25: Governance, Leadership, and Founder's Syndrome

<p>What story does an institution tell about itself? To whom does a governance structure and its leadership serve? To what degree are leaders within a governing institution subject or exempt to the rules of the governed? We use this framework to discuss the unexpected announcement of Richard Stallman's re-appointment to the FSF board, by the FSF board.</p><p>Content warning: depression and sexual harassment are both mentioned in this episode.</p><p><strong>Links:</strong></p><ul><li><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder%27s_syndrome">Founder's Syndrome</a> (Wikipedia article)</p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-richard-stallman-fsf-board">Statement on the Re-election of Richard Stallman to the FSF Board</a> by the <a href="https://www.eff.org/">EFF</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://rms-open-letter.github.io/">An open letter to remove Richard M. Stallman from all leadership positions</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128">Microblog post expressing lack of foreknowledge of announcement by FSF staff and Libreplanet volunteers</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.harihareswara.net/ces.shtml">Not The First Time We Tried (FSF, GNU, RMS, etc.)</a> by <a href="https://www.harihareswara.net/">Sumana Harihareswara</a></p></li><li><p>Kat Walsh's statement of <a href="https://mastodon.social/@mindspillage/105940851460229358">making arguments in opposition to RMS's reinstatement to the board</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/mindspillage/status/1374448587388588037">Twitter version</a>) and <a href="https://mastodon.social/@mindspillage/105948765536809476">announcement of resignation</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/mindspillage/status/1374955150054289412">Twitter version</a>)</p></li><li><p><a href="https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/the-free-software-foundation-and-richard-stallman">The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman</a> by <a href="https://mako.cc/">Benjamin Mako Hill</a>, longtime FOSS advocate, former member of FSF board</p></li><li><p><a href="http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting-new-hacker-ethic/">Programming is Forgetting: Toward a New Hacker Ethic</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88">Documentation of accusations of women being harassed by RMS</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://stallman.org/images/trade-treaty-comic.jpg">Political cartoon between RMS and Chris</a> from when Chris was in college</p></li><li><p><a href="https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-02/msg01316.html">Re: Bug in emacs tetris</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsAndXEmacs">GNU Emacs and XEmacs</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://announce.asheesh.org/2018/12/libreplanet-speakers-ask-fsf-board-about-safe-space-policy-get-no-real-answer/">2018 Letter to the board in response to RMS's behavior and the board's lack of response</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-gnu-philosophy-ethics-beyond-ethics/">Marianne Corvellec’s Libre Planet 2017 talk “The GNU Philosophy: Ethics beyond ethics”</a> where RMS says &quot;I'm the president of the Free Software Foundation... so I don’t have to follow the rules&quot;</p></li></ul>