Rabble Rousing Mob who can’t Read Seek Removal of Richard Stallman and Entire FSF Board

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Richard Stallman’s return to the Free Software Foundation’s board of directors has drawn condemnation from many people in the free software community. An open letter signed by hundreds of people today called for Stallman to be removed again and for the FSF’s entire board to resign. Letter signers include Neil McGovern, GNOME Foundation executive director and former Debian Project Leader; Deb Nicholson, general manager of the Open Source Initiative; Matthew Garrett, a former member of the FSF board of directors; seven of the eight members of the X.org Foundation board of directors; Elana Hashman of the Debian Technical Committee, Open Source Initiative, and Kubernetes project; Molly de Blanc of the Debian Project and GNOME Foundation; and more than 300 others. That number has been rising quickly today: the open letter contains instructions for signing it.

The letter said all members of the FSF board should be removed because they ‘have enabled and empowered RMS for years. They demonstrate this again by permitting him to rejoin the FSF Board. It is time for RMS to step back from the free software, tech ethics, digital rights, and tech communities, for he cannot provide the leadership we need.’ The letter also called for Stallman to be removed from his position leading the GNU Project. “We urge those in a position to do so to stop supporting the Free Software Foundation,” they wrote. “Refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF and RMS. Do not speak at or attend FSF events, or events that welcome RMS and his brand of intolerance. We ask for contributors to free software projects to take a stand against bigotry and hate within their projects. While doing these things, tell these communities and the FSF why.” UPDATE: For a quick summary of the controversy, long-time Slashdot reader Jogar the Barbarian recommends this article from It’s Foss.

Source: Free Software Advocates Seek Removal of Richard Stallman and Entire FSF Board – Slashdot

From the comments:

Your misleading quoting is mendacious, wrong, and sickening from someone on Slashdot who ought to know better. Here is the RMS quote, as quoted by the MIT cancellor (I’ve bolded the parts that you tried to hide):

RMS:

The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.

The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. … Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).

The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=18535476&cid=61195002 / Moridineas

This really frightens me. Moridineas, you have provided the precise quote, and it is absolutely clear that you are right. Stallman did not speak in vague metaphors or with sloppy grammar. What was written is clear as crystal, and easily objectively verified by absolutely anyone who bothers to read the quote.

The objective truth here is Stallman DID NOT say that these girls were entirely willing. If he had said that, we would all be having a very different conversation here. But he did not, and that is that. He speculated that they presented as entirely willing. This is a completely different statement, and it is not the moral sin that Stallman is being accused of committing.

And yet, there is an army of angry people adamantly insisting that he said they were entirely willing. People who seem to be otherwise intelligent and capable of understanding English. Every one of these people can read the quote just like you did, and see that he did not say what they insist he said.

So what is motivating this? How can so many otherwise-normal people insist on an obvious lie to the point of insisting that so many people resign? What is wrong with these people? Don’t they care about the truth? Doesn’t that matter?

What good is speaking precisely when people will just change what you say and then crucify you for it?

https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=18535476&cid=61195246 / Brain-Fu

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