Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman
This past month has completely destroyed my confidence in FSF leadership. I hope they can earn it back.<p>Say what you want about the open letter - and it is an inaccurate open letter - the fact is that most people who had legitimate criticisms of RMS&#x27;s leadership decided to sign onto it anyway. You might argue that this is malice. I&#x27;d argue that the open letter&#x27;s ultimate conclusion - wipe the FSF management slate clean - was still warranted. Remember: the FSF did not attempt to defend, explain, or rehabilitate Stallman&#x27;s behavior or character. That was individuals within the community doing that - and themselves making the mistake of, say, ignoring other, better criticisms of RMS&#x27;s behavior than misreading his personal quirks as inherently sexist.<p>I find it hard <i>not</i> to read the FSF&#x27;s conduct as anything but &quot;let&#x27;s just quietly bring RMS back once the mainstream media gets off our case&quot;. They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. The Minsky e-mail was just a catalyst, like putting a spoon in superheated water. If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then <i>actually</i> toning it down, this could have worked. It&#x27;s possible for the FSF to actually still do this, despite having been apparently(!?) caught on the backfoot... but that&#x27;s going to be far harder than if they had actually messaged this properly.<p>Since nobody&#x27;s head is actually going to roll for this terrible PR nightmare, I can only hope that the organization tries to tone down RMS&#x27;s toxic behavior, and maybe we&#x27;ll get something useful out of deliberately reopening year-old (or for some, decade-old) wounds. Still, I feel like this is akin to Mozilla&#x27;s crippling Google dependency - it&#x27;s not like RMS is going to live forever, he&#x27;s pushing 70. His number will come up sooner or later. His remaining tenure with the FSF should be wholly dedicated towards making the organization relevant to those who aren&#x27;t already &quot;in the know&quot; so that we have suitable replacements when we lose RMS.