Sarah MeiVerified account

Oliva, who is the acting board President according to their bylaws, has expressed no sympathy for Stallman’s hundreds of harassment victims. He has expressed no sympathy for the adult survivors of child sexual assault who had to listen to Stallman defend that crime for decades.

Yet Oliva has found the time - twice! - to express deep sympathy for the man who harassed those women. The man who spent decades defending child sexual assault. The man who compared developmentally disabled people to pets.

The @fsf board members, of course, can choose for themselves whether to stay. But the organization they built, & that they run, enabled an abuser to harass & belittle & push innumerable people out of the free software movement.

Make no mistake: the @fsf was _purpose built_ to enable Stallman - both in his activism, and in his harassment.

Without drastic structural change, it is inevitable that the same story will play out again. Activism and harassment need not be so conjoined. A new board, along with internal restructuring, could separate them. Just getting a new president, though, will not be enough.

Right now the @fsf looks like they’re trying to pretend this didn’t happen. Even if that’s not true, it represents a profound misreading of what the situation calls for.

I call on the @fsf board to resign. If they truly care about the cause of free software, more than they care about their personal empire-building, they’ll do it.

However, if they fail to make structural change in the organization, they’ll continue their descent into obscure irrelevance. As an industry, we no longer have time or patience for shitty institutions. Our standards have gone up. And right now, @fsf is well below the bar.