Daniel Pocock wrote:
Organizations need a process for evaluating incidents like this fairly and objectively.
I think that that process should include listing one's rights and evidence which we're all allowed to see. It also would be good to have more clearly established reasoning such as what Nadine Strossen is reported to have said on the issue of RMS' re-admittance to the FSF Board of Directors (see https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web-rms -- Strossen's arguments put the lie to those who claim that freedom of speech has nothing to do with RMS' readmittance[1]). There Strossen makes reference to actual court decisions where evidence is brought up for review, argued over, and all done under a system we can learn and understand. And laws generally have periods where punishment is valid and punishments last for known periods of time. We also have a means of changing laws and punishments. I don't see anything like that going on in this issue concerning RMS' readmittance to the FSF Board. What I've seen in this debate is indistinguishable from reacting to RMS' ideas others don't like or agree with. No matter how much one disagrees with those ideas, that's still speech.
[1] http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html and https://current.workingdirectory.net/posts/2021/stallman/ have both made this point.
For example, when Linus made some comments at DebConf there was a big fuss. Many people complained that nobody was willing to interrupt Linus. People want to have their cake and eat it too.
When I think about Linus Torvalds in the context of RMS returning to the FSF Board, I recall that Torvalds has a well-known and public record of swearing at programmers whose code he didn't like. This apparently included giving people the middle finger and Sarah Sharp pointing out "Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse." in order to get Linux kernel hackers to improve the quality of their patches (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus-torvalds-defends-his-right-to-shame-linux-kernel-developers/ for more on this). Torvalds was allowed to choose to temporarily retire from his work, reconsider his previous statements, and (at least insofar as establishment media reports it) uncontroversially return to his work. There was a time when Torvalds' speech was a subject of some debate on mailing lists and that time appears to be over. Not so for RMS.
At no point do I recall anyone heading up or joining an effort asking people to: stop supporting the Linux kernel, refuse to contribute to projects related to Linus Torvalds, and not speak at or attend Linux kernel events or "events that welcome" Torvalds "and his brand of intolerance" all "while doing these things, tell[ing] these communities and the" Linux-related group/project why. All of these things are listed in the demands of the github.io anti-RMS letter. This strikes me as a remarkably inconsistent take which (when considered from a cui bono -- who benefits? -- perspective) ultimately favors proprietors. After all, Torvalds' Linux fork contains proprietary software (which GNU Linux-libre removes in its fork of the Linux kernel; perhaps this is a project we're supposed to shun because GNU Linux-libre is part of the GNU Project and the GNU Project is headed up by RMS).
It wouldn't surprise me if the open source mindset (which was always amenable to non-free software and actively discourages freedom talk -- the OSI for years referred to freedom talk as "ideological tub-thumping" on its website) was behind some of the corporate backers opposing RMS' readmittance. One noteworthy contributor opposing RMS' return is IBM (which owns Red Hat). This is particularly ironic on ethical grounds given that IBM did business with the 3rd Reich in Germany and (in more modern times) tries to downplay or distract attention away from the legitimacy of that ugly history (see "The Corporation" segment with Edwin Black and an IBM representative responding to Black's research for this or watch https://files.digitalcitizen.info/corporations-prop-up-fascists/the-corporation-nazi-germany.webm to see that segment).
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