An anonymous reader writes: Debian Project Secretary Kurt Roeckx has announced the results of a closely-watched vote on what statement would be made about Richard Stallman's readmission to the Free Software Foundation's board. Seven options were considered, with the Debian project's 420 voting d...
His words are that he’s neurodivergent, autistic’s just my guess. Also, see https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html (this may be an odd thing to write an article about, but I don’t see it rejecting the identities of other people).
He’s also not the president, nor the leader of the FSF, just an advisor. It’s interesting that these new facts are never taken into account when discussing his role. That is why I believe this is all unwarranted, if he shouldn’t be the president, or the ‘leader’ of the FSF, ok, he literally isn’t.
But now that’s not enough. This is where I am questioning people’s motivations more with regards to an attempt of blurring the line between free software, and open-source, regardless of what RMS does, regardless of what backseat position he takes, or whether he apologizes and explains himself (which he did).
Neurodivergent is a broad category. And it ain’t a free pass for being an asshole, but anyway.
He’s a major de-facto leader, the actual position does, in fact, not matter as it’s the role he is perceived to be in. And yes, this perception matters because it is this that forms other peoples opinion on the FSF.
I agree that the line b/w Open Source and Free Software is already too blurry. Ironically though, the people who invented Open Source, like ESR, are supporters of RMS in the letter.
I think the best thing FSF/RMS could do, would be to properly address the – well known – problems, and half-hearted apologies don’t fit the bill here. This would protect Free Software from malicious free riders on this letter (and there always will be some).