I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally offensive.
Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When applied to autistic or neurodivergent individuals, however, PC norms work to disadvantage an already disadvantaged minority against groups that are both larger and often more economically and culturally free.
It's not just neurodivergence, but its that he recognizes where he jabs people and pretty much admits he doesn't care. I once had this conversation about with with ESR and I remember him saying "RMS doesn't care about the 'social overhead' of most person to person interactions" and so he kind of does his own normative preferences, thinking that because he finds them ideal, that others shouldn't be offended....but then he seems offended by an infinitely long list of things, and his intellect seems to treat this asymmetry as one big blind spot.
I've listened to him be rude to former co-workers (one seemingly on the basis that she was a woman in a technical role) and an absolute one man clown rodeo at various trade show events.
His philosophical brilliance has always impressed me, his personal presence is like rotting offal in the sun. He doesn't get the benefit of being remembered for the former when he puts in so much effort to broadcast the latter.
If someone is consistently failing to do the necessary part of a job, then it doesn't matter why they are consistently failing; they must be asked to step down and not do that job.
One of the responsibilities of anyone in power is to avoid emboldening sexual predators and silencing victims. Anyone in power who does that should be called out; and anyone who continues to do it after being called out should be asked to step down.
Let me start by saying that Stallman's words defending Minsky have absolutely been misinterpreted. He did not say that Guiffre was "entirely willing". And given that the age of consent in most of Europe is 16 or below [1], I think it's hypocritical for so many people to be outraged about Stallman saying maybe 17 isn't so bad.
Nonetheless, his defense of Minsky is still problematic. Why? Because in the hypothetical situation he described, Minsky had sex with Guiffre even though he should have seen red flags. (Don't get distracted here by arguing that Minsky did see red flags and didn't actually sleep with Guiffre. That's not the point: Stallman still defended Minsky as though he had.) By defending Minsky, he was indicating to all future sexual predators, "I will try to find excuses to defend your bad behavior"; and to all future sexual victims, "There is no point in coming forward; I will try to excuse the person who did this to you."
Now maybe Stallman didn't realize that's what he was doing; and maybe the reason he didn't realize it was because his brain is wired differently, which makes it difficult for him somehow. If so, we can cut him some slack personally; but it doesn't change the fact that it's harmful to have him in leadership.
Well put. This is in my eyes the biggest problem with the whole "politically correct" and identity politics movement: it assume the worst of people digressing a chosen subjective universal ideal, in the process singling out lots of individuals despite the self-proclaimed goal of diversity and acceptance. It's pretty warped to demand respect for your own personal difficulties and particularities while bashing others for theirs, or in other words, demand to be treated with respect as a human being while failing to see the human in others.
I think this entire moralistic debate is misguided. Granted, if RMS was indeed autistic, all the more reason to "judge" him more charitably. But even if he wasn't, its doesn't mean that his cancellation - based on things he might have said and, lest we forget, a smear campaign by an internet mob ignited by false accusations - was justified. RMS was one of the founders of the Free Software Movement - that is why he occupied that post at the FSF. Not because he was the epitome of high Christian morals - why would/should that be a job requirement in his line of work? Do you want righteous activists also demand they be "nice guys"? If so, time to start cancelling the very champions of cancel culture as few of them are "nice people" (which, btw, is bound to happen if history is any indication). You cannot have your cake and eat it, too...
Just wondering what the source is for Stallman being autistic? I see people saying he's autistic, and I even see people saying he has called himself "borderline autistic", but that's not quite the same thing as a diagnosis. I don't see a reliable source making that claim; even Wikipedia says nothing about it (except a backstage talk item about there not being any source on the claim).
I admit, the circumstantial evidence is, uhh, indicative, but I don't see it being a matter of public record. Then again, I only did six and a half minutes of internet research, though, and I could be wrong, thus the question mark.
I don't even think we should be "advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people".
We should just stop using our prejudice to misinterpret statements, and we should stop putting words in other people's mouths.
Autistic people (who usually talk in a very literal way) would be benefited by this change as a byproduct, but this principle should apply to everyone, not only to neurodivergent people.
Is what the person said technically correct? Yes or no. That's all that matters.
Neurodiversity – up to some point anyway, some people take it a tad too far – is great, but that also means that different people are, well, different, and are good at different things.
Stallman is good at many different things and he doesn't seem like e bad bloke overall. But he is not good at being a leader. At all. It's just not where his aptitudes lie. As a leader he is not only ineffective, but even counter-productive and harmful.
