10.06.19
Gemini version available ♊︎The Free Software Foundation Will Be Far Stronger With Richard Stallman Back On Its Board
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). █
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wwp said,
October 6, 2019 at 8:55 pm
Microsoft employees are not calling for Gates to be removed from Microsoft as he retired in 2006. He has also stepped down as Chairman of the Board. Taking Bill Gates and Microsoft to task would work better if you stopped treating Microsoft as if it was the same company that existed in the 1990′s Bill hasn’t been there in more than a decade. They are on their second CEO since Bill left.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 6th, 2019 at 9:30 pm
No, Bill Gates is in the Board and has the power to remove any CEO, whom the Board pays a salary. You underestimate Gates’ control over Microsoft. Just as he would like…