More Stallmanites Added to FSF Board and Summer Fundraiser Commences
There's some good news from the FSF, which will soon celebrate 40 years since its formation (yes, 6 years before the release of Linux).
First, the FSF resumes its public fundraising call, this time for summer (in winter it raised almost half a million dollars):
Even more encouraging, to me personally, is how they're putting Mr. Oliva (LXO) back in the board to make decisions not just as a voter.
Odile Bénassy remains a voting member. To quote the announcement that is hours-old:
The FSF has advanced Alexandre Oliva as provisional board member. Oliva was the last candidate to be decided on after the call for candidates on June 19, 2023, and will begin participating in board meetings effective immediately.The board committed to a revised board process, through which candidates were nominated by the community in January 2022, and Oliva was one of these nominated candidates. The discussion around Oliva was paused in order to review the serving board members, excluding the ones installed through the same process in June 2024. With that concluded, the voting members turned to the last remaining candidate and reviewed the discussions that associate members had conducted with Oliva in the board discussion forum.
Oliva was a board member before from August 2019 to January 2021, and continued to be an FSF voting member after his resignation. The current board of directors deliberated the nomination, had discussions around expectations with the candidate for the past year, and have now voted to advance him.
Provisional board members join the board's discussions, but lack the authority to vote. Updates about provisional members follow once their probation period is over.
What the FSF needs is more people who think like RMS (on software), not fewer. What the GAFAM operatives tried to do with known as "decapitation tactics". The best response isn't to appease them but to do the opposite of what they demand. █