This is not particular to small organizations, it's a feature of the whole society. This attitude is one of the hallmarks of a move towards totalitarianism. There is no compromise possible, total defeat or total annihilation of opposing views are the only options.
The against letter is here : https://github.com/rms-support-letter/rms-support-letter.git...
And the for is here : https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io
You can find the number of votes on the respective websites for each letter or by checking the number of merged pull requests.
I did this as a way to visualise the number of signatures over time, just as a matter of interest.
Where I can sign to support impartial investigation.
To me, this looks more like a group of people who don’t like RMS joining hands with industry to remove RMS AND THE ENTIRE FSF board.
RMS did nothing legally wrong, that’s why he’s not in prison and there’s no investigation. Because he took no actions.
From my perspective, the “ostracize RMS” crowd appear like bigots who are attacking someone with autism for personal gain. Yes he did something potentially inappropriate, he apologized and we should work on reforming.
If there’s no forgiveness for someone who had a different opinion (he didn’t act on anything, as far as we know), then there will be no quarter. No one wants to live in a world with no recourse.
You can sign the "support" letter.
It says clearly that RMS is not above criticism, that it welcomes discussion on all the issues, but that the smear campaign supported by the other letter is unacceptable.
Besides, notice that the promoters of the pro-ostracization letter are not open for discussion. Any discussion or move towards a compromise (e.g., by questioning RMS's fit as a leader while rejecting the lies of the letter) is ruthlessly suppressed.
What is the reasoning at HN for allowing one side of the story and censuring the other side. Very disappointed at HN moderators...
To be fair, "these things" are being discussed here every day, with lots of comments and no intent of suppression. Maybe some users are tired of seeing the same subject appear many times per day with no actual news, and they are flagging it as a form of protest. It would be still an inappropriate usage of flagging, but somewhat understandable.
This is a graph showing the counts of signatories both for and against. How is this post possibly coming out on either side of this issue?
