LWN: Comments on "A new "board process" at the FSF"

A new "board process" at the FSF

gnu — Sun, 04 Apr 2021 13:31:00 +0000

The footnote has been recently changed. Could you please read and check if they are acceptable? (I have no affiliation with the GNU Project, just a long time user and programmer who chose the "gnu" user name).

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html#f1

A new "board process" at the FSF

farnz — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 13:44:38 +0000

Watson is an outlier precisely because kicking him upstairs didn't work out. Emeritus status is the norm for any academic who wants to keep working, but is now old enough.

Looking into the Watson situation, it's unusual because Watson went around claiming that the work his colleagues were doing was evidence for his "scientific racism", and Watson chose to draw a straight line between the sorts of things researchers in his field do and his wrongheaded comments.

The rule that Watson broke is that he used the organisation's reputation as evidence that his racist views were correct; Stallman is a different case, because he does not (and never has) claimed that his bad behaviour is justified by the work of the Free Software Foundation. Instead, Stallman claims an ethical basis for Free Software separate to his own personal behaviour, and the problem is that his personal behaviour standards have not moved on from the early 1980s to match modern expectations. I don't doubt that Stallman will continue to have problematic behaviours if in an emeritus role, but he will not be claiming that Free Software justifies any and all bad behaviour on his part.

In turn, this means that granting Stallman an emeritus role for life is safe - it's a signal that you still trust his views on Free Software, but that Stallman the person is now representative of an older generation, and his replacement is representative of the behavioural norms you expect someone to keep to. Stallman can thus continue to be personally difficult to deal with, while his Foundation and his Free Software ideals proceed onwards into the 21st Century.

A new "board process" at the FSF

zack — Sun, 28 Mar 2021 13:33:48 +0000

As one of the first signers, I can confirm that's the case.
All three groups are sorted alphabetically, the only thing that's "special" about the first group is that it is formed by the people who participated in drafting the letter before it was published.

I think that is about enough

corbet — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:26:12 +0000

For the time being, at least, I really don't think that any good will come from continuing the conversation here; the ground has all been well covered. Thus, I am setting the "moderation" flag for this article. The bar to pass moderation will be high; it's time to move on to something else.

Thank you.

A new "board process" at the FSF

mgb — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:17:42 +0000

If RMS committed a crime which hurt someone please prosecute him with my blessing.

If not, I hope somebody prosecutes the mob of Debian bullies and extortionists.

A new "board process" at the FSF

rolandog — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 19:25:17 +0000

I agree with you. I come from a somewhat conservative region in a
very traditional country, and I'm ashamed of the regressive views a
few of my older ancestors have (or had). I would often run into
conflict with those family members by sticking up for what I viewed as
the best (as in 'good') morally correct position (to the best of my
knowledge, ability, and sense of justice)... so I think I can tell
when someone is being xeno/trans-phobic or racist, but I accept that
my very few personal experiences of discrimination are not
representative of others', and that I have yet much to learn. (Also,
to the credit of some of those aforementioned family members, some
have come around on some of their views.)

However---after finally taking the time to take a plunge and review
the leaked emails and all the accusations in the appendix (to the best
of my knowledge)---it feels like this is a 'No true Scotsman' attack
on the somewhat ambiguous footnote of the policy, and a 'Fallacy of
composition' to try to assemble RMS' strong opinions on touchy
subjects into the villain that a mob would happily crucify.

As I write this, I'm afraid of the cancel culture to come rap at the
door for giving RMS the benefit of the doubt, but I would strongly
suggest the mob turn their blood-thirst to countries where there are
actual crimes against humanity and of discrimination occurring. You
know, places where they actually lynch people for their beliefs or
their traits.

In the hopes of actually encouraging sensible dialogue, it would be
helpful to me for the people that answer back this lengthy comment to
actually quote the textual thing they refer to, and not just the
headline or snippet that may be misconstrued.

Also, in the hopes of gaining some points in these times of 'trial by
public court of opinions', I'm currently in the process of writing a
program that DOES---among some other features---provide the ability to
specify people's personal pronouns (although at first I included the
ones I found on several popular websites, I found others on Wikipedia
that I'm in the process of registering).

TL;DR: My take on this whole ordeal is this: When I look at RMS I
think: "This isn't the person we crucify." "... As a matter of fact,
wasn't it our whole thing that we were upset about how we were being
literally or metaphorically crucified for our thoughts, preferences,
opinions, or traits?"

