I thought @eff's "Statement on the Re-election of Richard Stallman to the FSF Board" summed things up really well, particularly the way the surprise and secretive reinstatement undermined trust from the community in what should have been a time of healing https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-richard-stallman-fsf-board
The "in what should have been a time of healing" bit is not something the @eff said in their post, that's my own add, but I think is part of the subtext and particularly why it hit and hurt so hard... and why it seemed shocking and *obviously* a poor approach.
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@freemo @eff I don't support reinstatement to the board, but it would have been possible to work with the community to define what people felt comfortable and safe with... *that* would have been an approach which could have been restorative and healing. The way it was announced as "SURPRISE! The king is BACK!!!" was... it was obviously foolish. No matter how the board members felt about whether RMS *deserved* to be on the board, the *reaction* should have been easy to read.
So a few questions so i can further understand your point..
1) Why do you feel the EFF was in a time of healing, healing from what?
2) presuming the bylaws were not broken and the board had the authority to vote stallman back on the board then it sounds like your issue is that it happened in secret and the community didnt have a chance to give feedback. Would you have found it acceptable if they simply first announced they were considering bringing him back, heard any feedback, then voted and he was added back anyway? Like its the surprise aspect that just seemed wrong to you without engaging the community right?
Fair.. Id be curious to hear why you feel the FSF was in a time of healing with their relationship with the free software community. I feel like there were some events or split I could be missing.
With that said, while we disagree on stallman and I do support his reinstatement on everything else you said we do agree.
@freemo @eff 1) I'm not saying the EFF was in a time of healing, but that the free software community and the FSF were in a process of healing their relationships with each other
2) By your own framing, yes I do not believe there was a *violation of procedure* on part of the board members who voted in favor of this, at least. The other board members were *told* that this reaction was coming (and we know so, because one board member has said publicly they told the rest of this) and did it anyway