A Message from the Community to Richard Stallman

Published: November 26, 2020

Richard,

more or less a year ago, we were shocked by the FSF’s announcement that you had resigned as its president and from the Board of Directors. It was a brief note, devoid of any expression of regret for your departure or appreciation for your role as founder or your tireless work. In this regard, it was at least honest; resignations are usually not submitted unless there is previous acknowledgment that it will be accepted. It did include a few words to reassure us that the search for your replacement would begin without delay, and at that point our dismay turned into fear. We knew –we know– that there are people at the FSF for whom software freedom is not the fundamental goal you envisioned.

A few days after the announcement, you officially informed us that your decision to resign was “due to pressure on the Foundation and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of what I have said.” We reached to you to express our solidarity, and we asked you for advice on what to do.

To all of us, you responded the same thing: that we should support the FSF and donate, and say we were donating so that it would continue to lead the organization towards the goal set by you. We did, but we can now see that the FSF intends to use these resources to embrace missions that we do not recognize as ours. And we have seen how the FSF has already invested in supporting those who are not friends of GNU.

In a recent article, the FSF calls for feedback from the community to update the list of high priority projects, and it hints at including in the list “other forms of activism, internal or external (e.g., making free software communities safe for diverse participants, mandating use of free software in the public sector, etc.)“. The lack of focus by lumping together two totally different fields of action is obvious. The first, as loadable as it may seem, is not part of the FSF’s goal, and it’s not clear what this abused word “safe” really means; we suspect it means adoption of codes of conduct which more often than not provide an excuse to oust valuable people from the movement. By contrast, the second is about spreading the use of free software among a strategic pool of users, thus well within the goal of the FSF.

The work to lay these flawed tracks started long before your resignation. The FSF backed up the adoption of codes of conduct in free software projects early in 2017, although knowing your position on the subject, we are inclined to think you were not entirely aware that this was being done. We believe that codes of conduct can cause more harm than good in software projects. It often results in a valuable contributor being banned from the project for the slightest mistake or for holding unpopular views, specially if he or she is found to be an obstacle to the agenda of some enforcing committee. We’ve seen this happen.

In 2018, people demanded that you be removed from LibrePlanet on the grounds that you made the place “unsafe.” They were probably referring to how you usually correct speakers’ mistakes right on the spot, and how in one occasion you requested to be allowed to continue a useful conversation in the room for a few more minutes. That, along with your humorous “business card,” makes you a very dangerous monster in the eyes of these people. They published their demand in a web page named “on-safety-at-libreplanet,” and titled it “Is LibrePlanet Safe?”

“Safe” has become a catch-all term meaning something or someone is protected against anything from murder to physical assault to robbery to speech interruptions to longer conversations to humorous business cards to clumsiness. So when people say they want to make a certain place “safe,” it’s not clear what sort of crimes they hope to prevent, or if they are aware that certain behaviors, as much as some may dislike them, are not dangerous in the very least. So based on this confusion, promoters of codes of conduct seem to have concluded that the best course of action is to apply the same punishment to all, regardless. That is, lock out the awkward, the naive, the outspoken, along with murderers, violent attackers, and robbers.

It’s clear that the fear we felt last year was not unfounded. What’s more, it grew deeper as soon as we saw the new president stand on the flawed tracks and actively help the construction work to lay them further. He speaks of nothing but “safety”, “diversity” and “inclusion.” Not that we are against supporting those efforts (except for the first one we should find more precise terminology, perhaps “friendly environment”), but we haven’t heard him say a thing about software freedom so far. As it seems, his sole mission and goal is to “protect” (who?) from very dangerous creatures (who?).

As a result, we are finding it extremely difficult to follow your advice and keep supporting the FSF. We, those who support GNU, the movement as you founded it, do not feel represented by the Free Software Foundation as it stands. Many of us may not be able to keep our promise unless we see the FSF go back on track. We’d rather not ride a derailed train.

ps: you can reach us at derailed [at] riseup [dot] net

Released in the public domain.

Tags: Date-2020-11-26, FSF, GNU, FreeSoftware

This page may have a talk page ?.