I feel the entire conversation about the statements surrounding Minsky are a bit of a distraction; what we should really be talking about is something like "is Stallman the best person to represent us as a community?" I'd argue he's not, and has never really been.
I think this is spot on, because people stopped caring about someone's intention before judging them. Maybe people got so good at lying about their intention, that we don't believe them when they say "it wasn't my intention" when someone says something bad. The end result is the same, it doesn't matter what your intention was, you say something bad, you deserve bad back.
Selam Jie Gano, a female at MIT when he worked there wrote:
“There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”
It also an issue I have with Codes of Conduct. There was a person who posted to the LKML about his autism and concerns over unintentionally violating the CoC, and whether he should continue to contribute or not. I don't recall anyone replying to him and his concerns either.
Computing can possibly be considered a 'safe space' for people like the above but that has now been dismantled to suit other people. Who owns the safe spaces?
plenty of autistic people manage to be decent. making excuses like this simply dodges responsibility and assigns bad credit to millions of autistic people who don't deserve it, and amounts to concern trolling.
If we're going to be understanding towards neurodivergent people, a good place to start is not defining "autism" as "the inability to be anything other than an asshole, the inability to understand after people patiently work with you to explain why people think you're being an asshole [1], and the inability to apologize."
Also, a lot of the people who are upset with RMS and think he should stop being the figurehead of the movement are, themselves, neurodivergent! If we're going to assume that autistic people are fundamentally incapable of communicating with mainstream norms, what do we do for autistic people who are harmed by RMS's actions but aren't able to express it in a way the mainstream can hear?
I've always been against this scarlet letter mentality that seems pervasive.
I've also been vocally against RMS's particular brand of outreach as being incredibly alienating of the people whose opinions he actually needs to address. Admittedly, if he does have autism there's a ton of things that start to make sense, speaking from my own experiences with and around it, but I can't actually find a reference to any confirmed diagnosis from him. He's said he "suspects" as such, and I might as well, but it doesn't really help as neither of us are trained professionals. That being said, from my experience with autistic folks and what I know about him, it's not super surprising that he wouldn't get himself actually diagnosed or checked.
Being “neurodivergent” isn’t a license to hurt people. Yes, it is a reason to refrain from punishing someone, because punishment requires guilt. It isn’t a reason not to take the steps necessary to protect others, such as not putting them in a position of power.
Example: it doesn’t make sense to punish a cat that eats your parrot, because that’s what cats do. It does make sense to lock the door between the cat and the parrot.
I am an incredibly neurodivergent person and through focused effort, driven by caring about how other people feel, I've picked up on many social cues. I am comfortable excluding people who use their neurodivergence as an excuse to be unkind to other people.
There is no objectivity in this. RMS was attacked by a specific subgroup of the identity culture. He could well be defended by another. Sometimes identity politics just seems to be the continuation of european leftist splinter group infighting with other means.
Exactly. Unfortunately, there are activists within the GNU movement, like Andy Wingo, that have done everything they can to have RMS removed from everything he has built.
Celebrating neurodiversity is crucial! It is in my view a very basic human rights issue.
However it does not, or at least should not, extend to excusing/permitting behaviors that hurt others.
Much human anguish and suffering could be alleviated if we had a greater understanding of one simple truth: "your rights end where mine begin."
On balance, I think RMS is ultimately a person who has greatly benefited the world. However, the stories of people made uncomfortable by his actions and statements are legion and in a more practical sense are detrimental to his cause. How can folks with with/under him when he's behaving in some of these ways? Why does the leader of the FSF even need to be broadcasting his beliefs that Minsky did nothing wrong when he had sex with a 17 year-old provided to him by a child trafficker?
As somebody who (like most folks on HN, probably) is not exactly "neurotypical", I realize that it's part of my responsibility to moderate my own words and actions if I want to take part in society.
Neurodivergent folks often need a little extra time to learn or for somebody to sit down and explain things to clearly. We do not need a carte blanche for decades of sexual harassment. That's just somebody being an asshole and using us as a shield.
I think in recent years people are being criticized for what they say rather than what they do, as if saying it is the same as doing it. You should be able to hold a negative viewpoint as long as you don't act on it.
I find it strange as a neurodivergent person that this person has a reputation for abusive behavior and that’s excused for him because he has celebrity in certain circles. I wouldn’t and shouldn’t be afforded that, and rightly haven’t when I’ve misunderstood how to treat others.
I do not. Being unusual does not free you from the burdens of being a decent person, especially while in a public leadership position, especially when your violations are a repeated trend over a very long period.
