[crispyambulance]

They plainly state their irrational opinion that the resignation was the result of a smear campaign by anti-open-source entities and even list them.

That's just hysterical garbage. RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole and failing to curb his autistic tendencies. As a major thought leader, he ought to know better.

[alpaca128]

> RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole

So what? Steve Jobs was celebrated while he shat on people left and right and even denied his own daughter's claims that he's her father for years. Elon Musk publicly called someone else a pedophile and hired specialists(which turned out to be scammers) to dig up dirt against that person. Linus Torvalds is known for being rather unfriendly to a lot of people, yet I haven't seen an open letter against him after he said "Nvidia, fuck you" in front of the camera.

The world is full of assholes. If I have to choose I'll take the one who actually stood for something and gets his claims confirmed more every year rather than another corporate dude whose main skill is hiding that he's the same kind of asshole, just in a more backstabby kind of way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think RMS is a good choice in any leadership position. However I don't understand the magnitude of the current outrage and don't think it's fully rational. Furthermore, I think without his uncompromising attitude towards Free Software the FSF would not be what it is now.

[pas]

Linus faced the fallout of his communication style recently.

Musk is far from universally admired, many-many people think he is a piece of shit for how he handles his employees, how he overworked the Tesla factory staff to meet idiotic production quotas, how he throw a hissy fit when CA mandated closing non-essential workplaces (so Tesla factories) due to COVID, etc., etc.

RMS consistently pushed himself on vulnerable women on campus.

Are these comparable? Sure, on some level.

Is the FSF better off without him? Well, who knows, but many people seem to think that the answer is a clear yes.

[crispyambulance]

> ...don't understand the magnitude of the current outrage and don't think it's fully rational.

That's a perfectly reasonable position. However, it also implies that you would not conclude it's a plot against free software like that zany OP article does.

Torvalds never got in trouble for the NVIDIA outrage because that was just rage against a particular corporate entity. No one got hurt or personally offended by that. He DID get in trouble for being awful and abusive to contributors in the linux community-- that WAS personal and he paid a price for it after getting away with it for a long time.

RMS also has a LONG history of being a vile personality and it finally caught up with him. Again, he should have known better. His role was as a spokesperson, get GETS PAID for that as a living. There really is no excuse.

I don't know about Musk or Jobs. They had other roles besides being a spokesperson. Perhaps they got their comeuppance coming eventually (or posthumously).

[yesenadam]

> RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole

This seems the actual main issue that got the anti-RMS petition going. (Even the article most in favour of him that I saw, called him by far the most disagreeable person they'd ever met!)

I don't seem to remember this was mentioned in the anti-RMS petition though. Rather, it consisted of a string of claims, which, when you looked into them, were untrue. Flinging mud instead of dealing with the actual problem. That seems unfortunate. As if because they liked the end, the means didn't matter–as if behaving ethically doesn't matter. Well, maybe the people who signed didn't look into those claims, just believed them in good faith. That faith seems unwarranted.

[d_tr]

I do not see the phrase "abrassive asshole" or something similar in the open letter though. I see "misogynist", "transphobe", "ableist". He is clearly not any of these things, so the open letter is indeed a hastily put together piece of garbage. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[iocert]

This isn't true. Many signatories of the anti-Stallman letter are known, smooth careerists who have been climbing the OSS corporate ladder for the last decade.

The don't care about the actual issues at all, otherwise they'd sign anti-Clinton and anti-Gates letters.

Which they won't, because their careers would suffer.