Computer scientist Richard Stallman has resigned as president of the Free Software Foundation – an organization he founded in 1985 to actively promote the concept of free software and the liberties and philosophies surrounding it.
US software freedom activist and computer programmer Richard Stallman speaks with French Green Party ... [+]
A brief note devoid of explanation was found on the Free Software Foundation website today which reads:
“On September 16, 2019, Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board of directors. The board will be conducting a search for a new president, beginning immediately. Further details of the search will be published on fsf.org.”
Stallman has also stepped down from his role as visiting scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), writing in his personal blog that he is “doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings.”
Stallman laid the foundations for what we know today as the Linux operating system. His early development work on a set of GNU tools such as Emacs, a GCC compiler and build automator (GNU make) were used by Linus Torvalds in the creation of the original Linux kernel.
But why is Stallman resigning? At the moment there is only speculation. The timing seems linked to a Medium blog which published snippets of emails from an MIT mailing list, in which Stallman was perceived as defending sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The entire thread was then leaked to VICE, which caused a torrent of media coverage.
The Software Freedom conservancy called for his resignation in a strongly-worded post yesterday. An excerpt of that post:
“When considered with other reprehensible comments he has published over the years, these incidents form a pattern of behavior that is incompatible with the goals of the free software movement. We call for Stallman to step down from positions of leadership in our movement. We reject any association with an individual whose words and actions subvert these goals. We look forward to seeing the FSF's action in this matter and want to underscore that allowing Stallman to continue to hold a leadership position would be an unacceptable compromise. Most importantly, we cannot support anyone, directly or indirectly, who condones the endangerment of vulnerable people by rationalizing any part of predator behavior.”
Stallman was often criticized for his views on several other matters. On his personal blog he called for the legalization of prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia. In his own words: “All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
Controversy aside, Stallman contributed greatly to the free software movement, creating and furthering the idea that users should have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve software.
The Free Software Foundation was founded to defend these and other user rights. You can read more about the FSF on their official site.
