I'm sorry to have to write this from a brand new, low karma, account, but this is the time we're living in and everybody supporting the right of Stallman to have a fair trial among his peers (maybe cast a vote?) even if not supporting hime directly as a person or just disagreeing with him while thinking he had it rough, risk of being the next one.
First of all I want to say that I think this is a second wave of "libertarianism" targeting the wrong targets.
First came Stallman, Linus, Raymond and the FSF movement trying to liberate the world from proprietary software and corporations controlling the tools AND the final product, in a way that was hurting the freedom of everyone using the tools or creating something.
It was good, it has been a good thing.
Now I see it as since we lack the same conditions, free software is taken for granted, but some people still need a fight to feel alive and not think that their generation did nothing, the villains have become the unconventional, those that are not exactly like us, with us meaning "me and people like me".
I've never been a Stallman supporter, but I've seen his struggle through the years to change, to become more relatable, to become more socially acceptable.
Unfortunately for a man like him change takes time, he cannot change completely opinion in a few months.
I find it scary: on one side Stallman, like in Lem's Solaris, is not Stallman, he's what we made him through time, legends, word of mouth, we crystallized him in that position, but he's actually a different person from what he was 40 years ago.
If not something else, he's 40 years older.
"I'm suicidal because that's how you remember me.", says Rheya clone (projection? replica? whatever) to his husband. The being doesn't remember who she was, but the husband does and through his memories she learn she was suicidal. Because he said so.
As long as we keep talking about Stallman as a being instead of a real human, he'll always be what we make him and not who he really is.
On the other side, what's acceptable?
In the past few years (3 at most) people have been attacked for:
- using gender pronouns
- using the words "master" and "slave" in software projects
- not accepting PRs about non gendered language (their instead of he or she)
- not having a COC
- not using that particular COC
What's next? If I'm vegetarian, can I target non vegetarians? I've read in some studies the eating meat is bad for the environment, it's a just fight!
Isn't it?
If I'm from a country where age of consent is 14 or 15 (Serbia, Sweden, Italy, France, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Germany, just to name a few), am I to abiure and ask for forgiveness before talking about something that upset only US audience?
How do I know if I can say something or not?
Is there a manual, a course, a video lesson, where I can learn such things?
Is there a tribunal in case I make a mistake?
Where do we draw the line?
Are you sure this is good for the future of the FSF movement as we knew it?
I have doubts...