Published at LXer:

Staff quit as board refuses to budge on controversial decision. Three key staff members of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) have resigned in protest at the organization’s decision to reinstall Richard Stallman as a board member.…

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That FSF board is not fit for purpose, it seems …

Is the FSF anything other than a lobby group? Personally, I feel it has ignored resignations, and needs to be hit hard in the pocket.

I'm not a fan of Stallman, he strikes me as creepy, but I'm also not a fan of cancel-culture or mob justice. The board's mistake was to capitulate to the outrage mob in the first instance. I guess they naively thought that it would blow over and they could bring Stallman back later.

When you look past the narrative being pushed, what did Stallman actually do? Other than express some views on topics he'd have been better off leaving alone?

People need to be free to express a bad-take without having their world brought crashing down around them because of it. The alternative is a world where everyone will be afraid to speak at all.

If RMS should be free to speak his mind then so should the board! The world is not crashing down. It's not like the FSF is some big corporate presence that once supported Hitler. IBM is.

Hear, hear!
Very well said!

The biggest dangers of over reliance on corporate sponsorship is that those donors can threaten to pull funding - or do that - and easily find justification. You're seeing that here and few seem to have a problem with it.

Completely disregarding Stallman and opinions of him - corporations bankrolling a project or foundation are in effective control. They get to steer things and to target an individual they don't approve of and select them for removal/cancellation - threatening to take their money elsewhere if there is any failure to comply.

Channeling "outrage" via their friends in the media, particularly tech press media, they can whip up the professionally offended into a frenzy and mobilise an army of useful idiots to direct at the target - until all associates desert them.

It's acceptable because the "outrage" is seen as a PR move, the individual viewed as repugnant, etc. In reality it's a political one: The reality is that Stallman could be all that he is, but if was of value to a Fortune 500 donor to the Linux foundation and could keep his views to himself, it would not be an issue.

I see the need to explain post #2.

Post #1 was there. Nobody corrected it. I vaguely know there was rumpus and instead of explaining himself, Stallman resigned from everything. That was my impression. I really don't know what the accusations were. I agree with GazL, mob justice and trial by media are bad. But if the FSF does anything we want it to keep doing, and has this staff hemorrhage, isn't it time to stop the flow? I have heard Stallman speak, and found him a bad-mannered <expletive> who took advantage of his reputation and made life miserable for others. If I found him in a room, I'd leave it.