A new "board process" at the FSF

dskoll — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 19:19:33 +0000

AFAIK, the ones who came first were the ones who drafted the letter. Next come organizations (alphabetically) and then individuals (alphabetically). So I think you're reading a bit much into it.

A new "board process" at the FSF

jzb — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 18:56:00 +0000

"It seems a fair compromise. It asks equal understanding from both parties."

I disagree. "I don't recognize your agency to accurately state your own gender" is not "equal understanding," it's disrespectful. If a speaker doesn't "genuinely believe" a trans woman is a woman, they can be polite by using the pronouns they're asked to use and realizing their opinion is not relevant here.

Let's say a person had really set ideas about what constitutes maleness. Somebody has to drive a big truck and own guns and love sports or they're not a "real man" -- so this person refers to any males who don't fit that criteria as "they," "them," or "their," depending, instead of "she" etc. Is that polite?

If you're opening up one person's gender identity to debate or dissent, why not everybody's based on the speaker's beliefs?

Use the pronouns that people ask you to use. That's polite. If a person just cannot "genuinely believe" that a trans woman is a woman, then they can simply chalk it up as one of the many things we all do as part of society to be polite even when we may not agree.

A new "board process" at the FSF

dvdeug — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 18:39:44 +0000

Except for that's not how organizations work, and even when it is or should be, that's not how people work. The Free Software Foundation is at least in part an advocacy group for free software, so they need to advocate for free software. They can't successfully advocate for something if they're offending the people they're trying to reach. They can't act as a unifier for the free software community, either, if they're offending a bunch of people.

As I said, it's also not how people work. The Cosby Show is a funny, very successful, sitcom, but people have stopped buying it or watching it because the lead star turned out to be a serial rapist. That didn't change any bits on the DVDs, but changed how people viewed the whole show. When women have felt they had to share tips about how to deter RMS specifically, it's a lot harder for me to work with an organization that keeps him around.

A new "board process" at the FSF

anton — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:57:43 +0000

If identity was the main topic of the FSF, then maybe we should be discussing the FSF board's position on identity. But the main topic of the FSF is free software (am I wrong?), so we should be discussing the positions of board members on free software. And on this topic I agree with the positions that RMS has expressed more than with others that I have read.

A new "board process" at the FSF

vane — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:57:34 +0000

Funny for me is that open letter to force Stallman to resign is not equally signed - so called "more important" persons are listed first - opposed to equally signed and sorted alphabetically letter for Stallman to stay. That's equality at it's best.

A new "board process" at the FSF

pizza — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 16:30:34 +0000

> Maybe you believe it's the wrong pronoun, and you find it uncomfortable and weird, but that's a problem for a few seconds and then it doesn't affect you any more.

And maybe you get it wrong, and get attacked for it. Maybe this happens multiple times over a period of time. Maybe then you come to the conclusion that folks that demand you change your manner of speech to interact with them are toxic and are you are better off without 'em.

> so that seems the right thing to do when the community's goal is to be welcoming and inclusive and kind.

The ironic thing is by using ever-more-specific sets of identities, pronouns, and so forth we end up repeatedly emphasizing our differences instead of our similarities. History has shown us time and time again that this is not a recipe for long-term success.

A new "board process" at the FSF

halla — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 16:00:47 +0000

Thank you for writing this. I _am_ a trans woman, and as far as I am concerned you got it exactly right.

A new "board process" at the FSF

AB138 — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:57:28 +0000

> For someone who doesn't think a trans woman should be called "she", it shouldn't be a big deal to humour them and call them "she" anyway.

Quoting that, as I think it's the thrust of your reply, paired with the statement of asymmetry. I'm on mobile, so composite quoting is tough, not trying to cherry-pick.

For what it's worth, this is the attitude I myself have, but I don't think it's really just to make this judgement for everyone and codify it into the rules. Freedom of speech and expression is very important to many people, and it's far from outlandish to think otherwise well meaning people may come to a different conclusion than you or I do on the question of whether it's a big deal.

In an organization that purportedly exists to increase freedom, should they really be instituting rules that force speech onto member that they may disagree with? Yes, it's polite to use preferred pronouns, but is it polite to coerce speech? I say no, it's not. So we're in a no-win situation, where the question is how much we must be impolite to each view-point.

