Bonum Certa Men Certa

Matthias Kirschner, Jonas Oberg & FSFE: Paternity, Maternity, Sick Leave Hypocrisy

Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship

FSFE, Matthias Kirschner, student union, sexism

Today the Fellowship is proud to leak to more messages from the FSFE proving the hypocrisy of Matthias Kirschner.



To recap the sequence of events:



  1. A fellow left a EUR 150,000 bequest to the FSFE.
  2. There was fighting about the money and Matthias Kirschner, President, fell out with Jonas Oberg, Executive Director
  3. To avoid being sacked, Oberg took paternity leave while looking for another job.
  4. Kirschner had a huge fit. He wanted to fire Oberg but he couldn't. So Kirschner took paternity leave too, his message announcing paternity leave is leaked below
  5. When Kirschner came back, he was still pissed off so he decided to remove the elections from the constitution.
  6. The representative elected by the community resigned in disgust
  7. Kirschner was angry that all the serious people quit and he had nobody to blame. So he spread rumours that the community representative, who had already resigned, is a spammer and pedophile
  8. When the two female employees, Susanne Eiswirt and Galia Mancheva, spoke about wage equality, Kirschner sacked them. Finally, he got to fire somebody. Women. In particular, he sacked Galia while she was on sick leave, he didn't give her the same support that people gave Kirschner during his paternity leave episode.


To summarize: the only people Kirschner actually sacked or expelled were women. All the serious people resigned in disgust before Kirschner could get out his knife.



Leak 1: Matthias Kirschner paternity leave



Matthias Kirschner, President, FSFE, paternity leave, sexism, baby

Subject: [GA] New fork / MK off until 23 April
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 07:33:09 +0200
From: Matthias Kirschner <mk@fsfe.org>
To: FSFE General Assembly <ga@lists.fsfe.org>, FSFE EU core team <team@lists.fsfe.org>



This week my child Paul Benjamin Kirschner was born. We are all fine and enjoy those wonderful and unique moments of our lives. Until 23 April I will be offline to spent time with my family.



I am very happy that the FSFE is in a state which enables me to take this time off, knowing that all day to day operations will be performed reliably by our volunteers and staffers. During that time some topics will be on hold, and I will not follow-up any e-mail discussions. Heiki and Patrick will decide if something is important enough to contact me. In case you have issues to discuss which are not absolutely urgent, I ask you to wait with bringing them up, until I am back again.



Thank you for enabling me to enjoy the birth of my child and fully concentrate on my family for the next weeks. All the best from a tired but exuberantly happy,
Matthias



--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290
Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join)
Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html)



Galia Mancheva's comments about her medical leave



Does Kirschner's wife, Kristina, know that Kirschner intruded on Galia's home?



An extract from Galia's full report:



I suspected Matthias was preparing to fire me, and indeed I was on a clock. He needed to make sure he was re-elected FSFE president before he could get rid of me. It would have damaged his chances to have fired all the full-time women in the office in the two months leading up to the elections – an unnecessary risk – but once approved he would have another two years' free reign. At this time my friends were starting to worry – the psychological pressure and lack of enough time off caused my condition was decline. I had to take a sick leave. Certain that I was about to get fired, my friends encouraged me to seek legal counsel, if so only to keep myself focussed on constructive tasks. Immediately after my sick leave announcement, Matthias fired me over the phone on a Friday night, and threatened me to immediately go to the office to hand over work-related items. Appearing in the office during a sick leave is illegal in Germany, so I refused. A weekend of non-stop calls followed, including from hidden phone numbers. He even texted telling me I should answer my phone, for my own better. Even after my lawyer warned him to terminate all attempts to communicate with me and send someone else to pick up my work laptop, he came in person to my house, and was very irritated that I was not alone.



Leak 2: Jonas Oberg paternity leave



Subject: Continuation in volunteer roles
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2018 09:55:47 +0100
From: Jonas Oberg <jonas@fsfe.org>
To: team@lists.fsfe.org



Hi everyone,



I just reviewed the mailing lists where I was subscribed for the FSFE, and wanted to give you a heads up about what you can expect from me in the coming months (and years!).



From the 14th of February, I will be largely disconnected from the day-to-day operations of the FSFE, owing to my parental leave. I'm still a member of the association, and I still have an interest in many of our activities, so I will continue my work in some areas as a volunteer.



Specifically, I will, as a member, remain subscribed and part of the ga@ and team@ lists, but I will read team@ less seldom and focus my attention to the much needed work in the GA.



