> We almost Linus Torvalds because of the cancel culture
This is not what happened and I don't know why you would say "it's cancel culture". The issue with Torvalds was not about PR. It was a push by maintainers of the kernel, aka his peers. Torvalds was not criticized because of his opinions, but because of his behavior towards others. As he said in his own email [1] "My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for [...] I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry". Saying it's "cancel culture" is as if get fired from my company because I'm constantly lashing out at my colleagues and say "they fired me because of my opinions!".
A lot of times people conflate "cancel culture" with "people being responsible for what they say and do". In this case, Stallman replied to a protest that called for a review of MIT donor policies and association with people like Epstein with nitpicking about whether Minsky's actions (who was dead by that time already) were or not "technically sexual assault". That also helped surface a lot of actions and words by Stallman that were, at the very least, inadequate. Maybe that's not the kind of actions that one expects from the president of the FSF.
This is not what happened and I don't know why you would say "it's cancel culture". The issue with Torvalds was not about PR. It was a push by maintainers of the kernel, aka his peers. Torvalds was not criticized because of his opinions, but because of his behavior towards others. As he said in his own email [1] "My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for [...] I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry". Saying it's "cancel culture" is as if get fired from my company because I'm constantly lashing out at my colleagues and say "they fired me because of my opinions!".
A lot of times people conflate "cancel culture" with "people being responsible for what they say and do". In this case, Stallman replied to a protest that called for a review of MIT donor policies and association with people like Epstein with nitpicking about whether Minsky's actions (who was dead by that time already) were or not "technically sexual assault". That also helped surface a lot of actions and words by Stallman that were, at the very least, inadequate. Maybe that's not the kind of actions that one expects from the president of the FSF.
1: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/00117.html?... 2: https://www.facebook.com/events/687098025098336/