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.
> I feel very sad for him. He’s a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I’ve met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it’s still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life’s work is a failure.
This is also a very sad epilogue, and the FSF board is to blame for not being able to explain to RMS why reinstating him was an awful idea.
At the same time, it's also sad that the open latter calls out RMS for ableism, when it's obviously clear that he is in turn not able to understand the situation that has arisen around him and the problem that he constitutes for the FSF.
To be 100% clear I am not saying that this should excuse or justify rms's misogynism or his well-known (by now) views on sexuality. But all this contributes to my feeling of sadness and I am pretty sure I am not the only one that feels like that.
So I am torn. I agree that the FSF board has failed, and I wish RMS would resign from his other leadership positions (including from the GNU project, which has been so instrumental to my career), but this open letter leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
See also https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... (Joint statement on the GNU Project, October 2019) for something that instead I agree wholeheartedly with, though I didn't sign it at the time because I am not a GNU maintainer anymore.
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".
> 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.
What is troublesome is that this letter seeks to oust the entire FSF board.