Hi Richard, On Mon, 2021-03-29 at 08:18 -0400, Richard Kenner via Gcc wrote: > I mostly want to stay out of this and will leave much of this discussion to > others (though I have met RMS personally on a number of occaisions), but I > want to mostly say that I agree with Jeff that it's important that this > discussion stay civil. > > I believe that to a large extent, the discussion here is reflective of a > much larger discussion in society of to what extent, if at all, an entity > associated with an person must or should take action based on things that > that person does while not associated with that entity.
I respect that you want stay out of the discussion, but I think that to present this as some larger societal issue which is somewhat academic is wrong. People are talking about behavior that affects our community. Even if it is "just" in some other community or speech addressed to others it sents a message to those others to avoid the Free Software community, GNU and GCC because it tolerates unkind behavior and harassment. And it does happen in our own community. There have been various examples given in this thread alone. And I hate to point to others, because I know these people, who worked closely with RMS, will get harassed to "proof" their allegations or will be told that since they were not physically attacked it doesn't count as harassment. It is also at Free Software conferences (organized by the FSF): https://wwahammy.com/on-safety-at-libreplanet/ We write to you as former speakers and keynoters at LibrePlanet. We are concerned that the Code of Conduct for the event is not applied evenly, and in particular that Officers and Board Members seem to be exempt. This creates an intimidating and hostile environment for attendees, speakers and potential future participants who hear that unchecked harassment is allowed at the event. It is also in the GNU project and at the FSF: https://nitter.cc/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 I worked at the FSF for 3 years and volunteered for over 6 years - that ended in 2004. I witnessed misogyny, sexual objectification, and abuse carried out by RMS. I banded together with my coworkers, formed a union, negotiated a contract, and was elected shop steward. https://nitter.cc/georgialyle/status/1374504389155508232 I worked at the FSF from 2015-2018 & was shop steward for a while. I recall having a months (MONTHS) long conversation with ED John Sullivan about why racist & sexist 'hacker humor' from the 90s needed to be removed from gnu.org. rms didn't get why it was harmful. https://nitter.cc/baconandcoconut/status/1374803434344488967 Checking in as another former staff person (2006 - 2010) who started the Women in Free Software Caucus and maintained a GNU project for over a decade. I tried "calling in" or educating for years, but the community RMS inspires is sexist, completely toxic and impervious to change. This is not just incidents, it is a pattern where RMS is not facing any consequences because he feels our common rules of decency and respecting each other don't apply to him. What is even worse is that when people try to discuss such issues he encourages his cult of personality to attack those who try to tell their stories (as we are already seeing on this list by comments from people not even associated with GNU or GCC). I earlier talked about when we had an open discussion about GNU governance issues and a female GCC hacker spoke up. Once he had arranged "new moderators" for the mailing-list his exact words were: The new moderators have now allowed people to defend the GNU Project and to defend me personally. If you would like to do these things, please do not hold back. The resulting torrent of misogynistic and racist posts were truly shocking. He turns a community into a toxic and hostile place when people question his authority by implying such people must be the enemy of Free Software or GNU and that they must be stopped. Cheers, Mark
