Few days ago Richard Stallman made known his position to resign his position from the ACT Foundation and the board of directors of this organization with which the foundation has begun the process of finding a new president.
The decision was made in response to criticism of Stallman's comments., singled out as unworthy of the leader of the STR movement, This came from a series of careless comments on the MIT CSAIL mailing list, In the process of discussing MIT employee involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein case, several communities asked Stallman to stop managing the SPO Fund and expressed their intention to sever their relationship with the fund.
Stallman is accused of blaming underage victims after he spoke in defense of Marvin Minsky, mentioned by one of the victims who was ordered to have sex.
Stallman entered into a debate on the definition of the concepts of "sexual violence" and if they apply to Minsky. He also suggested that the victims voluntarily engage in prostitution.
On a note, Stallman also mentioned that raping someone who is not yet 18 years old is no less disgusting than someone who is already 18 years old. (In the initial discussion, Stallman pointed out the absurdity that the degree of guilt in rape depends on the country and the inconsequential age differences.)
Later, after a resonance in the press, Stallman also wrote that in his earlier statements he was wrong and that sexual contacts between adults and minors, even with the consent of the minor, are unacceptable.
He also explained that it was misunderstood and did not defend Epstein, but referred to him as
a "serial rapist" who deserved to be sent to prison. Stallman only questioned the severity of the guilt of Marvin Minsky, who may not have known about the coercion of the victims. But the explanation did not help and the statement became a kind of point of no return.
Neil McGovern executive director of the Gnome Foundation, sent a letter to the Free Software Foundation asking it to end its FSF membership.
According to Neal, "one of the strategic objectives of the Gnome Foundation is to be an exemplary community with respect to the diversity and integration of the different members of society", which is incompatible with maintaining the association with the FSF and the GNU project under the current leader of the FSF.
Neal argues that in this situation, the best stallman can do for the world of Free Software it is to get away from the administration of FSF and GNU and let others continue. If this doesn't happen soon, breaking the historical relationship between GNOME and GNU may be the only way out.
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) issued a similar appeal, which said that given Stallman's previous reprehensible comments, his remarks form behavior outside the goals of the free software movement.
According to the SFC, the fight for software freedom is inextricably linked to the fight for diversity, equality and inclusion, so the SFC no longer has the moral right to directly or indirectly support someone who justifies threats against vulnerable people by rationalizing the aggressor's behavior.
SFC believes that commitments on this issue are unacceptable and Stallman's departure from the position of leader of the STR movement is the best solution.
Matthew garrett, a well-known Linux kernel developer and one of the directors of the Free Software Foundation, who at one point received an award from the Open Source Foundation for his contribution to the development of free software, He raised on his blog, the issue of decentralization of the community of open source software developers.
Free software is not limited to purely technical tasks and also refers to political issues focused on user freedom.
When a community is built around a leader, his behavior and beliefs directly affect the achievement of the political objectives by the project.
In Stallman's case, his activity only scares allies and it is not appropriate for him to remain the face of the community.
Instead of concentrating around one leader, he aims to create an environment in which any participant can convey information about the importance of free software to the masses, without trying to meet ever more perfect heroes.