Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

Alexandre,

Making our community more welcoming is indeed a process. And some
steps will just be symbolic. But I don't believe removing RMS from
(perceived) leadership positions in the GNU project and from the FSF
is just symbolic. And even for a symbolic step it is a powerful
one. It shows we don't tolerate harassment in our project. And I do
hope it doesn't end with that step. We also have to decide whether we
still want to be associated with the FSF. Hopefully the FSF takes
their responsibility and replaces the whole board to show we can start
with a clean slate.

One issue is that as long as GCC is associated with RMS and the FSF
others who could help us won't because the FSF is that toxic now:
https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2021-03-23/fsf-participation-barred/
And they are far from the only Free Software project who has said
something similar.

We are not talking about some single recent incident, but about
decades of problematic behavior. At the last face-to-face GNU Tools
Cauldron, everybody I talked to about it had some story about being
harassed by RMS, had witnessed such harassment or heard from or knew
someone who had been.

For years people have tried to help him see how his actions and words
might hurt others, even if they are completely logically correct to
himself. And obviously that is sometimes hard, nobody is perfect, but
hopefully we get a little better every time. But this never happened.
And it really needs to stop.

RMS actively undermines those who try to make our community a little
bit more welcoming. Violating anti-harassment policies of
conferences. Even those from the FSF by claiming to be above those
policies because of his leadership position or using his position to
tell staff they cannot enforce such policies against others. Because
he is against enforcing any anti-harassment policy some GNU
mailinglist is currently being used to organize a doxing campaign
(publishing photos, address and calls to report to the local police
station to get her house raided and arrested) for simply saying the
same things we are discussing here now.

I witnessed something similar recently when we had setup the
mailinglist to discuss improving governance of the GNU project. When a
female GNU (GCC) volunteer spoke up she got attacked and harassed. We
told the harassers that was totally unacceptable and blocked them from
sending more emails to the list. RMS arranged for those people to get
unblocked to continue their hate campaign on the public GNU list so
they could "defend him and the GNU project". That was followed by a
torrent of hate to the list making any discussion impossible and
making women feel like they were specifically targeted. He still
hasn't learned that his words and actions are dog whistles for
misogynists, transphobics and racists. This really has to stop.

You link to a parody of a request of tens of Free Software foundation
projects and thousands of Free Software hackers who are calling for
the removal of the entire Board of the Free Software Foundation and
for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from all leadership positions,
including the GNU Project. For similar reasons that people here are
now calling for RMS to be removed from the GCC steering committee.

The real letter is here: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/

Sometimes satire is a way to deal with difficult problems, but I don't
think that is appropriate here and I hope people take these issues
seriously, because I think they are.

Mark