I've read a bunch of ESR's writing, and I disagree with him on an awful lot of political and social issues. Chances are we wouldn't get along very well.
Tone-policing, cancel culture, and identity politics are a real problem though, and it seems like they're getting out of hand. This is happening everywhere though - it's not unique to the open source world at all.
I don't know what the right solution is.
ESR and RMS (who recently got removed from the FSF) helped create the open-source movement that we have today. And they both were instrumental popularizing the hacker counter-culture that dominated Linux during its rise to prominence.
Would I like them as people? Maybe. Probably not. I don't know. It seems wrong to marginalize them and cast them aside though, even if they're socially awkward or say the wrong thing sometimes.
Tone-policing, cancel culture, and identity politics are a real problem though, and it seems like they're getting out of hand. This is happening everywhere though - it's not unique to the open source world at all.
I don't know what the right solution is.
ESR and RMS (who recently got removed from the FSF) helped create the open-source movement that we have today. And they both were instrumental popularizing the hacker counter-culture that dominated Linux during its rise to prominence.
Would I like them as people? Maybe. Probably not. I don't know. It seems wrong to marginalize them and cast them aside though, even if they're socially awkward or say the wrong thing sometimes.