| I personally find the open letter a bit short on these sorts of details. I think better sources are these: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html (October 2019, by a former FSF board member and 2021 recipient of the FSF's Award for the Advancement of Free Software): > For the last two years, I had been a loud internal voice in the FSF leadership regarding RMS' Free-Software-unrelated public statements; I felt strongly that it was in the best interest of the FSF to actively seek to limit such statements, and that it was my duty to FSF to speak out about this within the organization. [...] When the escalation started, I still considered RMS both a friend and colleague, and I attempted to argue with him at length to convince him that some of his positions were harmful to sexual assault survivors and those who are sex-trafficked, and to the people who devote their lives in service to such individuals. More importantly to the FSF, I attempted to persuade RMS that launching a controversial campaign on sexual behavior and morality was counter to his and FSF's mission to advance software freedom, and told RMS that my duty as an FSF Director was to assure the best outcome for the FSF, which IMO didn't include having a leader who made such statements. https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html (September 2019, by a former FSF board member and 2014 recipient of the FSF's Award for the Advancement of Free Software): > I've spent a lot of time working with him to help him understand why various positions he holds are harmful. I've reached the conclusion that it's not that he's unable to understand, he's just unwilling to change his mind. They aren't going to change the letter or its appendix at this point, given that people have signed, but if I had the magic power to change it, I would suggest those two as citations that he was repeatedly asked to consider the impact of his actions and repeatedly refused. If he did stop - if he did express the interest in figuring out why he's alienating people and why his statements were not only hurting the cause of free software directly but wasting the time of FSF board members who could be contributing to free software instead - then yes, the letter would have been unnecessary, because the problem would have been resolved. |
Read: I felt it was in the Foundation's best interest's to deprive Richard Stallman of his inalienable right to free speech. I also felt it was my duty to try to get the organization to agree with me on the virtue of censoring Richard Stallman.
>I've spent a lot of time working with him to help him understand why various positions he holds are harmful. I've reached the conclusion that it's not that he's unable to understand, he's just unwilling to change his mind.
Read: I've argued my case, but the case I made was not sufficient for Richard Stallman to decide to change his viewpoint on the matter.
Note all of these are written in such a way to put the most uncharitable spin on Richard, and the most charitable spin on the writer.
Russell's conjugation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation
Critical thinking is important.