Richard Stallman and the GNU project

Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder. Many of the ancient Greeks were as well. We'd do well to ignore their takes on matters of slavery. That doesn't mean their other views on topics are useless. Indeed, we'd probably have to ignore anything older than some number of years all throughout history (the acceleration of things today means it is finally closing in on the span of a career instead of waiting until the offenders are long dead to collectively realize "hey, that's an awful behavior"). I still find Stallman's views on free software and even some of the politics of interest and of importance. His views on social interactions? Not worth much to me.

Sure, I'm not everyone and it's sad that so many take a one dimensional view of people (so it goes with identity politics). But isn't this reality a *reason* to remove him from the leadership role today? Just look at all the references to the foot picking video anytime discussions of his viewpoints is brought up. Bad hygeine isn't as bad as poor social behavior, but both are a distraction to the goals of these organizations (the latter being of particular importance as these are socially oriented groups). Incidentally, those who bring up such irrelevant facts as if it's some kind of argument against free software is a good litmus test for who to basically ignore in such threads.

> I'm having a hard time seeing what avenues he has left to support himself. Wal*Mart greeter?

I think you should give him more credit. He could work to improve himself and show that he has learned what has been wrong with his behavior and show that he's working towards improving it. But it's not the end of the road for him (at least as far as I'm concerned) unless he doesn't want to continue. But if anyone has the willpower to perservere through such a process, if be surprised if he didn't have it somewhere in him.

> What I find dismaying here is just how much of the Free Software "community" is piling on, and in the process, actively helping the barbarians dismantle the foundations of the entire Free Software movement.

So the free software movement is of the highest importance? If he had committed a felony, should he have been kept in because no one could replace him? I don't think so. There's obviously a line somewhere here. Personally, I think he is no longer suitable as the leader of the FSF because there *are* those who will sling mud like you say above and he's shown that his behavior in social groups was not going to improve. Debates and discussions without that clouding over it are certainly more productive.

Contrast this with Linus who realized he had an issue with his communication and behavior and worked to resolve it. I've not seen a reduction of kernel code quality since then as many have feared. Recognizing and addressing the problems with his behavior could have avoided a lot of the fallout here, but it never happened. There's no reason for me to think that such improvements would have interfered with his contributions to the free software movement (other than the time spent on them).