On Recent Controversial Events
This is Bradley Kuhn trying to explain and justify his behavior to himself (and, to take a personal stance, I think he did - I think his actions and motivations are fine). I think it points out several things.<p>1. Dealing with a controversial issue from inside an organization rarely works. Sure, maybe FSF has been grappling with Stallman&#x27;s non-FSF stances and how they hurt the FSF and free software in general. But they had several years internally to make changes and nothing happened until it spilled over into the public. And then, yes, it did happen quickly.<p>2. There is a huge tension between the mission of a group and how to interact with the society that group is embedded within. I agree that a group should focus on its mission, and leave other goals to groups more dedicated to those issues. I especially agree that a group with no particular expertise in a matter should avoid pontificating or trying to &quot;lead&quot; in that issue. And yet a group is composed of members from the society. There&#x27;s a conflict here that no one really knows how to handle.<p>Why do people high up in very visible or very powerful organizations take on topics outside their remit? Because they have personal opinions and want to use the power of the organization to amplify their voice. I think this is a subtle form of corruption, even in the case where you &quot;created&quot; the organization. Because while Stallman did pioneer the idea of &quot;free software&quot;, he&#x27;s not personally responsible for all or even most of the success and visibility of the FSF. He hijacked the org to press certain opinions. And, yes, while he didn&#x27;t pretend that the FSF was saying these things, he knew full well that he only had attention paid to him because of all the history of free software and the fact that he was the very visible figurehead. Saying these things to your friends and associates is one thing, but blogging about them is a public campaign.<p>I don&#x27;t know the full answer. But an org can&#x27;t avoid big issues for the society it&#x27;s embedded in, because that often looks like it&#x27;s made a decision (usually for repression - to wit, the many groups facing public approbation over apparent kow-towing to the Chinese position on recent events in Hong Kong). But also #metoo and LGBTQ+ rights and Epstein and any number of culture flashpoints in recent history. I think orgs need to make cautious statements that these things exist and that orgs will not endorse unethical or illegal behavior but that other things are up to the actual actors involved. So for example &quot;Black Lives Matter&quot; - I don&#x27;t expect companies to be champions, and I certainly don&#x27;t expect any companies to attack it (whether flat-out or noxious things like &quot;Blue Lives Matter&quot;); but I do expect those companies to not make empty talk about equal rights and diversity but to work to make sure their companies aren&#x27;t part of the problem (e.g. only hiring white men, for example). When a problem is exposed to you, you take that information in and you use it, you don&#x27;t ignore it, and you certainly don&#x27;t work to undermine it.<p>These things blow up because someone in a position of a lot of power does something either purposely or accidentally evil, and then the reaction looks like an overreaction, and we all &quot;murmur murmur MURMUR MURMUR!!&quot; about it for a while.<p>Let&#x27;s all be humans. That means we have our goals (game companies make games - and profits) but we also are composed of members of the society we are embedded in, so we are part of those larger goals whether we like it or not. And we don&#x27;t make social decisions based on &quot;the market&quot;, but on foundations of morals and ethics - which we argue about constantly, but over the longer run are pretty easy to see.<p>Not quite on a tangent - companies today face a huge problem in that they employ people, and people have their own opinions and goals not related to the company&#x27;s mission. For some companies, the expectation is that you take no position on matters, because that would harm the opinion of the company. I think this is very problematic, especially since a lot of self-censoring happens. I said very little controversial in public while I was employed by a certain large game company, for example, and no one in the company explictly told me to be like that. I think that caused society a tiny bit of harm. But the flip-side is also bad in that companies face unwarranted criticism because some employee says something that goes viral, and then if the company fires the person, the company is in trouble, but if the company defends the person, the company can also get in trouble.<p>I think this whole thing is only tough because we haven&#x27;t yet figured out how to handle it. And then once we do, future generations will look back in dismay and say &quot;what the fuck, how could you have been so blind?&quot;. I wish someone would figure it out already, so we can go back to being productive.