On Sun, 2021-04-11 at 14:07 +0100, Frosku wrote: > On Sun Apr 11, 2021 at 11:08 AM BST, Didier Kryn wrote: > > Le 08/04/2021 à 17:00, David Brown a écrit : > > > At some point, someone in the public relations > > > department at IBM, Google, Facebook, ARM, or other big supporters > > > of the > > > project will get the impression that the FSF and GNU are lead by > > > a > > > misogynist who thinks child abuse is fine if the child consents, > > > and > > > will cut off all support from the top down. The other companies > > > will > > > immediately follow. > > > > Here we are. The liberty of expressing opinions is too much of a > > liberty. This is ironical to read in a mailing list dedicated in > > some to > > a free software project. > > He's actually recanted his views about 'consensual pedophilia', which > is > testament to the benefits of open dialogue.
Wow. Just... wow. I've been trying to ignore this thread for the sake of my mental health - it's been going on for 2 weeks now - but I feel I have to speak up about how wrong-headed the above seems to me. I don't want to be in an environment where, it turns out, the leader of the non-profit that owns copyright on the bulk of the last 8 years of my work, and controls the license on the bulk of my work for the last 20 years, has to be patiently coached in why pedophilia is bad. Most reasonable people would run a mile from such an environment. Think of what the FSF could have achieved if RMS hadn't driven away all but the most patient and dedicated people, and the effort exhausted by those that remain on enabling [1] him to continue in his "leadership" role. At one time, RMS was a hero and inspiration to me; I remember cutting out newspaper articles about him when I was in school, and I own a copy of his book, which he signed for me. However, that book has been in my attic for a while now, gathering dust, which seems symbolic to me. I hope that the FSF can be saved; it would be deeply damaging to software freedom for it to finish imploding. It would also be very inconvenient for those of us trying to improve GCC. For those with ears to listen, Luis Villa posted this excellent article, with plenty of ideas on how to save the FSF: https://lu.is/blog/2021/04/07/values-centered-npos-with-kmaher/ which I'll quote part of here: "Many in the GNU and FSF communities seem to worry that moving past RMS somehow means abandoning software freedom, which should not be the case. If anything, this should be an opportunity to re-commit to software freedom - in a way that is relevant and actionable given the state of the software industry in 2021." In the meantime, I don't know what GCC should do, but I feel like I need to go for a walk in the woods to clear my head, away from a keyboard, rather than spending any more of my weekend stressing about the project. I hope this is constructive. These are my opinions, and not necessarily those of my employer - though Red Hat has stated that it is "appalled" at RMS's return to the FSF board [2], and part of my job is to care about the future of GCC. Dave [1] see e.g. https://www.healthline.com/health/enabler [2] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richard-stallmans-return-free-software-foundation-board
