/me shouldn't be reading and interacting on this day before the first of coffee and checking the date, I suppose. heh.

wow! may you be a positive influence there, and gnuspeed,

what do you think "exclusive rights" actually means? the author/inventor hold them until they transfer it for a corporation to exploit them. it was a monopoly from the beginning, it just changed owner. now, truth be said, that's not how it really works. most authors and inventors transfer ownership of their works and inventions to a corporation before they even exist. free software [copyright] licenses cancel out the exclusivity that copyright laws impose by default. this is true of copyleft licenses like the GNU GPL as it is of lax permissive licenses like the BSD ones.

copyrights and patents are monopoly entitlements proprietary licensing amounts to exercising such monopolies

they don't hate RMS oversimplifying the situation a little, there are basically two kinds of participants in the campaign: - leaders of the attack, who expect some gain from taking him out of his leadership position in the movement - well-meaning people who fell for the false allegations and who find the supposed acts and positions repugnant. what they hate is not the person, but the repugnant acts and positions, that they incorrectly believe to be held by him

maybe I got the wrong idea from the expressed wondering of whether he'd recognize or know names or so. anyway, the ideas are much larger than the person, but that doesn't mean they won't be forever associated, to the point that washing the person in the mud (and over false allegations, no less) does harm the movement. lots of people can see that. lots of people stand against the injustice that's underway just on principle. it's a shame that decent people like you, even having legitimate reasons to have gripes, appear to be forced to take divisive actions that are obviously detrimental to the movement. as I wrote elsewhere, the attack was masterfully played. now it's our turn to show that we are bigger than the attack, stronger than the seeded hatred, and spineful and committed to the founding human rights values of the movement. gnuspeed,

we all want a bigger, broader, more inclusive movement, but decentralized leadership is not such a great idea for a political movement. as I wrote elsewhere earlier today, dilution of leadership makes it more difficult to overcome inertia and bring about changes, which is the purpose of any political movement. that said, we absolutely need to have succession plans with groups (because nobody alone can hope to fill his many shoes) for each of his responsibilities. the transitions have to be voluntary, however, otherwise they amount to hostile take-overs, which are really not ok, not for him, and not for the community, that has spoken very strongly against such a take-over in 2019, and again now.

kat, thanks for standing for what you believe in, and for all you've done for the FSF and for the movement. I wish we'd had more time to work together before we were forced to make a choice that landed us at irreconcilable understandings as to what was best for the FSF and for the movement. I have fond memories of a LibrePlanet some 4 years ago when you and karen and I talked, and it felt like we were in the same team, inspired by and craving for recognition by the same person who's now become the epicenter of the community divide. can we have any hope for those days to ever come back? or were they never there to begin with :-(

if the conversation was balanced, you'd think the links on the web page would reflect that :-/

are you not paying attention to the corruption of purpose of so many organizations in the FLOSS arena? why would any software monopolist wish to separate the organization who may publish the next version of the GPL from its primary author? why would they wish to remove someone with RMS's resolve from the directing body of the organization who could sue infringers of GNU copyrights? the attack has been masterfully played, in convincing and coopting a large number of decent people into believing, spreading and undersigning a lot of horrible and false allegations, even if they have other legitimate grievances the real attackers, who oppose software freedom, have nothing to lose. even if the decapitation fails, it still divides the community over very emotional and toxic subjects, and assassinates the reputation of a difficult but very good human being falsely turned into a monster