nivin ☕ Profile picture
occasional veridian dynamics employee. former lyft eng & tweet mine worker. life. better.
Mar 31, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
RMS created non-safe spaces at both MIT & the FSF. When I was at the FSF, RMS had little to no empathy for the staff. The FSF was not a healthy, functional workplace. We formed a union to help protect ourselves from RMS — he controlled our pay, benefits, and workplace conditions. Everything was controlled by RMS — not the executive director, and not the board. The union helped turn FSF employment into what most people think of as a "normal" office job. It didn't fix everything. Some of the issues that we did fix:
Mar 23, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read
I worked at the FSF for 3 years and volunteered for over 6 years — that ended in 2004. I witnessed misogyny, sexual objectification, and abuse carried out by RMS. I banded together with my coworkers, formed a union, negotiated a contract, and was elected shop steward. While RMS started the free software movement and the GNU GPL was a groundbreaking document, the community still has a right to hold him to account for his abhorrent actions and harmful speech. RMS should not be part of the FSF.