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Free software advocates seek removal of Richard Stallman and entire FSF board:
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.
The open letter said:
Richard M. Stallman, frequently known as RMS, has been a dangerous force in the free software community for a long time. He has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. These sorts of beliefs have no place in the free software, digital rights, and tech communities. With his recent reinstatement to the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, we call for the entire Board of the FSF to step down and for RMS to be removed from all leadership positions.
Previously:
Richard Stallman Rejoins Free Software Foundation Board of Directors
Richard M. Stallman Resigns
Richard Stallman Deserved to be Fired, Says Fired GNU Hurd Maintainer
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 26 2021, @06:27PM
No, he isn't useful in the slightest. He hasn't contributed any sort of significant technical leadership in decades. His only role in the modern world is as a spokesman/PR person. And when your PR person is a lightning rod that comes across as a pedophilia apologist, and generates a massive backlash, and a significant chunk of the industry is begging you to throw him out, he's a terrible PR person. That's the opposite of being good at PR. An empty chair would be much better at PR.
If you were an actor who appeared in commercials for a corporation as a spokesperson and said any of the controversial crap that RMS had said, you'd be permanently out on your ass before the newspapers even came out the next morning. The idea of someone like that being elevated to a board of directors position for no damned reason would be unthinkable. No matter what you think of his (actually kinda kooky and extremist) message about software freedom, his ability to convey that message has been utterly pissed away by his controversies and general jackassery. His most vocal supporters are largely people who have never met him, and not had to work with him. Aside from his public disruption as a PR lightning rod, he's also just a pain in the ass to deal with on an individual level, so he'll probably be a net-negative disruption to board meetings in terms of their ability to actually accomplish the FSF mission.
And to be clear, none of that even requires him to genuinely think very highly of pedophilia, or be especially transphobic or anything else. The appearance of being a dismal jackass is more than enough reason to brush aside somebody who's only supposed value is in PR. Again, he's of no practical use as a board member for day to day operations stuff, and he's no technical leader either. PR value is the only axis left to judge him on, and that's clearly empirically negative just from the observation that we are having this conversation.