02.14.22
Gemini version available ♊︎‘Reprehensible’ GNOME Foundation Leadership Falls on Sword While Richard Stallman Returns
Video download link | md5sum 005c64c85723627f453c0ed2f2bb2b9d
Self-immolation of GNOME Foundation Leadership
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: No more Bully de Blanc (fired), no Nicholson (OSI, stepped down), and Hashman ended up throwing in the towel; now, within less than a year, the most prolific campaigner against Dr. Richard Stallman is also leaving (announced a few hours ago); The GNOME Foundation lost both Bully de Blanc and Mr. McGovern in only a few months and it remains to be seen if Mr. McGovern ends up at Microsoft like his predecessors Miguel de Icaza and and Stormy Peters (Microsoft-connected OpenLogic, HP, Red Hat, now Microsoft)
Any time a bully gets called out or receives “karma” we should take note of it. Today, another bully, who had defamed Richard Stallman for years, finally announced: “Now, nearly 5 years later, I’ve decided the timing is right for me to step back and for GNOME to start looking for its next leader.”
That’s Mr. McGovern, joining the likes of Bully de Blanc and Nicholson, who helped him start the anti-FSF (via RMS) hate campaign. They did this in Microsoft GitHub, so clearly enough they did not have freedom in mind (or even inclusion). That happened just less than 11 months ago, so they’ve barely lasted a year. As I note in the video above, RMS is very active behind the scenes (he has been talking to us about Gemini lately; last public talk this winter with full video here), whereas his haters gradually go away. They’ve rendered themselves irrelevant. More concrete news will hopefully follow soon. New Executive Director to be announced soon by the FSF*?
“Our community is under attack; these supposedly well-meaning foundations get captured by our adversaries and actively work against our communities.”So who next to lead the GNOME Foundation? Did Neil receive a job offer from Microsoft? Probably not, but time will tell…
Regardless, the GNOME Foundation is now without leadership (there’s no instant succession) and we start to see in this foundation much of what we saw in the Linux Foundation. It’s captured by corporations which are hostile towards Free software and as recently as hours ago (noted above in the video, towards the end) we were reminded of “Linux Foundation” badge of environmentalism for Microsoft [1, 2, 3] because someone published “Microsoft, Linux Foundation, others join Carbon Call“ (greenwash).
Our community is under attack; these supposedly well-meaning foundations get captured by our adversaries and actively work against our communities. █
“Idiots can be defeated but they never admit it.”
–Richard Stallman
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* Damage was nevertheless done during/after the ‘coup’. Here’s the current list of FSF staff, as of today:
And compared to last year (differences highlighted):
The FSF made the right decision though (almost 6,900 signatures were added to the RMS endorsement letter, signed in support of the FSF’s decision to bring back RMS).
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