With the right diagnostic criteria just about everybody who is an asshole could be diagnosed with some mental disorder or another and that is more or less the present state of psychology, that kind of reasoning is asking for a consequence free society.
The kind of person RMS has shown himself to be, regardless of diagnosis, disqualifies him from being a public figure and leader.
For those who do not know RMS personally: "I worked for RMS longer than any other programmer. ... This was an own-goal for RMS. He has had plenty of opportunities to learn how to stfu when that’s necessary. ... I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS’s behavior was a concern [in the 1990s], and that [Marvin Minsky's] protection was itself part of the problem. He was never held to account; he was himself coddled in his own lower-grade misbehavior and mistreatment of women. He made the place uncomfortable for a lot of people, and especially women. ... RMS’s mere presence on the scene in this way has served to make it harder to deal with other cases of bad leaders’ bad behavior. It is time for the free software community to leave adolescence and move to adulthood, and this requires leaving childish tantrums, abusive language, and toxic environments behind." — Thomas Bushnell https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
Richard says he's not autistic. People who try to conflate his bad behaviour and autism are excusing his behaviour and unfairly generalising about autistic people.
Richard is argumentative about his bad behaviour. He's not oblivious. Plenty of people have spoken to him about it. You'd think he might take a hint after being removed from his own organisation and all the surrounding commentary. He doesn't care.
(Separately, "techrights" is run by an obsessive troll who harasses people in the FLOSS community.)
Stallman was pressured to resign from the board and MIT because of some of these controversies:
- Jeffrey Epstein coerced one of his victims to have sex with Marvin Minsky. In an online thread, Stallman argued that this might not be sexual assault if Minsky didn't realize she was coerced.
- 10 years ago, Stallman claimed that 14 year olds are old enough to consent to sex and it's not pedophilia. He since retracted this claim
- He is generally very weird and doesn't have etiquite. For example, he was invited to a fancy restaurant and then pranced around the tables because he wanted to dance
Overall, Stallman is very unaware of societal expectations, so sometimes he says things ranging from non-PC to outright sexist, albeit unintentionally.
We've all heard of the bus factor. Software project isn't a one-man show. There's no shortage of brilliant pioneers handing the baton to someone else or just sliding into obscurity for any number of reasons (e.g., got bored, found another passion, started a new project, gone off the rail, etc.). People no longer care about ESR's opinions, and that's OK. There's no reason FSF should need Stallman's continued presence - it's a software advocacy group, not a cult.
I just find it frustrating that Stallman is considered beyond reproach, because he wrote something great decades ago, when his contribution in the past 20 years or so was hardly irreplaceable. Almost makes me wonder if he's being held as champion because he is an asshole who can't talk to women without creeping them out.
Mob justice is not OK just because women do it.
If these women have anything substantial they should make formal reports/complaints, not anonymous vogue statements like, "he make me feel uncomfortable".
Cannot believe that one even has to say this. Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty?
Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfortable, but that does not mean it is grounds for firing that person. At some point you have to just fend for yourself and tell the person to fuck off. We cannot just fire anyone who has some harmless quirk that you don't appreciate. I myself have to work with loads of people with nasty behaviours, but I don't presume to demand they all get fired just because of that.
I mean, this has gotten ridiculous. We went from "he grabbed me by the pussy" and "he jerked off in front of me" to .... "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". The latter is perfectly normal behavior unless you propose we criminalize being a man.
It felt to me that we were attempting to purge a man from his life work, for...What? I'm still not sure, a vague allegation of alienation of a hypothetical future user base.
I found the whole thing distasteful, and moved away from guix as a consequence. I do in earnest hope they rescind their statement - if nothing else the timing of it was terrible, like they were jumping on a bandwagon.
The canary has been resuscitated... while I don't agree with everything he says, I think we do need an extremist or two to keep the fringes of opinion where they are.
Stallman is a bastion of software freedom in a world turning progressively dark. The fact that he never ever compromised his ideals and principles, never sold out and has been repeatedly proven prescient and absolutely on the money on countless issues, makes him someone that we should strive to protect.
There are many invididuals in the Free Software world that backstabbed RMS and tried to destroy him with malicious character attacks. Here is one example:
I am here to say I am pleased to see RMS active in software issues again.
I am a fan of his ideas related to software, and his gift to us has paid me and most of my peers off over and over. Tons of others have added to all that and here we are today.
Personally, I will consider what he says about software, data, IP.
The man is not often wrong. Has a lot to say, and he should be heard.
