What does the FSF censor during the Richard Stallman lynching?
RMS was not the "founder of the free software movement."
RMS started gnu in 1983 with the aim of creating a unix-like system. Still waiting on that HURD kernel, there. How's that going?
BSD was a complete work-alike version of system 7 unix. Ken Thompson, Bill Joy, Chuck Haley and others started work on a system 6/7 workalike which was released as 1BSD in 1975. 2BSD was released 1979, including vi and csh.
Look at the RFC's before 1983. Most implementations are free software.
The fact is, before 1983 #FreeSoftware was NOT a movement.
It was just the usual way to distribute code that was instrumental to turn very expensive machines from weird furnitures to useful computers.
Back then software was #free as in beer because the actual product was the hardware.
#RMS realized that software is #knowledge and it must be kept free.
RMS claimed personal credit for a movement which existed before him and will exist after him. RMS has been the Microsoft of free software, with his own adopt, revise, extend, and proprietize strategy.
Free software before early RMS/GNU or simultaneous but RMS had nothing to do with it:
CTSS 1961
MULTICS 1965
ALOHANET 1971
ftp 1972
cron 1975
BSD 1975
CBBS 1978
SIMTEL-20 1979
USENET 1980
Email RFC 821/822 1982
Sockets BSD 4.2 1983
telnet RFC 854 1983
Fidonet 1984
ka9q 1985
Minix 1987
That was not a movement.
That's mainly academy.
Surely, there were #hackers before #RMS. And surely there will be hackers after him.
That's quite obvious, and adds nothing to the discussion.
But before GNU GPL, #FreeSoftware was not a movement with an ethics and an identity.
Usually I argue that #RMS focused #FreeSoftware on the wrong core value: among hackers, #freedom is ancillary to #curiosity, which is the core value of our ethics.
But arguing that RMS was irrelevant to Free Software growth and successes is ridiculous.
Also, focusing on the content of the censored mail is totally missing the point.
The mail was NOT in conflict with #GNU Kind Communications Guidelines or any other Code of Conduct.
Thus it was #censored for its content. From the #FSF.
#Free Software Foundation.
Censoring mails to frame the narrative of the whole movement.
I don't really care about self-promoters who proprietize and seek to control and claim credit for work done by others.
RMS was EMACS maintainer for 32 years until 11 years ago. Okay great. That puts him in line with thousands of other people.
We should be primarily praising folks like Lick, Corbato, Kernighan, Ritchie, Joy, Roberts, Khan, Postel, Davies, Kleinrock, Landweber. Not just RMS. Particularly not where "ethics" are concerned.
https://scanlyze.org/2013/03/28/the-people-who-built-the-internet/
If you think this is a good question to ask, send it to rms@gnu.org
But again, we are mixing different issues.
Even if RMS was the worst sex criminal in the world, people around him covered him for years enabling his crimes against several victims.
And these people are now censoring people who defend him?
Don't be naive: this is all a power game internal to #FSF and those who controlled the lynching crowd are now going to control FSF.
You'll see that FSF people will start to talk of #FLOSS, than #FOSS then finally just #OSS.
All will be clean and nice and #business friendly.
Including #GPL v4.
@Shamar
Have you ever been to the FSF? Have you ever met in person any of the people you are talking about with such confidence?
Also, "lynching" does not mean what you seem to think it does.
What I have not heard from you is anything about Virginia Giuffre and the other girls whom Epstein raped and enslaved. I have not heard anything about Minsky, about RMS comments about Minsky.
I do not care about your whataboutism or your unfounded fantasies about the FSF, who runs it, and what goes on.