X.org calls for the removal of the of the entire FSF BoD

Thu Mar 25 18:19:24 UTC 2021

On 3/25/21 2:05 PM, Lyude Paul wrote:
> Hi - I'm not going to dive too far into this discussion for obvious reasons, but
> reading through these replies I've noticed it doesn't feel like some people
> actually understand the entirety of -why- there is such a large outcry about
> this. Describing this as shunning someone 'because of their opinions' is really
> disingenuous because while his opinions are extraordinarily creepy and
> inappropriate, that's really just the tip of the iceberg here. It gets so, so
> much worse then some weird post on the internet.
> 
>                 Warning!!! There's some REALLY gross stuff here.
> 
> He's also harassed women at MIT on multiple occasions and used to keep a
> mattress in his office which people would occasionally lounge on shirtless:
> 
> https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
> 
> There's the way he's behaved with his assistants:
> 
> https://twitter.com/DethVeggie/status/1286748219502985216
> 
> How the FSF literally had to unionize because of RMS's behavior at the
> workplace:
> 
> https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986?s=19
> 
> That one time he kept staring at one dude's wife's chest:
> 
> https://twitter.com/AlSweigart/status/1374538395372912643?s=19
> 
> That one time he licked a woman's arm when they shook his hand:
> 
> https://twitter.com/grok_/status/1375049417926053894
> 
> And I bet if you spent more time looking, you'd find even more then this. Also,
> this doesn't even include the stories that _I've_ heard directly from people who
> have worked with him in the past or attended conferences he was at. I've
> literally had people tell me he will verbally scream at people in conferences. I
> can't change your mind if you're still against condemning him, but know _this_
> is the kind of behavior people are trying to say is not a big deal.

Well, physically abusing or attacking someone, if these are all true 
allegations isn't something we need, no. I will always condone that 
behavior, it's not acceptable.

Just having opinions/views those themselves don't hurt someone, if they 
don't use them against someone.

It makes me think he shouldn't be part of FSF anymore.

> On Wed, 2021-03-24 at 23:49 -0400, Shawn Starr wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 3/24/21 10:32 PM, Peter Hutterer wrote:
>>> On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 09:29:34PM -0400, Shawn Starr wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 3/24/21 8:47 PM, Peter Hutterer wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 12:02:05AM +0000, Sérgio Basto wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 2021-03-24 at 20:49 +0100, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>>>>>>> "... and defend a free and open accelerated graphics stack."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Defense is generally something that's done towards the outside of our
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> own community, for example by clearly distancing us from the actions
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> of the oldest free software foundation there is when they end up
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> dragging the entire free software world into a rather bad light
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> through that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am strongly against this open letter, I think you have completely
>>>>>> missed the point of the values that the X.org and freedesktop.org
>>>>>> communities are based on.
>>>>>
>>>>> Out of interest: what are those values?
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>       Peter
>>>>> _______
>>>>
>>>> It's become apparent after seeing the original poster of this thread's
>>>> twitter account. That I would like X.org to refrain from politics and focus
>>>> on code, just code. Not venture into what people decide is acceptable views
>>>> and behaviors.
>>>
>>> one of the things about the X.Org Board is that the board **does not define
>>> the technical direction**. Sure, the members of the board are primarily
>>> developers, but the board itself does not tell anyone what they need to
>>> implement. The board cannot focus on code because...it doesn't write code.
>>>
>>> The board's main contribution over the last years has been (payrolling) the
>>> annual conference, GSoC and EVoC. One goal of those conferences is to expand
>>> the developer community, something that has been reasonably successful if
>>> you look at the XDC participation alone. The first XDCs I went to had around
>>> ~30 participants, I remember the excitement when we first hit 100+ on a
>>> regular basis.
>>>
>> It has and that is amazing for us.
>>
>>> Following from that, it is well within the board's responsibility to make
>>> sure the venues provided are welcoming and safe for anyone wanting to
>>> attend - because that's the only way to grow or at least maintain the
>>> community. Whether an environment is welcoming and safe is primarily
>>> determined by public statements public statements about behaviours that are
>>> acceptable and behaviours that arent (and the enforcement of those). The CoC
>>> is part of that.
>>>
>>> Where it (in)directly affects the members such as with RMS who is still a
>>> figurehead in FOSS and whose behaviour is used as proxy for others in the
>>> FOSS community. That his behaviour is representative of ours sucks,
>>> personally I didn't ask for that, but it's a fact of life.
>>>
>>
>> Open Source has always had toxic behaviors, if you recall flamewar
>> mailing lists, at least us older to remember.
>>
>> I'm not saying it was helpful. But nobody represents Open Source to me.
>> Not RMS, not the FSF, not the GPL license even.
>>
>>> So the board says "We reject having him as public leader of a community that
>>> we are part of, this is not who we are". That indicates that those that
>>> have an issue with his behaviour will not have to deal with this in our
>>> community. That, given the implied job of growing the community, is
>>> literally what the board is for.
>>>
>>>> It is unacceptable for X.org to go after people that is not what Open Source
>>>> is. We are not some political movement.
>>>
>>> uhm, FOSS itself is a political movement.
>>>
>>
>> The FSF and organizations have been the more political side. It is about
>> writing software that breaks us from proprietary software. Allowing us
>> to tinker, control our own machines. Maybe that is political, but I
>> still don't view it as, certainly not left/right considering my own
>> political views they don't fit into any left/right with Open Source and
>> never will.
>>
>> You can be a person of the left and write Free Software, or a person
>> from the right.
>>
>> I do not distinguish political views when it comes to FLOSS and the
>> community nor should I.
>>
>> I view people based on their code, that is the only thing that should be
>> criticized.
>>
>>
>>>> My values are to spreading X/Wayland to more people to use, contribute. How
>>>> they do so and what their political views, beliefs are none of my business
>>>> and is NOT the business of Open Source.
>>>    
>>> There's more nuance to that. In general, no-one cares about your interests
>>> because usually they do not affect the community, e.g. I doubt anyone has
>>> quit a FOSS community over someone's crocheting habits. But if someone's
>>> habits start scaring people away it *does* affect the community and the
>>> stewards of that community will have to make a decision on what is
>>> acceptable and what isn't.
>>
>> Someone's habits however is not 'the communities' business if the person
>> doesn't attack others with those habits or views.
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>      Peter >
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Shawn
>>
>>>> We are to encourage people to participate, being polite, not bashing their
>>>> views however correct or incorrect they are.
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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> 