Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
Update in 2023: Careful readers will note that at the
time I made this original post (which remains in full below), I did not
disclose the precise circumstances of how I came to no longer be a Voting
Member and an at-large Director of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in
October 2019. Because I was vague about the details, some pundits
incorrectly reported that I resigned. I did not resign; instead,
I was narrowly (by exactly one vote) voted out (of all my FSF roles)
by FSF’s
Voting Members.
I was voted out for various reasons. The most relevant reason was a
fundamental disagreement about the criteria and requirements
for RMS‘ return to the
FSF
Board of Directors. In particular, during September-October 2019, I was
insisting that one qualification for reinstatement was a complete,
unqualified apology
for RMS’
September 2019 statements that (a) “she [Virginia Giuffre] presented
herself to him [Marvin Minksy] as entirely willing”, and (b)
Giuffre (who was sex-trafficed by Jeffrey Epstein) committed “an
injustice” by
accusing Minksy of sexual assault in her deposition. To my knowledge,
RMS has still not apologized for those statements, nor for his many
similarly harmful statements about sexual assault. In fact, the press
called RMS’ April 2021 follow-up statement on these matters
a
non-apology apology. In that April 2021 statement,
RMS actually
repeats that any accusation of sexual assault against Minksy remains an
“injustice”. (Minsky, BTW, had died of a cerebral
hemorrhage at age 88 — which was four months before Giuffre made the
accusation in her sealed deposition, and more than three years before
that
deposition was made public.)
Furthermore, RMS‘
subsequent re-election to FSF’s Board of Directors was already under
discussion by the Voting Members in October 2019. That thin majority of
the Voting Members knew that I would (and I do) find RMS’
“non-apology apology” inadequate to resolve the situation
sufficiently to yield my “yes” vote to reinstate RMS to FSF’s
Board of Directors. In short, I wanted more accountability and actions as
a condition for RMS’ return to FSF’s Board of Directors than that thin
majority of FSF’s Voting Members knew they would ultimately require. So,
they voted me out preemptively. As I said, there are other reasons, and
plenty of political intrigue. Nevertheless, this summary is, IMO,
accurate. (BTW, I’d also be glad to do a public, recorded Q&A with the
FSF Voting Members time if they were willing — I do realize I’m
telling just one side of a multi-sided story here. I would prefer improved
transparency on these issues. In fact, another disagreement that I
contemporaneously had in late 2019 with that same thin majority was that I
was demanding better transparency regarding the FSF governance politics,
and the Voting Members and Directors refused.)
One additional thing that the press got wrong in covering this issue from
September 2019 to April 2021 was that (to my knowledge) it was never
reported that RMS never resigned as an FSF Voting Member. IOW,
nearly everyone missed the fact that during the period (from September 2019
to March 2021) when RMS was not an FSF Director, RMS did remain an
FSF Voting Member. And, since I’m sure folks will ask: yes, RMS’ vote was
indeed one of the votes in that thin majority that removed me from all my
roles at the FSF in October 2019.
Finally, I want to note that, over the years I’ve been trying to
understand these events, new information that came to light later was very
helpful.
The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) report about MIT’s long relationship with
Jeffrey Epstein (published in 2020) explained a lot. Until reading
that report, I had not realized
that Epstein
had an incredibly close relationship with the faculty of MIT’s Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the Media Lab. For
example, I personally was aghast to learn that
(a) Marvin
Minsky visited Epstein when Epstein was incarcerated in Florida for child
prostitution in 2008, (b) Epstein was considered by many MIT faculty to
be a “friend” (and Minksy specifically was considered Epstein’s
“closest friend”), and (c) Epstein’s 2008 conviction seems to
have been common knowledge at MIT — including among CSAIL and MIT
Media Lab faculty and fundraisers.
Indeed, looking at the dates in the MIT Epstein report, I realized that I
was on the MIT campus for various FSF meetings contemporaneous with some of
the events in that report. I’m disgusted just at the idea that from
2001-2019, I occasionally used MIT CSAIL facilities for my FSF volunteer
and staff work while MIT was gladly accepting Epstein’s money and CSAIL
faculty were promoting and endorsing him.