In that situation, I strongly disagree with telling people who value their autonomy of speech that their offense is less valid than that of a trans member. If we're to be adults, we need to accept that others disagree with us, and using "they" seems like a fair compromise that both acknowledges and accepts both sides of the issue without being expressly inflammatory to either.

A new "board process" at the FSF

excors — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:22:19 +0000

I think in most cases there is a large asymmetry in the levels of discomfort felt by each party when using what they consider to be the wrong pronoun.

For a trans person, their gender identity is often a huge part of their life, whether they want it to be or not, because they live in a society that will subject them to endless misunderstanding and persecution and paperwork because of it. They might be misgendered frequently, sometimes accidentally but sometimes in a deliberate attempt to hurt them. Most of the time they want to forget about gender and just talk about software development, but every time they notice they're being called "they" by someone who would call a cis woman "she", it's reminding them that they're different and that a fundamental part of themselves is being rejected by their peers. After years of that happening over and over again, I imagine it becomes quite painful.

For someone who doesn't think a trans woman should be called "she", it shouldn't be a big deal to humour them and call them "she" anyway. It's not a major part of your life - you can completely ignore it 99.9% of the time, and very occasionally you'll just have to think about which pronoun to use in a conversation. Maybe you believe it's the wrong pronoun, and you find it uncomfortable and weird, but that's a problem for a few seconds and then it doesn't affect you any more.

Given that asymmetry, meeting in the middle is not a "fair compromise". Using the person's explicitly preferred pronouns will minimise both the average and the worst-case discomfort felt by people in the community, so that seems the right thing to do when the community's goal is to be welcoming and inclusive and kind.

(Obviously my claims above don't apply to all trans people, because all people are different, and I'm not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that this is a fairly typical view. E.g. https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/misgendering describes the hurtfulness of misgendering, and specifically says "Don't default to gender-neutral language if you know how a person wishes to be addressed: It can seem like using the singular "they" to describe everyone is a safe bet, and sometimes that's actually a good way to navigate a situation where you're uncertain how a person identifies. But, it's important to respect the wishes of people who have specific gendered language that they want you to use.")

Going back to the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines, I don't think the footnote on using "they" or "perse" proves transphobic intent, but if that wasn't the intent then it's just wrong and badly thought out. And it's not like this is a particularly obscure topic - software communities have been discussing codes of conduct for years, often covering this kind of issue, so ignorance is not a great excuse for someone who decided to write a new code of conduct.

A new "board process" at the FSF

dskoll — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:20:41 +0000

That's a tedious almost-38-minute video. TL;DR: A rant about cancel culture and how white men in Tech are oppressed.

A new "board process" at the FSF

amacater — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:11:03 +0000

This has come up elsewhere: it's not your belief that matters here, in some sense. You are what you're known as: If - hypothetically - I were a trans woman choosing to be addressed as she/her as my pronouns: addressing me as they is misaddressing me. Addressing me as he would be out of the question. Calling people what they want to be called is polite and useful.

No

vadim — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:01:05 +0000

I agree that there's a bunch of issues and interests here. And that perhaps RMS isn't being criticized in an entirely fair way.

All the same I'd say that while his views on software freedom are good and valuable and should remain in force, he's not an effective leader either in the matter of advancing the FSF's agenda, nor in software development.

He did a good thing that's very worthy of recognition, but the FSF would be much better off finding somebody else who does a better job of representing the same ideals.

A new "board process" at the FSF

geofft — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 14:46:57 +0000

I don't believe that the FSF believed that.

First, the FSF specifically posted a tweet informing people that nobody involved with LibrePlanet, including award honorees and keynote speakers, knew that Stallman was joining the board and was going to announce it, except Stallman himself: https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128

Second, the FSF knew that the person they were honoring at LibrePlanet with the Award for the Advancement of Free Software had come to oppose RMS being involved with the FSF - in fact he opposed it so strongly that he resigned from the FSF board after decades of being involved with the FSF in various roles, including being the Executive Director. http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html He was only eligible for the award because it was the first time in his career that he wasn't part of the FSF. And they were in communication with him because they arranged for him to receive the award.

Every keynote speaker of LibrePlanet was also on the initial list of signatories of this letter (i.e., they were part of the group that created the letter, they didn't merely sign on after the fact). They were in communication with those speakers too, because they keynoted the conference.

