back a founder who was forced out for some sort of highly questionable behavior and public statements--and the company to come out with a statement a year later that they just couldn't go on without their founder's wisdom. We would rightly say the board and senior management of that company wasn't doing their job.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#27

Post by DasIch »

pieter_mj wrote: post #16
DasIch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.

>this announcement should be extremely worrying. I agree it's slightly worrying, there's currently no replacement for RMS. The libre software movement risks falling apart if he is no longer there. FSF and RMS should make quick work of finding someone valuable.

One person is not a movement. It's not enough to find someone else. The organization, the entire group of people it consists of, needs to be able to its job.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#28

Post by danpalmer »

crazypython wrote: post #22
danpalmer wrote: post #4

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past peo…

https://stallmansupport.org/

This website does not acknowledge the harm he has done to the free software movement and therefore cannot heal any issues that he has caused.

If he made a sincere apology things might be different, but as long as he and his supporters refuse to engage with criticism they won't reach a resolution.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#29

Post by sthomas1618 »

semitones wrote: post #10
sthomas1618 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more. This whole statement is "sorry, not sorry". If someone is known to be a toxic person (and currently still is), you do not let them on to your team. Ever.

Toxicity isn't a binary thing - there's levels to it. If the benefits one can bring to a team outweigh their negative attributes, then you should let them on your team. As far as how to determine whether the good outweighs the bad, that's a different topic. He brings a lot to the table, and I don't think he should have his work and life "cancelled" because some people disagree with his opinions...

I'll give you that things are hardly ever binary. But toxicity is something that can be determined. They are the people do not care about others. They do not listen, no matter how many times you've talked to them. They see themselves as correct in their attitude, and others wrong. They do not change, or at least not in the short term (and definitely if they never suffer consequences). I've worked with these kind of people. We all have.

This whole "good outweighs the bad" is wrong.

1. Toxic people damage the company in general. Whether that be the reputation or culture. The consequences of their actions and words waste company resources.

2. They damage the productivity of others. Either indirectly or directly.

3. Most importantly: they hurt others. Nothing can outweigh the hurt they cause others.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#30

Post by ghaff »

pieter_mj wrote: post #16
DasIch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.

>this announcement should be extremely worrying. I agree it's slightly worrying, there's currently no replacement for RMS. The libre software movement risks falling apart if he is no longer there. FSF and RMS should make quick work of finding someone valuable.

I'm not even sure what this libre software movement even is that would fall apart in the absence of RMS and the FSF.
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