Original 2019-10-15 post follows:
The last 33 days have been unprecedentedly difficult for the software
freedom community and for me personally. Folks have been emailing, phoning, texting, tagging me
on social media (— the last of which has been funny, because all my
social media accounts are placeholder accounts). But, just about
everyone has urged me to comment on the serious issues that the software freedom
community now faces. Until now, I have stayed silent regarding all
these current topics: from Richard M. Stallman (RMS)’s public statements, to his
resignation from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), to the Epstein scandal
and its connection to MIT. I’ve also avoided generally commenting on software freedom organizational governance during this period. I did this for good
reason, which is explained below. However, in this blog post, I now share
my primary comments on the matters that seem to currently be of the utmost
attention of the Open Source and Free Software communities.
I have been silent the last month because, until two days ago, I was an
at-large member
of FSF’s Board of
Directors, and a Voting Member of the FSF. As a member of FSF’s two
leadership bodies, I was abiding by a reasonable request from the FSF
management and my duty to the organization. Specifically, the FSF asked
that all communication during the
crisis come directly
from FSF officers and not from at-large directors and/or Voting Members.
Furthermore, the FSF management asked all Directors and Voting Members to
remain silent on this entire matter — even on issues only
tangentially related to the current situation, and even when speaking in
our own capacity (e.g., on our own blogs like this one). The FSF is an
important organization, and I take any request from the FSF seriously
— so I abided fully with their request — even though many of
the other at-large Directors of the FSF did not.
The situation was further complicated because folks at my employer, Software
Freedom Conservancy (where I also serve on the Board of Directors) had
strong opinions about this matter as well. Fortunately, the FSF and
Conservancy both had already created clear protocols for what I should do
if ever there was a disagreement or divergence of views between Conservancy
and FSF. I therefore was recused fully from the planning, drafting, and
timing of Conservancy’s statement on this matter. I thank
my colleagues at the Conservancy for working so carefully to keep me entirely outside the loop on their statement and
to diligently assure that it was straight-forward for me to manage any
potential organizational disagreements. I also thank those at the FSF who
outlined clear protocols (ahead of time, back in March 2019) in case a
situation like this ever came up. I also know my colleagues at Conservancy
care deeply, as I do, about the health and welfare of the FSF and its
mission of fighting for universal software freedom for all. None of us
want, nor have, any substantive disagreement over software freedom issues.
I take very seriously my
duty to the various organizations where I have (or have had)
affiliations. More generally, I champion
non-profit organizational transparency. Unfortunately, the current crisis left me in a quandary between the overarching
goal of community transparency and abiding by FSF management’s directives. Now that
I’ve left the FSF Board of Directors, FSF’s Voting Membership, and all my
FSF volunteer roles (which ends my 22-year uninterrupted affiliation
with the FSF), I can now comment on the substantive issues that face
not just the FSF, but the Free Software community as a whole, while continuing to adhere to my past duty of
acting in FSF’s best interest. In other
words, my affiliation with the FSF has come to an end for many good and
useful reasons. The end to this affiliation allows me
to speak directly about the core issues at the heart of the community’s current crisis.
Firstly, all these events — from RMS’ public comments on the MIT
mailing list, to RMS’ resignation from the FSF to RMS’ discussions about the
next steps for the GNU project — seem to many to have happened
ridiculously quickly. But it wasn’t actually fast at all. In fact, these events were culmination of issues
that were slowly growing in concern to many people, including me.
For the last two years, I had been a loud internal voice in the FSF
leadership regarding RMS’ Free-Software-unrelated public statements; I felt
strongly that it was in the best interest of the FSF to actively seek to
limit such statements, and that it was my duty to FSF to speak out about this within the organization. Those who only learned of this story in the last
month (understandably)
believed Selam
G.’s Medium post raised an entirely new issue. In fact, RMS’ views and statements posted on stallman.org about sexual morality escalated for the worse over the last few years. When the escalation
started, I still considered RMS both a friend and colleague, and I
attempted to argue with him at length to convince him that some of his
positions were harmful to sexual assault survivors and those who are sex-trafficked, and to the people who devote their lives in service
to such individuals. More importantly to the FSF, I attempted to persuade
RMS that launching a controversial campaign on sexual behavior and morality
was counter to his and FSF’s mission to advance software freedom, and told
RMS that my duty as an FSF Director was to assure the best outcome for the
FSF, which IMO didn’t include having a leader who made such statements.
