[dls2016]

Once you kill all your heroes, it's pretty clear that a person (1) can do great things, (2) have completed those things in an environment of exclusion (not to mention Epstein) and (3) might no longer be the best person to lead.

[bitwize]

To me RMS doesn't lead the Free Software movement, and hasn't for quite some time -- just a traditionalist wing of the movement. I don't have to agree with him, worship him, or not think he's a weird and unpleasant person to respect the good he did -- and does -- for free software. But there are a lot of diverse views and perspectives within open source and even free software, and RMS is no longer the barycenter of the movement the way he was in the 80s and early 90s.

But the truth is, we need RMS or someone like him around, warts and all, otherwise the Overton window for open source will get dragged further and further toward corporate interests. There's a LOT of money behind this, and you cannot look into the backgrounds and views of the loudest voices calling for RMS's cancellation and NOT conclude that there is strong corporate influence to get rid of him.

[prussian]

>(3) might no longer be the best person to lead.

this is the part I think people are having trouble with for some reason. I respect RMS for what he did, but it's clear he's probably not the right person to lead the movement anymore. It's hard to excuse some of his strange and creepy behavior, but after meeting him, twice on the same day, it isn't entirely unsurprising; perhaps it's unfair for me to say, but I'm pretty certain he has some form of neuro-divergence.