You still can read it in this reply: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists....

Thanks. This 'under attack' and 'us vs them' really sucks. It would be unwise to form an opinion of the whole thing without actually reading all of the emails. Yes, there are ad-hominem attacks in the email you quoted, and even if ESR was right in everything, probably not the best way to express it.

Anyway, at least this outrage brought the issue into attention, now I'm super curious about this matter.

I'm reading his side first here: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8609

I can't believe the article says that they muzzled ESR because of the Verizon employee. If you look at the response of the employee it is by no means calling for removal and is quite respectful.

The question is not whether it elevates the conversation, but whether this is a sufficient reason for a ban.

I would think that a ban should be based on what you do to the tone of the conversation.

With that said, I don’t see how this email meets that standard.

If someone is consistently debasing the level of conversation then yes, it does merit some kind of action. Unmoderated communities turn to shit very quickly.

These kind of bans are never about "one thing." I'm sure this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, especially given ESR's history.

Merely calling people Marxists would be better than what he actually did, which was calling them a “toxic loonytoon” conspiracy theorist engaging in “political ratfucking” by attempting to “install political officers in every open-source project” as part of a campaign against freedom. Sure, he also mentioned Marxism, and probably associates all those other things with Marxism, but the reference to Marxism itself was probably the least problematic part of the barrage of personal attacks.

The people in question are usually quite proud of being Marxists.