Thread: This tweet got me to thinking: is there a way to show just how broken the FSF is as an organization?

Is there a way to show how their board isn't really a functioning board, but rather an enabling body for RMS?

Turns out, there is! And I will show you in *four* tweets. https://twitter.com/therealfitz/status/1381656583554404353

First, let's look at how the board of the Python Software Foundation has evolved over the last 20 years. Red cell = a year that that person is on the board.

Note the healthy turnover and drive for diversity and new people on the board!

Second, let's look at the Apache Software Foundation: there are some folks who were on the board for many years, but overall, a decent amount of turnover. Fresh faces coming in every year.

(Full disclosure: I am a member of the ASF)

Third, let's take a look at the board of the Open Source Initiative. This is a younger (and somewhat different) organization than the others, but it's worth throwing them in here as a FLOSS comparison detail. Lots of continuation, but some element of turnover here. Not too bad.

Last, and most definitely least, we come to the Free Software Foundation, which shows that the majority of the board has remained *completely static* for the last 20 years.

This isn't a board, it's an enabling body for RMS's toxic behavior.

Q.E.D.

If you'd like to see the actual spreadsheet I used to make this *super* simple data visualization, here it is.

And thanks to @kennethn for the 990 suggestion and @nanaze for pulling all the FSF 990s from ProPublica. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1boB6Vje9V00RPgce8AGreZS-CMtPrAeGehyQbyiUgu0/edit?usp=sharing

And for anyone wondering why I care about all this: I first discovered Free Software back in the 90s through my friend Karl Fogel. It changed my career and was my gateway to a career working in Open Source and Open Data.

And as such, I'm incredibly sad and angry to see the Free Software movement destroyed and marginalized in this manner.