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Famous programmer Drew DeVault says that "the Free Software Foundation is dying" and needs "more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others". Hacker News and /g/ disagree.

https://drewdevault.com/2023/04/11/2023-04-11-The-FSF-is-dying.html

Comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35524297 [178 comments]

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/12ijhs4/the_free_software_foundation_is_dying/?sort=controversial [19 comments, removed]

https://archived.moe/g/thread/92712732 [367 replies]

https://archived.moe/g/thread/92716274 [still active, so far 57 replies]

https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/110180214217072221

There was some pushback, so Drew addressed the haters on HN:

Many people in this thread take offense at the calls to (1) remove RMS because of his problematic behavior and (2) promote diverse people to leadership positions.

I will reply to all of these comments at once: get a fricking grip.

No one, including myself, is calling for RMS to be removed because he has the wrong skin color or s*x. He needs to go because he acts as if his demographics are the right demographics, and those who don't have those traits feel unwelcome and uncomfortable under his leadership. That's a problem with RMS, not with his demographic identity, and someone possessing his demographic traits (which, I presume, are probably shared with most of the commenters upset about this), but lacking his problematic behaviors, would be a welcome change.

As for the inclusion of more diverse leaders:

1. There is more than one leadership position at the FSF.

2. I am not calling for non-proportional representation, or for forcing proportional representation either.

If you feel threatened because someone called for a jerk who looks similar to you to be kicked out of a project, that's a personal problem. If you feel threatened by the prospect of being led by people who look dissimilar to you, that's a personal problem.

Again, to sum it up: get a grip. Jesus.

That's right, do better, chuds! :marseyhesright:

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Say what you will about Drew, but is RMS anything more than just dead weight at this point in the FOSS community? The levels of copium being huffed by the RMS toejam suckers in the hackernews thread are off the charts.

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RMS is a dead weight for sure, if not an actual detriment to projects he's involved in. Last I heard, the EMACS team wants him out as he's been demanding that they work on word processing features... in an IDE... so they can compete with LibreOffice.

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I'm of the opinion that you need slightly/very abrasive people in orgs to keep the narcissists from gradually taking over through weaponized incompetence and constructive oversensitivity. You need someone who's not prepared to take any bull and just show them the door or bounce them out by not bowing to the insidious 'you made me feel bad and now we need to have a hundred hours of meetings to get over it' type of manipulation that occurs if you have too many 'people persons' in management roles.

There shouldn't be a culture of fear but there should be people that are slightly intimidating in the power structure or the 'make it all about me' contingent very quickly take over.

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