As someone who’s contributed to GNU, promoted it, and also spoke up in the past, I feel like I should publicize this report by @report_press:
https://stallman-report.org
Many of these things were described in 2019 (some of which I was unaware of at the time) but this report is thoroughly documented and has it all in one place.
It’s also a reminder that leadership must be held accountable, for the common good.
To me though, that ship has sailed: I have long stopped regarding RMS and the FSF as leaders, and so did many in the free software movement it seems.
I wrote about my perspective on GNU last year:
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/@civodul/111137935678652241
The recommendations of @report_press for the GNU Project seem uninformed to me.
1. GNU has always been an informal group: historical contributors stopped caring; newer contributors probably never did; it’s pretty much an empty shell.
2. The “big” GNU projects don’t recognize the authority of RMS in their governance.
3. Stallman’s “Kind Communication Guidelines” were denounced early on; Guix, GCC, glibc, etc. adopted a code of conduct, some way before that.
In 2019–2021, some of us attempted to create a “new GNU” (not mentioned in the report) to take the user empowerment torch *and* get rid of the founder’s syndrome and everything that the report highlights:
https://gnu.tools/
Support wasn’t there at the time, which is one of the factors that brought the effort to a halt.
Good news is other projects, orgs, and people are leading the movement these days: Framasoft, sr.ht and Forgejo/Codeberg, the folks behind the Fediverse, Tor, Spritely, FSFE, LQDN, and many more.
Most in this list consider autonomy beyond mere “software user freedom”, and I think that’s what we need.
That and making sure our passion/hobby/work doesn’t contribute to making the planet unlivable.
@civodul Curiass is a also a nice addition to the CI space.