[londons_explore]

Operations like the FSF have a single goal - to promote Free Software.

If they can also promote equality at the same time, then great.

But the goal of promoting equality and free software are not equal - free software is the primary goal.

If the organisation is acting illegally, then it's a matter for the police. But if the organisation is focussing on it's primary goal rather than a 2ndary goal you think is more important, it's probably a sign it's time to quit and start your own organisation with different goals...

[mabbo]

That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard.

If my organizations goal is feeding the homeless, am I free to only hire white people because racism is not my organization's primary goal?

You can achieve your organisation's primary goal without being horrible human beings. That's allowed. In fact, it's basic human decency.

[wheybags]

No, because discrimination in hiring on the basis of race is illegal. It does mean the org should probably not focus its efforts on running a big public pr campaign about hiring ethnic minorities though.

That's all in the general case though, unfortunately it does sound like there was some bad practice in the fsfe specifically this time. There are two sides to every story though. I'd want to hear both before making judgement.

[mabbo]

Some folks think that morality and law are the same thing. That the very meaning of "ethics" is "things not on the list of illegal things". And if the law was not involved here or did not force anything to happen, then clearly everything was ethical.

We call those people sociopaths.

[mr_woozy]

your ethics don't agree with my ethics therefore you're a sociopath, got it.......totally concrete rational argument there.

[notimetorelax]

I believe donors have certain baseline expectations towards the organizations those days. Showing up at employee’s home after being told by her lawyer not to, is such a HUGE no-no, it borders on abuse.

[Communitivity]

I cannot disagree strongly enough.

We have lost sight of the idea that all organizations should use long term thinking and have the following priorities, in this order:

* Do nothing that harms our employees, customers, or our investors

* Accomplish our mission, whatever mission that is

* Create revenue for investors

If the OP's account is true (I have no reason to discount it) then the FSFE violated rule #1. I'd argue that the FSF mission is to promote free software and a healthy ecosystem of Open Source software and developers. If you accept that as the FSF mission, and the account is true, then they also violated rule #2.

We should not rely on the laws to prompt us to act for social good. The laws are there to isolate and protect us from those who do not act morally in the eyes of the state.

[Normal_gaussian]

The major concern here is not the equality or freedom to share salary, but the conduct of Matthias Kirschne. The concern is that he conducted a campaign of intimidation, disinformation, and outright lies. Such behavioural traits are not limited in scope to inequality cases. These would be Matthias Kirschne's tactics for life revealed to the world.

This perception of appropriate conduct, revealed in this case, will significantly hamstring the FSFE in achieving its primary goal. This conduct introduces significant out of band risk to the proceedings of the FSFE. This conduct introduces significant risk to those associating with the FSFE.

We do need a link to the relevant court documents before dusting off the pitchforks.

[DanBC]

> If the organisation is acting illegally, then it's a matter for the police.

You need to learn the difference between öffentliches Recht and privatrecht.

[detaro]

Having a different primary goal than "act ethically" does not excuse unethical and illegal behavior.