Why do SUSE members blame Richard Stallman? Please post your personal opinion.

English Open Chat
1

Hello,

it is extremely depressing to me being an old time openSUSE fan to see so many SUSE/openSUSE members blaming Richard Stallman, founder of Free “as in speech” Software, and so few SUSE/openSUSE members actually supporting him.

This is what I’m talking about — a request to remove Stallman from all leadership positions: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ which was signed by almost the whole SUSE management and many openSUSE developers/maintainers:


    Alexander Herzig (Release Manager SUSE Linux Enterprise)
    Attila Pinter (aka adathor, openSUSE docs, support, OpenStorage.io CTO)
    Callum Farmer (openSUSE member & maintainer)
    Chase Crum (Sr. Architect and WIT ADVOCATE @SUSE)
    Christoph Wickert (openSUSE contributor, former Fedora Council and Advisory Board member)
    Claudia Hogan (SUSE, Chief of Staff)
    Imobach González Sosa (software developer at SUSE; openSUSE contributor)
    Janet Blackquill (jan Jan) (KDE, Fedora, openSUSE)
    Jiri Srain (Release Manager SUSE Linux Enterprise)
    Kukuh Syafaat (GNOME, openSUSE)
    Lana Brindley (Loquacity, SUSE)
    Lars Marowsky-Brée (Distinguished Engineer, SUSE; Ceph Foundation board member)
    Marcel Kuehlhorn (openSUSE contributor)
    Marina “deneb_alpha” Latini (former The Document Foundation chairperson, former openSUSE board member, LibreOffice and openSUSE contributor)
    Matthew Mattox (mattmattox, Principal Support Engineer at SUSE/Rancher Labs)
    Melissa Di Donato (CEO, SUSE)
    Neal Gompa (Fedora Project contributor, Mageia Project Council Member, Mageia.Org Board Member, openSUSE Project Board Member, OpenMandriva contributor)
    Nick Gerace (Software Engineer at SUSE and Rancher Labs)
    Richard Brown (Former openSUSE Chairman)
    Rob Knight (CTO, Enterprise Cloud Products @ SUSE)
    Sara Stephens (SUSE)
    Sasi Olin (openSUSE Member, former openSUSE Board member)
    Stefan Weiberg (Technical Projectmanager SUSE Linux Enterprise)
    Stephan Barth (Technical Project Manager for Maintenance, SUSE)
    Syds Bearda (openSUSE member + treasurer)
    Thomas Di Giacomo (CTO, SUSE)
    William Brown (389 Directory Server, SUSE Labs)

On the contrary, an open letter supporting Stallman was signed by much less [open]SUSE people: https://rms-support-letter.github.io/


    b10n1k (SUSE)
    Bryan Lunduke (Formerly: Deputy Editor of Linux Journal, Marketing at SUSE, Marketing Director at Purism, Tech Journalist at Network World)
    Ivan Kapelyukhin (openSUSE member)

Is it some kind of corporate solidarity or a real opinion of so many people within SUSE?
As for me, although not being a SUSE employee or openSUSE developer, — I do believe that the accusations are based on misunderstanding, exaggeration and distortion. We all are imperfect, and RMS in fact did more good than said bad.
I will be very grateful if people from the list above would write their opinions here, on why they do support removing Stallman from the leadership positions.

2

I’m a neutral observer from a distance.

I retired when I reached age 67, because I thought it better for young folk to be more involved. I continued to work part time, but with any authority passed on to others. Maybe some of the SUSE people just think its time for Stallman to do something similar – to move aside and let a younger generation take control.

Note, however, that I am just a user. I have no inside knowledge of what SUSE people really think about RMS.

3

Timestamp: 15:07 CEST 2021-03-29.
Supporting Stallman – 3913.
Not supporting Stallman – 2830 plus companies and organisations.

My view is, Open Source as such is a community.

  • Within a community, there are accepted norms decided by the community’s members.
  • When a community member exhibits behaviour which is unacceptable to members of the community then, the community will attempt to regulate that individual’s behaviour, one way or, another.

We’re witnessing the behaviour of a community attempting to regulate an individual’s behaviour.
[HR][/HR]Is it going to be pleasant observing the process?

