A few days ago , in his speech at LibrePlanet 2021, Richard Stallman (founder of the Free Software Movement, the GNU Project, the Free Software Foundation, and the League for Free Programming, author of the GPL, and creator of projects such as GCC, GDB, and Emacs) announced his return to the Free BY Board of Directors. Jeffrey Knout, who was elected in 2020, remains the president of the Free Open Source Foundation.
This announcement of his return to the Free Software Foundation's board of directors has provoked strong reactions from some organizations and developers, as Richard Stallman is officially included on the list of directors and this information is now reflected on the Free Software Foundation's website.
In particular, the human rights organization Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), whose director was recently awarded the prize for his contributions to the development of free software, announced the severing of all relations with the Free Software Foundation and the cessation of any activities that overlap with this organization, including the Open Source Fund to finance the work of the Outreachy program participant (the SFC will allocate the necessary $6500 from its own funds).
It's worth remembering that Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 , a year after the founding of the GNU Project. The organization was formed to protect against dubious companies caught up in the misappropriation of code and trying to sell some of the early GNU Project tools developed by Stallman and his associates. Three years later, Stallman drafted the first version of the GPL, defining the legal framework for the free software distribution model.
In September 2019, Richard Stallman resigned as president of the Free Software Foundation and resigned from the organization's board of directors, as he was accused and convicted of sexual harassment.
An MIT graduate published an article on Medium titled " Remove Richard Stallman, " urging his removal from his positions. Why? Because of emails Stallman wrote commenting on the harassment case involving Marvin Minsky, the MIT professor accused of sexual assault and of running a child sex ring at Epstein's compound.
In those emails, Stallman said that "the term 'sexual assault' is vague and slippery" and that he "presented himself to Minsky completely willing." It's true he shouldn't have said that, but Richard Stallman himself has defended himself by saying his words were taken out of context and misinterpreted: "a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations." But he has accepted the complaints and pressure to ultimately resign so that this doesn't tarnish the free software world and the FSF.
Following this, Stallman entered into a debate about the definition of "sexual violence" and whether it applied to Minsky. He also suggested that the victims were voluntarily involved in prostitution.
In a note, Stallman also mentioned that raping someone who is not yet 18 years old is no less disgusting than raping someone who is already 18 years old (in the initial discussion, Stallman pointed out the absurdity of the degree of guilt in rape depending on the country and how inconsequential age differences are).
Later, after a media frenzy, Stallman also wrote that he was wrong in his earlier statements and that sexual contact between adults and minors, even with the minor's consent, is unacceptable.
Because of this, the decision was made following accusations of unethical behavior by the leader of the FOSS movement and threats from some communities and organizations to sever ties with the movement. Subsequently, attempts were made to reduce Stallman's influence over the GNU Project, where he retained leadership, but these efforts were unsuccessful.
Finally, if you're interested in learning more about Richard Stallman's announcement, you can find the details in his speech at the following link.