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

[Thompson, David]

On Tue, Nov 5, 2019 at 3:44 PM Andreas <avr@softwarelibre.nl> wrote:
>
> 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.

Maybe this would be a reasonable request if we ignored all the context
of what has transpired in the past month or so (which, we must not
forget, was just the straw that broke the camel's back after *years*
of problematic behavior), but given the context I think this is
nothing more than gaslighting.  There is no honest need for me, or
anyone else, to rehash the issues as if they haven't already been
cited numerous times by others.  Everything is already out on the
table.

- Dave