Alexandre Oliva, considered by some to be the "heir" of Richard Stallman, is an engineer in the GNU / Toolchain project (a set of multipurpose free software tools for the development of operating systems and software applications) and free software activist. Recently, as she explains in the text that follows, she sent a letter to a feminist leader within the free software community. The recipient responded by questioning the link to a Stallman support page. Oliva decided to answer him with this open load that we reproduce.
Two clarifications: he ended FLOSS. adds the letter L for libre to the acronym for Free and Open Source Software to correct the double meaning of the word free in English. On the other hand, the acronym AFAICT from the original in English, translates as "As far as I can tell."
Alexandre Oliva's letter
The other day, I emailed a celebrated feminist leader in the FLOSS community, telling you about some good news that I just found that I thought would be of interest to you, and congratulating her on some of her accomplishments. My email signature, pointing to https://stallmansupport.org, caught your eye and mentioned your disagreement with her in her kind and respectful response. I thought a lot about how to reply and finally sent him the following reply.
Sorry, it seems like this was the most relevant part of my email for you. I almost pulled it out, suspecting that you might differ and offend you, but I ended up leaving it there because I didn't think you deserved dishonesty on my part. This has been in my signature in the emails I sent since May 3, and deleting it didn't seem honest to me.
I have been around RMS for over 25 years. My wife, my daughter, I have received it several times and we have arranged for others to receive it more times. People who admire him and people who hardly knew him. He was never easy to deal with, he is persistent and often becomes obsessed with problems that catch his eye. But harassment?
Harassment, to me, is a gang against someone in a hate letter to bring him down. A hate letter that tries to disguise its true motivations by resorting to a lot of shocking but false accusations, exaggerations and misrepresentations.
Regarding the experiences and reports you received ... A committee of the FSF board whose members, as far as I can tell, investigated reports on RMS for over two years, before and after RMS resigned, and despite all the second-hand rumors, they were never able to achieve any concrete find. I have independently investigated various claims and invariably hit dead ends. Given the number of false reports and ad hominem attacks against free software with which it has been attacked, It was not unthinkable to conclude that this was another character assassination attack without substance.
Clumsy, obsessive, prone to breakdown and sometimes severe, as our shared condition makes us, he has always been an easy target for this type of discrimination. What's more, the movement he started and leads threatens several powerful monopolies, making him yet another target of such attacks. It is easy and disappointing to see how his alleged offenses do not seem to motivate action when committed by actual celebrities who work for the corporate forces that they lead and are served by the attacks on him.
Of course, none of this proves you innocent, but that's what the absence of credible evidence and the exclusivity of rumors and dead-end second-hand fabrications suggest. Should people I know personally who are allegedly harassed by RMS want to report it, my opinion may change and, if they are willing, I can convey it to the FSF board. But, so far, what I've seen has been limited to false and dehumanizing accusations to support the discrimination of a person who tirelessly fights for freedom and justice, not caring much else, and with some traits that are difficult for neurotypicals to understand. or I like it.
I am disappointed that someone like you, who intends to fight for justice and against discrimination, joined in the beating, much less to label him as a celebrity to dehumanize him even more. But then, I only have my experiences to analyze, not yours, and certainly not the reports that you heard and chose to believe. Without knowing what they are, I don't know if they justify mistreating him.
However, I can say that nothing justifies lying on false and exaggerated accusations: if the facts are not shocking enough to support that amount of abuse, fabricating alternative facts to carry it out does not make them so.í. Rather, it makes the attack itself unwarranted, disproportionate, and dishonest.
Subscribing to the letter may be understandable at the height of emotions, but refraining from revoking the signature once it becomes clear that it is nothing more than a collection of lies speaks much more about the moral alignment of the subscriber than it does about the goal of the letter. hate letter.
I hope that these words and deeds find resonance in your conscience and lead you to align your behavior with the legitimate search for justice and fight against various forms of discrimination. Undoing the injustice that you have been a part of would be a long-overdue first step, even if other unrelated reasons remain to seek and pursue justice for or against this person.
Happy Holidays and keep fighting as always,
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
Free Software Activist GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts. ask me about https://stallmansupport.org
It only remains for me to add one thing. Two causes cannot be served. The entities that defend open source and free software should include articles in their statutes that allow them to be used to promote other causes that have nothing to do with it.
License
Copyright 2021 Alexandre Oliva
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this entire document worldwide royalty-free, provided the copyright notice, copyright notice, Official url of the document and this permission notice.
Feminism has become a political / ideological movement that does not need evidence or evidence against a person, it mocks justice regardless of anything other than "supporting that person who has made a false report" or true against a man. It is outrageous. The worst thing about all this is that - sooner or later - when they support a truly just act, they will no longer have the support of the people.