Techrights

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is Being Attacked by Organisations Jealous of Its Principled Stance and Longevity

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 03, 2025,

updated Sep 03, 2025

Over the years there have been several failed copycats of the FSF. We wrote about some of them. None lasted very long and one splinter group looks like it'll be insolvent rather soon (associating with toxic people and taking money from Microsoft [1, 2] cannot be helpful). The FSF will soon mature past 40 and the misleadingly named "FSFE" rapidly perishes after making Microsoft its top sponsor [1, 2, 3, 4]. Its blog has been barely active this year (we check this every week) and it's scarcely mentioned anywhere, it's virtually invisible in the media. It shot its own foot, relegating itself to assured irrelevancy.

The way I see it, the people who attack RMS (the founder of the FSF) are typically jealous hypocrites, who try to attack instead of befriend people "above them". It's a hallmark of sociopathic attitudes (the "crab mentality") and it extends to the institutional level, hence the persistent attacks on the FSF and its credibility. Maybe even its servers, which became hard to reach.

We never attacked the FSF, albeit we POLITELY criticised it when it made obvious errors (which it later came to regret itself). Nobody is perfect, but imperfection does not instantaneously imply sinister intent, complicity etc. █