Red Hat withdraws from the Free Software Foundation after Stallman’s return

Enlarge / The Free Software Foundation might be happy to have RMS back on its board, but much of the Free Software world feels otherwise.

Last week, Richard M. Stallman-father of the GNU Public License that underpins Linux and a significant part of the user-facing software that initially accompanied the Linux kernel-returned to the board of the Free Software Foundation after a two-year hiatus due to his own highly controversial remarks about his perception of Jeffrey Epstein's victims as "entirely willing."

As a result of RMS' reinstatement, Red Hat-the Raleigh, North Carolina-based open source software giant that produces Red Hat Enterprise Linux-has publicly withdrawn funding and support from the Free Software Foundation:

Red Hat was appalled to learn that [Stallman] had rejoined the FSF board of directors. As a result, we are immediately suspending all Red Hat funding of the FSF and any FSF-hosted events.

Red Hat's relatively brief statement goes on to acknowledge an FSF statement on board governance that appeared on the same day:

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