October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
It looks pretty well cited to me. The fact that it was written anonymously doesn’t really take away from that.
It really kind of does. If the author is so ashamed of the work that they won’t sign it, that speaks volumes.
This would only really make sense if they were trying to throw around the weight of the authors, which they clearly are not. Who makes these points is irrelevant when it’s simply highlighting rms’ own words and linking to them directly. Why should I care who wrote it?
Ummm or the authors are concerned about retribution because stallman and the FSF are very powerful in the FOSS community, and I think it’s reasonably likely that they would be sued (seemingly with poor grounds) or harassed online for publishing it.
You can say that speaks volumes about the character of the author (though you are the one assigning said “shame”). You were asking why this report deserves credence. The points raised in the report have citations such that you can decide where you fall on the presented issues.