Re: Is negative publicity always harmful? (was: Women and GNU and RMS)

[Andreas]

On Tue, 2019-11-05 at 13:26 -0500, Thompson, David wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 12:59 PM Brandon Invergo <brandon@gnu.org>
> wrote:

> > Can we just leave it there?
> 
> I don't think we can.  RMS is GNU's leader, and his public comments,
> whether or not they are specifically about free software, are
> relevant
> to GNU.  Some of us are tired of looking the other way.

"Looking the other way" is a spurious allegation, implying a wrong is
being committed that is willfully overlooked and furthermore implying
that those disagreeing or unaware are complicit in the wrong.

Unless such assertions are backed up they remain speculation that
cannot be falsified against or reasoned about, and will continue to
linger and damage GNU. 

To avoid that it's best to just leave it, as suggested, or else make a
serious and well-founded claim and illustrate how it impacts GNU and
its functions. I think anything else at this moment in time is simply
detrimental to GNU and any discourse around it.

-Andreas