Stallman got into hot water when he cast doubt upon the reports that AI pioneer Marvin Minsky had sexually assaulted one of Epstein's victims. In an email chain sent to the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) mailing list that was published by Motherboard, Stallman said that "the most plausible scenario" was that Epstein's victim "presented herself to [Marvin Minsky] as entirely willing".

Stallman described the distinction between a 17 or 18-year-old victim as a "minor" detail, and suggested that it was an "injustice" to refer to it as a "sexual assault". The emails first came to light after MIT alum Selam Jie Gano posted about them on Medium, and she said they would have been seen by undergraduates who are themselves 17 or 18.

MIT professor Marvin Minsky, who died in 2016, was chums with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

After a discrete period, Stallman announced he had returned to FSF and was not going to resign again. Now, it appears some people have a problem with that.

An open letter signed by hundreds of people called for Stallman to be removed, and this time  FSF's entire board have to go with him.

Letter signers include Neil McGovern, GNOME Foundation executive director and former Debian Project Leader; Deb Nicholson, general manager of the Open Source Initiative; Matthew Garrett, a former member of the FSF board of directors; seven of the eight members of the X.org Foundation board of directors; Elana Hashman of the Debian Technical Committee, Open Source Initiative, and Kubernetes project; Molly de Blanc of the Debian Project and GNOME Foundation; and more than 300 others. That number has been rising quickly today: the open letter contains instructions for signing it.

The letter said all FSF board members should be removed because they "have enabled and empowered RMS for years. They demonstrate this again by permitting him to rejoin the FSF Board. RMS is time to step back from the free software, tech ethics, digital rights, and tech communities, for he cannot provide the leadership we need."

The letter also called for Stallman to be removed from his position leading the GNU Project. "We urge those in a position to do so to stop supporting the Free Software Foundation", they wrote.

"Refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF and RMS. Do not speak at or attend FSF events, or events that welcome RMS and his intolerance brand. We ask for contributors to free software projects to take a stand against bigotry and hate within their projects. While doing these things, tell these communities and the FSF why."