Two of the talks, including one keynote, were from members of the Tor Project. The Tor Project had previously told the FSF that they did not want to participate in LibrePlanet if RMS were welcomed back, and they had never told the FSF that they changed their minds about it. https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1374754836009345024

From that, I conclude that the FSF knew (or could easily have known) that the the "mass hysteria" had not, in fact, blown over, and this exact response would happen. Perhaps the media frenzy was over, but actual members of the free software movement still cared.

Moreover, if in fact the response is "mass hysteria" and a "loud mob" consisting of so much of the free software community, including so many people who have spent their entire careers fighting for free software alongside (and in many cases within) the FSF and multiple people that the FSF has awarded, then the FSF has completely failed in its mission. If, indeed, every signatory of the letter has become a misguided member of the "mob" - if the FSF can't find anyone outside the "mob" to give awards to or invite to keynote their conference - then the FSF has failed to effectively lead the free software movement.

How is the FSF supposed to go to the world of proprietary software and expect to be taken seriously when they cannot even get that from their own community?

A new "board process" at the FSF

pizza — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 13:51:00 +0000

> It asks equal understanding from both parties.

This is a key point that's been largely missing from all of this.

It takes two to effectively communicate, and a large part of that is giving each other the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the ginormous ambiguities inherent to any human language. (Although I suppose English is worse than most in that regard..)

("preferred" is not "mandatory" -- and as TFAs' citations and many comments point out, attempts at being respectful are held up as "proof" of malice, to which the reasonable observer could conclude that they're better off just not bothering to try because the outcome will the same regardless)

A new "board process" at the FSF

AB138 — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 13:27:44 +0000

What about a speaker who genuinely doesn't believe a trans-woman is a woman? Saying "they" seems like a polite way to avoid misgendering them, while still respecting the ones own beliefs. It seems a fair compromise. It asks equal understanding from both parties.

Who asked the squallers?

markuschaaf — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:47:32 +0000

I will raise it with them, next time my fellowship contribution is due. But this will be a private conversation. They made a public statement, and I wanted to make a public statement too, even if it "isn't worth terribly much." I do not care about their private opinions, if they voice them as such. But I decided to become a fellow, because of their mission statement:

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.

Nothing Stallman did or said or wrote contradicts that mission. In my view their action does.

Who asked the squallers?

markuschaaf — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:27:17 +0000

I don't know what "sister organisation" means. But they miss no opportunity to underscore their Independence of the FSF. Even this time:

That is why, as a legally and financially independent organisation, in which Richard Stallman has not had any decision-making powers, we call for his resignation from all FSF bodies.

A new "board process" at the FSF

nix — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:55:52 +0000

> In the world of academia, the way to deal with someone of Stallman's age and experience who's at risk of becoming a liability is to promote them to an emeritus role created for them (and that has definitionally lifetime tenure), and to replace them with someone who can push the organisation's political position (and make no mistake, Free Software is a political position) forward without the baggage of your emeritus person.

Yeah, but does that actually work if the emeritus person insists on continuing to speak for the organization and additionally push, ah, other controversial views?

The only case I can think of is James Watson, who was kicked upstairs into an emeritus role in 2008 after making similarly controversial (and frankly just plain wrongheaded) comments that basically showed him to be a scientific racist. In 2018 he did it again, and when that came out the emeritus role was removed. This happened *even though in the interim he'd been in a car accident* and has been sufficiently withdrawn since then that I'm not sure anyone publically knows what his health state is. So, yeah, being an emeritus *does* in fact come with a de-facto rule that you don't say things that would embarrass the organization. If you want to do that, you resign. RMS never seemed to grasp that, probably because (as this mess has shown) the FSF is in fact a rather grubby one-man band and vehicle for him. It should be cleaned up, because its ostensible role is valuable, but I'm not sure it can be while RMS is still around and unrepentant.

No

nix — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:41:41 +0000

> especially given the majority of the signatories of the poison pen letter against Stallman are members of commercial organizations whose only democracy is that of the almighty dollar, or non-profits which exist at the beneficience of the former.

Er... what's the third alternative? Are signatories only to be considered acceptable if they're entirely unemployed? Maybe you'd allow academia, but this seems somewhat *arbitrary* to me as a distinction, unless you think that all the signatories are acting as lackeys of their employers. (This seems unlikely: more than any other field I've ever seen, free software development is rooted in its people, and the positions follow the people around, even as their employers change names.)