  • I suspect not – there are strong opinions being expressed one way or, another …
  • I suspect that, whichever final outcome is hammered out, the end result will not please all the community’s members.
  • But, the process is demonstrating the strength of decisions being openly made within a community.
4

I always find it to be more productive to ask those people directly.

5

Those people will most probably never come here. This is a forum for openSUSE users that help openSUSE users with technical problems. We have a General Chitchat sub-forum and even a Soapbox one, but most of the people that ask for help and give help her will not look at those because not of technical ineterest.
IMHO, this thread is at the wrong place everywhere in these forums.

6

The only contact details available are Github usernames: https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed
there is no way to ask all these people directly because it is impossible to send direct messages on Github.
Also I do understand that SUSE employees are not likely to come here although I hope that some of them are still affiliated with openSUSE and read these forums sometimes.

dcurtisfra, thanks for your answer.

7

Majority of the corporate people don’t give a rats butt, but they can’t help themselves when an opportunity to get more brownie points in the eyes of their peers for what is literally little to no social cost or chance of backfire.

After all, it’s easier to gang up on a heretic with ‘wrong opinions’ than to sit on the same table and come to a consensus.

8

The issue was nothing to do with free speech but with unacceptable behaviour - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

9

The “rms-open-letter” page now lists SUSE as a whole organisation that signed that letter, so it really looks like a corporate thing.

10

Agreed, but –

  • My personal view is, currently, tolerance seems to be deemed to be unfashionable – There are very few reports of human error being admitted and, forgiven …

The current fashion seems to be – “Only perfection is acceptable.” – Human frailty seems to be regarded as being a weakness …

11

Or, a business decision …

  • Remembering that, business / trade in general is a means to survive, in monetary terms …
  • Business ethics do play a role but, the overriding concern is, that the business as such should provide a positive financial balance …
12

That one statement quoted in the Wikipedia article about age not a significant factor in an assault is very wrong.
Civilized society depends on protecting its minors who are deemed unable to be mature enough to make decisions on their own.
I don’t know if there is any relevant context, but that by itself can potentially be a life changing statement and likely needs a full retraction and apology with specificity… Not a general apology.

IMO,
TSU

13

But, if the younger generation isn’t exposed to the “evil things on this planet”, how will they gather the experience needed to progress human endeavours on this planet?

  • Parents have a choice – either the original text of Grimm’s stories is read to the children or, a “politically correct” version of the stories …
14

I beg to differ: see https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/. Rather in my experience the issue is unwillingness to acknowledge wrong-doing. I know more people prepared to forgive than people prepared to acknowledge their weaknesses.

15

This isn’t about gaining experience.
Societies recognize that there are things that only adults are deemed to have sufficient capability to make decisions.
When society sets a threshold for when children become adults, only then they are left to whatever forces might happen.
But until children reach that threshold, they are not expected to have the facility to handle themselves and make educated decisions.
More advanced society will do everything possible to shelter its children until they are sufficiently prepared for anything that might happen.

TSU

16

Couldn’t agree more – this is possibly the main issue with RMS – and, how on earth can we persuade him to move to a position where we can forgive him?

17

Isn’t it forbidden to discuss political issues on this forums? :slight_smile: I don’t mind really as it’s interesting but I was wondering if this thread doesn’t break some code of conduct.

18

Yes but I think the issue from the beginning has not been political but ethical - initially a question about the ethics of members of the SUSE community.

19

I’m very worried about these people trying to write the new fashistionable bible of what and who is acceptable.
I find this very sad, but after all a distro is nothing more than the philosophy -ergo the people- behind it.
When you start to doubt on these people and their philosophy, it is the right time to move.

That said, I’m a big fan of RMS, I do like his face, his ideals, and I’m very grateful for what he has accomplished for all of us.
I foresee even darker times are coming as soon as Stallman and Torwalds will be put apart for any “ethical” reason or other reasons.

20

What do you mean? What is ethically acceptable is changing all the time and usually for the better. For example it used to be ethical to burn witches some time ago and fortunately now it is not. These ethical changes are changing the world for the better most of the time. You can read about it in “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”.