October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
Completely disagree. No matter what he might have expertise in, he has entirely invalidated his voice by taking the stances he’s taken and the acts he committed. Even listening to his hard technical knowledge gives him validity.
This all comes back to the same abhorrent shit that has permeated the tech industry, and FLOSS particularly, that we should never consider soft skills or anything else about a person, that they can be the most vile, toxic person possible, but as long as they’re a good developer, It’s Fine. But it’s not fine. It’s never been fine, and we should not normalize continuing to have people like this in our midst just because they’re a good dev, or that they once made some good technical points.