A new "board process" at the FSF

nix — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:38:53 +0000

> Using "they/them" as a way of showing a specific person has a non-binary gender is not traditional usage and is far from universally accepted.

Adding extra difficulty here, pronouns in English in particular appear to be very resistant to change. There have been countless efforts to introduce new ones in the last thousand years. None have caught on. They even managed to resist the complete erosion of their inflections, the only part of English to do so. New pronouns sound wincingly awkward to my ears, and usage of 'they' to refer to a single definite individual more so. Of course, that doesn't mean they're *wrong*, just that they're unlikely to catch on and that I'll usually fail to realise they even could be used.

But... to traditionalists, that feeling of awkwardness alone provides enough justification that the whole idea and everything connected to it must be Wrong and Bad and therefore fought as a violation of a sacred value, just like everything else that makes them feel uneasy. (This, to me, seems to be the principal distinction between people of conservative bent and those who are not: is your reaction to things that make you feel uneasy, disgusted, or unhappy to decide that your personal disgust must be a sign of a universal law and wrong for everyone else, or not?)

A new "board process" at the FSF

roc — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 10:39:42 +0000

Exactly.

The simplest and saddest explanation is that the FSF has decayed into a personality cult. I hope it turns to have just been spectacular incompetence.

A new "board process" at the FSF

roc — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 10:33:18 +0000

> Probably that the mass hysteria had mostly blown over and that he should be reinstated.

If so, they miscalculated in a way that's catastrophic for the FSF.

> Why should they need to plan for or respond to mass hysteria?

Because whether the mob is right or wrong, a ton of people who used to work with and sympathise with the FSF are part of that mob, so alienating them is going to have impact. A responsible board dead-set on reinstating Stallman for "reasons" would have tried to minimise the impact.

A new "board process" at the FSF

farnz — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 10:07:40 +0000

In the world of academia, the way to deal with someone of Stallman's age and experience who's at risk of becoming a liability is to promote them to an emeritus role created for them (and that has definitionally lifetime tenure), and to replace them with someone who can push the organisation's political position (and make no mistake, Free Software is a political position) forward without the baggage of your emeritus person.

This is something that most academic organisations set up well in advance, not least because if the current leader's health hits a sudden issue (which becomes more of a risk as they get older), you want to be able to keep space for them (the emeritus role, focusing on their strengths), while handing the day-to-day work to someone new.

That we are having this discussion saddens me, because it implies that the FSF has no plans to keep going after RMS's eventual departure from the world. I, for one, would like to see the FSF keep going as a counterweight to commercial interests, and it doesn't look like it's managed to find a suitable RMS replacement who can do that.

A new "board process" at the FSF

shiftee — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:16:01 +0000

In Defense of Richard Stallman - The Lunduke Journal : https://odysee.com/@Lunduke:e/DefenseofStallman:9

Comments on this topic

tekNico — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:15:24 +0000

Jon, your request was not realistic nor well-grounded. If that's what you wanted, you should have turned off comments right away. Thank you for *not* having done that.

A new "board process" at the FSF

gnu — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:05:11 +0000

That is sad that you feel that way. That very petition itself was also about rms being not active as a "contributor" to code and Free Software movement in general has never been about judging people based on amount of code they contributed. It was always about user empowerment. The petition sadly sits on github on which not everyone may have an account.

Ironically many of the signatories chose to put "former XYZ" in their signatures. Judging by their own words, being a "former" contributor doesn't count?

A new "board process" at the FSF

chris_se — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 08:53:12 +0000

Well, if this whole fiasco has shown one thing, it's that the FSF is really, really bad at communicating. We still haven't heard a word from the FSF itself about the entire issue that directly addresses the topic. In the initial announcement RMS said there was going to be a video, but that video wasn't ready in time, so he'll just drop that information during a presentation. In fact, RMS's statements about now being on the board of the FSF were the only statements by someone associated with the FSF in that matter. And now the FSF is putting out vague "press releases" that are mired with corporate speak, without acknowledging the controversy. (There's a second one up just now that doesn't tell us anything substantial, other than the name of a new board member.) This alone should be reason enough to disqualify the current leadership of the FSF as an advocacy organization -- I don't have any expertise whatsoever when it comes to advocacy or communications, but I could have done a better job than them.

