Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Free Software Foundation Will Be Far Stronger With Richard Stallman Back On Its Board

Super Stallman
Image credit: The Fall Of Stallman by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith) at PCLinuxOS Magazine



Summary: Looking back at three weeks of misinformation, we insist that Stallman should have his membership -- if not position -- in the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Board reinstated

THE FSF lost its main identity and asset. Deep inside it knows it. It lost its founder, who emphasises this role of his in his E-mail signature these days. He lost his place there not for technical reasons. Brendan Eich suffered a similar fate at Mozilla for something not work related (which had happened nearly a decade earlier). Have any lessons been learned since then?



"Brendan Eich suffered a similar fate at Mozilla for something not work related (which had happened nearly a decade earlier)."Our habitual contributor figosdev is writing a HOWTO regarding federation of Free software advocacy (work in progress) and a week ago on the LibrePlanet mailing list someone announced a thing called FSForce (The Free Software Force, sounding similar to FOSSForce but completely unrelated to it).

Adrienne G. Thompson's reply said "I too have explicitly noted in previous posts that "[T]he Free Software Foundation has not broken but maintains the relationship with Software Freedom Conservancy that has promoted the persecution of Richard Stallman," nominating SFC President and FSF Board member Bradley Kuhn "Best Director" for the internet drama "The Backstabber" in the upcoming FSF Resign Awards."

"Well, much of the criticism of Richard Stallman, RMS, was disguised as that ("he has been there too long", "he's sexist" and so on); he's trying to mend things and he told me repeatedly that he had stepped down due to pressure from outside the FSF, not inside it, as a matter of personal will under great media strain."We should add that trying to disguise criticism of technical groups using parallel accusations of "sexism", "racism", "intolerance", "old" (incumbent) is nothing new, as if technical matters are to be tackled using identity politics. Microsoft apparently does this to Google. So why stop there?

Well, much of the criticism of Richard Stallman, RMS, was disguised as that ("he has been there too long", "he's sexist" and so on); he's trying to mend things and he told me repeatedly that he had stepped down due to pressure from outside the FSF, not inside it, as a matter of personal will under great media strain. I personally prefer to see the FSF going back to the way it was a month ago, preferably without the people who dethroned RMS with outside pressure (not entirely outside as one of them is also on the FSF's Board). I don't need to repeat the name quoted above, but let's just say that this is the person who wrote the most damaging press release.

What this whole sad episode serves to show is misuse of media; Alessandro Ebersol put it like this in his new article:

In fact, who really had ties with that citizen Epstein was Bill Gates, who, according to emails obtained exclusively from The New Yorker, Epstein would have instructed Bill Gates to donate $2 million to a MIT research lab in October 2014. The directors of MIT Media Lab delivered the emails, and they clearly link Gates to Epstein.

However, this connection goes beyond donation, as both Gates and Epstein had a common interest in eugenics, a perverted form of science that seeks to genetically improve the human population by getting rid of undesirable ones (who was also interested in that? Hmmm, ahhh, that Austrian guy!)

We can even speculate that the attack on Stallman's person was a way to get the public's attention diverted away from Gates, who really had a connection with Epstein.


The proprietary software people (workers, hence proponents, defending their wallets and banks accounts basically, not morality) generalise and stigmatise FOSS people as sexist even though the 'inventor' of proprietary stuff, Bill Gates (remember that infamous letter he wrote), is the real connection to Epstein and pedophilia. Why aren't Microsoft employees issuing a call/petition to "remove Gates"?

Talk about projection...

A reader has, in the meantime, told us about the Microsoft propagandist (anti-Google, privacy-washer of Microsoft surveillance) whom the EFF foolishly gave an award several weeks ago. That person is, apparently, nowadays attacking everyone, using the EFF's award as a 'budge' of credibility. The EFF has moved in really a bad direction, in essence rewarding privacy abusers from Microsoft. Why? Don't ask me! The EFF's demise may be a subject for another day -- it barely says anything about patents for a number of months now. Its most prominent person in that 'department' moved to Mozilla earlier this year.

"The proprietary software people (workers, hence proponents, defending their wallets and banks accounts basically, not morality) generalise and stigmatise FOSS people as sexist even though the 'inventor' of proprietary stuff, Bill Gates (remember that infamous letter he wrote), is the real connection to Epstein and pedophilia. Why aren't Microsoft employees issuing a call/petition to "remove Gates"?""Read that article," said a reader to us, "and the linked-to one by Danah Boyd, then read my comment [...] and ask yourself if there's anything controversial in it, except the one thing, it contradicts the house dogma. And in the main article they manage to link Jeffrey Epstein to scientists, tech innovators and the Nobel Prize winners. What the fuck does raped, trafficked or harassed got to to with technology or me or you?"

Speaking for myself alone, I can't help but feel like they're mimicking some of these same old stunts, e.g. in LibrePlanet (we wrote about CoC matters associated with it several times in the past and an FSF person confirmed what we had heard to be true). Those who don't comply with a corporate agenda are being painted as sexist. Ask Torvalds why he was pushed out of kernel development a year ago. Ask him what he actually said that was sexist (or can be somehow interpreted as such).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025