The FSF and the GNU Project are restructuring and ask to ignore Richard Stallman

Recently, the FSF and the GNU project, both released by Richard M. Stallman, have made separate statements to clarify their respective positions, that on the one hand his is about his collaboration in the FSF.

This is because last month Richard Matthew Stallman (rms), father of the GNU project and initiator of the free software movement, decided to leave CSAIL, MIT's computer and artificial intelligence laboratory, following his comments on the Jeffrey Epstein affair. The same day, also resigned from his position as President of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and on the organization's board of directors.

His decision to leave MIT CSAIL would be related to the youth abuse scandal which is currently shaking up MIT. Stallman resigned from MIT after an email exchange about Jeffrey Epstein, Marvin Minsky and the sexual assault of minors.

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.

In its statement, the Free Software Foundation, an American non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the freedom of computer users, said:

“The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project have been launched by Richard Mr. Stallman (RMS) and he has been at the helm of both until recently. For this reason, the relationship between FSF and GNU has been harmonious.

As part of our commitment to support the development and distribution of totally free operating systems, the FSF provides GNU with services such as fiscal sponsorship, technical infrastructure, promotion, copyright assignment, and volunteer management.

Much of GNU decision making has been in the hands of the GNU administration. Since RMS resigned as president of the FSF, but not as head of GNU ("Chief GNUisance"), la FSF is now working with the GNU leadership in a common understanding of the relationship for the future. In this context, we invite members of the free software community to send us their comments. »

For its part, the GNU project, a collaborative project focused on free software, has released a statement signed by 22 members that explains:

“We, the undersigned managers and developers of GNU, owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Stallman for his decades-long work in the free software movement. Stallman tirelessly stressed the importance of freedom for computer users and laid the foundation for his vision to come true as he began development of the GNU operating system. For that, we are truly grateful.

However, we must also recognize that Stallman's behavior over the years has undermined a core value of the GNU project: empowering all computer users. GNU does not fulfill its mission when the behavior of its leader alienates many of those we want to achieve.

We believe that Richard Stallman cannot represent any GNU. We believe that now is the time for GNU leaders to collectively decide on the organization of the project. The GNU project that we want to build is a project that everyone can trust to defend their freedom. «

Given this, the signatories, among which are developers and maintainers of projectors such as GNU Guix, GNU Guile, GNU GWL, GNU Social GNU Hurd, GNU libc, GNU Octave, GnuPG among others, make their position known and declare that Richard Stallman cannot fully represent the “GNU” project.

With which even though it is not within the message "explicitly" they practically express their position to remove Richard Stallman from the leadership of the GNU project.

Source: https://www.fsf.org https://guix.gnu.org