Not only is human sexual behavior not a topic on which RMS has adequate academic
expertise, but also his positions appear to ignore significant research and
widely available information on the subject. Many of his comments, while
occasionally politically intriguing, lack empathy for people who
experienced trauma.
IMO, this is not and has never been a Free Speech issue. I do believe freedom of
speech links directly to software freedom: indeed, I see the freedom to
publish software under Free licenses as almost a corollary to the freedom
of speech. However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose
views we fundamentally disagree. Moreover, organizations need not and
should not elevate spokespeople and leaders who speak regularly on
unrelated issues that organizations find do not
advance their mission, and/or that alienate important constituents. I, like many other software freedom leaders, curtail my public comments on issues not related to
FOSS. (Indeed, I would
not even be commenting on this issue if it had not become a
central issue of concern to the software freedom community.) Leaders have power, and they must exercise the power of their
words with restraint, not with impunity.
RMS has consistently argued that there was a campaign of “prudish
intimidation” — seeking to keep him quiet about his views on
sexuality. After years of conversing with RMS about how his
non-software-freedom views were a distraction, an indulgence, and downright
problematic, his general response was to make even more public
comments of this nature. The issue is not about RMS’
right to say what he believes, nor is it even about whether or not you
agree or disagree with RMS’ statements. The question is whether an
organization should have a designated leader who is on a sustained, public
campaign advocating about an unrelated issue that many consider
controversial. It really doesn’t matter what your view about the
controversial issue is; a leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about
unrelated issues eventually creates an untenable distraction from the
radical activism you’re actively trying to advance. The message of
universal software freedom is a radical cause; it’s basically
impossible for one individual to effectively push forward two unrelated
controversial agendas at once. In short, the radical message of software
freedom became overshadowed by RMS’ radical views about sexual
morality.
And here is where I say the thing that may infuriate many but it’s what I believe: I think RMS took
a useful step by resigning some of his leadership roles at the FSF.
I thank RMS for taking that step, and I wish the
FSF Directors well in their efforts to assure that the
FSF becomes a welcoming organization to all who care about universal software freedom.
The FSF’s mission is essential to our
technological future, and we should all support that mission. I care deeply about that mission myself
and have worked and will continue to work in our community in the best interest of the mission.
I’m admittedly struggling to find a way to work again with
RMS, given his views on sexual morality and his behaviors stemming
from those views. I explicitly do not agree with this “(re-)definition” of sexual assault.
Furthermore, I believe uninformed statements about sexual assault are irresponsible
and cause harm to victims. #MeToo is not a “frenzy”; it is a global movement by
individuals who have been harmed seeking to hold both bad
actors and society-at-large accountable for ignoring systemic
wrongs. Nevertheless,
I still am proud of the essay that I co-wrote with RMS
and still find
many of RMS’ other essays compelling,
important, and relevant.
I want the FSF to succeed in its mission and enter a new era of accomplishments. I’ve spent the last 22 years, without a break,
dedicating substantial time, effort, care and loyalty to the various FSF roles that I’ve had: including
employee, volunteer, at-large Director, and Voting Member. Even though my
duties to the FSF are done, and my relationship with the FSF is no longer
formal, I still think the FSF is a valuable institution worth helping and saving,
specifically because the FSF was founded for a mission that I deeply
support. And we should also realize that RMS — a human being (who is
flawed like the rest of us) — invented that mission.
As culture change becomes more rapid, I hope we can find reasonable nuance
and moderation on our complex analysis about people and their disparate
views, while we also hold individuals fully accountable for their actions.
That’s the difficulty we face in the post-post-modern culture of the early
twenty-first century. Most importantly, I believe we must find a way to
stand firm for software freedom while also making a safe environment for
victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse, gaslighting, and other deplorable
actions.