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

Shawn Starr shawn.starr at rogers.com
Thu Mar 25 18:37:10 UTC 2021 


On 3/25/21 2:19 PM, Shawn Starr wrote:
> 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.
> 

Make that I will always NOT condone that behavior, it's not acceptable.

I think though I made my point I don't accept that behavior.

Thanks,
Shawn

> 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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>>
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