I will also remain as a volunteer for the following activities:



- Our Legal team
- The FSFE Nordic local group
- REUSE



In addition, I plan to volunteer time to oversee some of the work with the AMS implementation and system administration. It's not conceivable we will manage a proper handover of all tasks in the time remaining, and I have a personal interest in making sure this is properly done.



This all being said, you can of course always rely on my help or guidance if you need it for any other activity too. Just make sure that you ask me specifically (direct mail) about it, and understand that from the 14th, my ability to respond will be much lower during the days and I'll catch up more infrequently, often in the evenings.



In the coming months, I will also have two weeks when I'll work full time for the FSFE; for the REUSE activities we will have at the Open Source Leadership Summit, and for the LLW in Barcelona. So you can expect more mails from me those weeks (w10 and 16) :-)



Best,



--
Jonas Öberg
Executive Director



FSFE e.V. - keeping the power of technology in your hands. Your
support enables our work, please join us today http://fsfe.org/join



Susanne Eiswirth, Matthias Kirschner, Galia Mancheva, FSFE, workplace bullying, harassment

Recent Techrights' Posts

Plagiarism is Hardly a New Problem, It Predates Mainstream Media Getting Paid to Whitewash It as "Training" or "Hey Hi", Then Conflate Plagiarism With "Intelligence" or Deferred "Value"
"Quantum" isn't new either; it's a 'circle-jerk' for companies without direction, only hype
Unsafe at Any Speed, "Modern" Appliances
Appliances have gotten worse
 
Standing in Solidarity With Matt Mullenweg
I don't trust the people and companies that want Mullenweg out. Neither should you.
Links 10/09/2026: "Smear Campaign Says Anti-Flock Movement Is Chinese Propaganda" and "Flock Employee Calls Cops on Reporter Filming Them"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 09, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 09, 2026
IBM's Senior VP of Infrastructure is Out, Silent Layoffs Still Going On
Some people imagine the CEO will also "retire" very soon (and "ahead of time")
Gemini Links 09/09/2026: Mechanical Cameras, "Super App", and Prusa Issues
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 177 Out of 200: Manosphere Without Financial Transparency
It has moreover replaced a female worker with a male
Deadline Tomorrow (10th of September) to Appeal the EPO's Fleecing of Staff (Union to Make Legal Challenges)
Join them. Fight the good fight.
linuxstans.com Died, Then Came Back as Slop (LLM Junk)
Don't make the mistake or the assumption that merely 'dabbling in' or 'experimenting with' LLMs can be forgivable as it is a trust destroyer
Links 09/09/2026: GAFAM Fatalities in Miami International Airport, "Britain’s Health Crisis Is Becoming a Political Crisis"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2026: "Adjective Is Subjective" and Walled Gardens
Links for the day
Links 09/09/2026: Airport 'Down' (Glasgow and Edinburgh), 'Open' 'AI' Losses Rise to Pace of 50 Billion Dollars in Losses Per Year
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 176 Out of 200: The Sex-Obsessed Non-Experts
We heard some sexual stories
European Patent Office (EPO): No Transparency and No Paper Trail
The incompetence is that of the management, i.e. sheer incompetence of people who never examined a patent in their entire lifetime
Gemini Links 09/09/2026: Going Out, Smartphone Addiction, Mapping the Geminispace
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 08, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 08, 2026
Linux is Sabotaged by Botspam and Bloat (de Facto Denial of Service Attack in "Intelligence" Clothing After Rust in "Security" Clothing)
Linux is becoming orphaned, devalued and diluted by GAFAM slop
Switzerland No Longer Wants Microsoft's 'Swiss Cheese' (Back Doors)
Switzerland's patience with Microsoft is wearing thin
Debian is Not a Community, Many Debian Developers Work for Large Companies Including GAFAM (US)
"Community" sounds like friendship and amicability
Links 08/09/2026: Slop Companies Attack Some More Sites, Nvidia Bribes 'Linux' Foundation for Some More Openwashing and for Saying Slop is "Secure"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/09/2026: Ultra Introverts, BlackBerry Bold in 2026, and Laughing at LLMs
Links for the day
Microsoft Layoffs in October 2026
Microsoft is a market leader. In NDAs.
Links 08/09/2026: "The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa" and Palantir/Microsoft Harming NHS
Links for the day
Microsoft's Silent Layoffs Are the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft has a ton of layoffs all the time, but the media isn't mentioning those as no WARN notices get issued
SLAPP Censorship - Part 175 Out of 200: Implicit and Explicit Coalition Against the UK's SLAPP Industry
SRA recognises the problem
Further Transparency Problems at the EPO
The EPO was never meant to be profitable
Gemini Links 08/09/2026: "Everything Must Go", Announcing Perigee, and Presentations in a Browser
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 07, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, September 07, 2026