What's baffling: even with the board of the FSF being in favor of bringing back RMS, it was obvious that this was not going to be uncontroversial. At the very least I would have expected something that actually acknowledges the previous controversies. But the only thing we got was RMS saying in the video that some people might not like his joining the board at all (don't remember the exact phrasing he used), which to me came across as "gleefully rubbing it in" when I watched it. I don't know whether that was his intention there (and it very well may not have been), but it was obvious that how this was handled from the side of RMS and the FSF was completely reckless. What I really don't get here: even if I had wanted to have RMS back in a leadership position, I would have been able to come up with a vastly superior way to communicate this that would have dampened the backlash (that was always going to happen) considerably. But the way this was done indicates to me that they either genuinely thought there'd be no substantial backlash, they never even thought about it, or they just didn't care. Either way this indicates to me the current board is completely unsuited to be leading an advocacy organization that's effective at what it does. Let's say one of the board members is asked to testify in front of a legislature for some issue: if they are that bad at reading a room as they have demonstrated here, they'd be completely counterproductive.

No

auc — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 08:36:43 +0000

Thank you for writing that.

A new "board process" at the FSF

pbonzini — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 07:02:42 +0000

If no one can show the door to someone for being a jerk that *prevents other people from showing their talent and merit*, that's not a meritocracy.

A new "board process" at the FSF

milesrout — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 05:49:28 +0000

Meritocracy, of course, only matters when it supports one's position. Meritocracy is widely held by the sort of people that want Stallman removed to be a discriminatory and offensive notion. They reject the idea that anyone is better than anyone else or that anyone has or can accomplish more than anyone else. They reject the idea that you can evaluate people, their opinions, their impact or their value to a project based on their contributions or other measures of merit.

Of course, that wouldn't stop them saying things like "look at all these accomplished people that support what we're saying!".

A new "board process" at the FSF

milesrout — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 05:46:37 +0000

> What I want to know is: what was the FSF board thinking when they reappointed RMS?

Probably that the mass hysteria had mostly blown over and that he should be reinstated.

> If they didn't expect this blowback and have a plan for it, that's a complete failure on their part, because it was obvious even to the casual observer this would happen.

> If they did have a plan for it, what was that plan, and why did they have to make that "preliminary board statement on FSF governance" yesterday?

Why should they need to plan for or respond to mass hysteria? Richard Stallman has done nothing that would suggest he shouldn't be on the board of the FSF. His position on the board is entirely a good thing. The mob isn't right just because it's loud.

A new "board process" at the FSF

karath — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 04:09:05 +0000

In this controversy, the message of the FSF seems to be disappearing in all of the shouting, and if the FSF cannot find a way to bring it's message back to the fore, then it may fail in it's stated purpose. The board and voting membership are being forced to choose whether honouring their founder is more important than their message. It is already likely that the divisions are so entrenched that attempting to fudge or delay their way out may not achieve either.

In this, as interesting as the "board process" is the question of membership of the FSF. It is not at all apparent to me how many voting members there are of the FSF, the proportion of voting vs. non-voting members, and the process to achieve full voting membership.

It seems that the remaining reason that the stability and existence of the FSF matters in any form of the wider world outside our echo chamber are the software projects that have "or any later version" in their license. The FSF has control of those projects' license under GPLv2 section 9 and GPLv3 section 14. There are several other reasons why the FSF _should_ matter.

A new "board process" at the FSF

rodgerd — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 03:15:27 +0000

We don't know why, because no-one has said, including Stallman himself.

Board members are appointed by the voting members of the board.

We don't know who the voting members are, for the purposes of board elections.

The FSF is a shambles, essentially, in spite of whatever efforts board members and volunteers have put in over the years. It is certainly difficult to discern at the moment if it actually functions as anything other than a vehicle to underwrite rms' lifestyle.

A new "board process" at the FSF

calumapplepie — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 00:44:16 +0000

On the bright side, since Debian is not an FSF endorsed operating system (as they include an optional and 'unofficial' non-free section), Debian wouldn't need to stop supporting itself.

----

More seriously: there is a proposal going around to publish a seperate statement, as opposed to just making a pull request to add "Signed by Debian" to the open letter. One has already been drafted, and will probably make it in as an optional amendment. It is very likely that said amendment will pass, as opposed to the open letter, as there are many who have specific reservations with the letter.