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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/13/19 11:57 AM, Christian Imhorst
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:b1b955efb77ed857ea58f4d5bc699b97@posteo.de">Hi,
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:b1b955efb77ed857ea58f4d5bc699b97@posteo.de">I support
FSFE and not FSF - among other things - because of Stallman. No
question RMS did much good for the Free Software movement. After
all, he founded it and he is one of the reasons why Free Software
even exists. But I don't think he should stay any longer the
figurehead of the Free Software movement. Seems the longer he has
any say, the longer he will poison the well. He hurts his mission
with statements about sexual abuse, dehumanizing disabled people
and denigrating women.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not entirely sure what you mean, except that I know RMS has
been criticized for his "Saint Ignucius" stick. I also don't agree
on his position of preferred pronouns for transgender people.</p>
<p>One should note, however, that Stallman is a child of the decade
he was born in and also seems to be quite rigid in his points of
view, to the point where one might suspect a mild degree of
autism. If the latter were to be the case, your comment - and the
comments of all of those people who seemingly like to denigrate,
ridicule and bully Stallman on Reddit - could be construed as
ableist.</p>
<p>I have no illusions as to Stallman being any sort of perfect
person, yet I want to note that <i>not </i><i>only</i> did he
found the Free Software Movement and contribute s mzignificantly
to it through the creation of the GNU project, he continues to
spend all his time travelling the world and advocating software
freedom - and not only that, he still occasionally comes up with
important new contributions.</p>
<p>The most recent example I can think of is this article from The
Guardian:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance</a><br>
<br>
in which he advocates ending the abusive surveillance by the tech
giants by introducing a very simple law: No system is allowed to
record data that are not necessary for its <i>primary</i>
purpose.</p>
<p>Such a law could be implemented in the EU and could be enforced
with mandatory, unenforced inspections and draconian, GDPR-style
fines. That would be the end of Google's and Facebook's
surveillance, since it would simply become illegal. <br>
</p>
<p>I currently believe that such regulations are the <i>only</i>
possible way of defeating the surveillance regime. Stopping NSA
surveillance might be a good thing, but it's rather immaterial,
because the governments are likely to gain access to the tech
giants' data troves anyway, as they have in China. I'd <i>love</i>
to see the FSFE adopt such a proposal and see it through the EU
Parliament.</p>
<p>And while Stallman is still capable of coming up with this kind
of thing I honestly don't think we should ostracize him from the
movement. I've supported the FSF before, and while I currently am
supporting the FSFE and continue to do so, I might easily support
the FSF again if I e.g. had more money.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Best<br>
Carsten<br>
</p>
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