There are other issues, and that is all quite difficult. Painful. I would say unnecessary, but I know better, save to say I do not see that in terms of bad intent. I do see a very different set of priorities. Not speaking to right or wrong here, just understanding and a desire to move open ideas further along, bolster them to endure.
I sincerely hope everyone involved can help keep the focus where it counts.
I do not plan on speaking to RMS as a person, nor giving his opinions weight outside of computing freedom. Given these times, an RMS, however painful, seems necessary.
I just want the software, data, IP vision to endure, thrive and continue to deliver far more use value than any one contributor adds or user invests. He can really help to do that, and I think he should.
OSS is a beautiful thing.
I remember the first time I heard about GNU. Was profound.
Took a while, and the likes of ESR and others who took the time to write and speak to people like me seeking to grok it all.
Unlike physical goods and services, software can be a multiplier. The whole is greater than the parts. We can, and often easily do, get more than we may give.
These ideas have empowered people all over the world.
And they range from curious, driven people of little means dumpster diving to get going through to others who may want for nothing, all able to pick up the body of OSS code and open data and run with it.
I feel deeply our actions, law, norms, expectations all set now will matter for a very long time.
Getting all that more right than wrong is going to touch pretty much everyone and the potential impacts are profound. The possible futures vary widely, and not just degrees of good. It could all be not so good at all.
But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign.
"not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he removed but not before someone took a photo of it"
Was the sign a one-time joke, someone knowingly did, RMS left amused there for a while, days, weeks, months?
Or was he annoyed and removed it once he got to it?
Or was it part of a smear campaign? Even just happened recently at the time of the attacks, or way before?
Quite different scenarios. I suspect the first one to be true. But I am open to more solid facts, for example by someone, who actually was or is at the MIT.
It's great that he's back, but he shouldn't have been gone in the first place. Mob justice ("cancelling") shouldn't be a thing. It's time we had a serious discussion about what we can do to stop this. Step 0 should be finding the courage to stick up for people like RMS in the first place.
Subsequent steps? I'm not sure. We need to collectively get the feeling that it's gone way too far and the costs of sticking up for people like RMS are i) smaller than they seem, and ii) worth it.
Ok, he is more than a Saint of the Church of Emacs. See the signs: He delivered the Holy GNU OS, He was cancelled, and now He came back from being cancelled. Witness that He is the true messenger of GNU and the Messiah of the Free Software movement.
holy fucking HYPE. I'm glad I emailed advocating for him. He actually got back to me because the pansies running FSF's emails had no good answers to any of my questions.
Wow, people actually think that being somewhat neuro-diverse is reason enough or even an excuse for RMS behavior?
I haven't been a fan of the FSF in years (especially after meeting a few of their employees in Germany) but bringing RMS back is the definitive nail in the coffin of that organisation. I wouldn't be surprised if the few reasonable people still working for FSF leave and the org shuts down in a few years because they can't attract talent anymore and their donations dry up.
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224&p=3
(Posts like this will go away once we turn off pagination.)
[+] [-] Mediterraneo10|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostrademons|5 years ago|reply
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...
Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When applied to autistic or neurodivergent individuals, however, PC norms work to disadvantage an already disadvantaged minority against groups that are both larger and often more economically and culturally free.
[+] [-] zeruch|5 years ago|reply
I've listened to him be rude to former co-workers (one seemingly on the basis that she was a woman in a technical role) and an absolute one man clown rodeo at various trade show events.
His philosophical brilliance has always impressed me, his personal presence is like rotting offal in the sun. He doesn't get the benefit of being remembered for the former when he puts in so much effort to broadcast the latter.
[+] [-] gwd|5 years ago|reply
One of the responsibilities of anyone in power is to avoid emboldening sexual predators and silencing victims. Anyone in power who does that should be called out; and anyone who continues to do it after being called out should be asked to step down.
Let me start by saying that Stallman's words defending Minsky have absolutely been misinterpreted. He did not say that Guiffre was "entirely willing". And given that the age of consent in most of Europe is 16 or below [1], I think it's hypocritical for so many people to be outraged about Stallman saying maybe 17 isn't so bad.
Nonetheless, his defense of Minsky is still problematic. Why? Because in the hypothetical situation he described, Minsky had sex with Guiffre even though he should have seen red flags. (Don't get distracted here by arguing that Minsky did see red flags and didn't actually sleep with Guiffre. That's not the point: Stallman still defended Minsky as though he had.) By defending Minsky, he was indicating to all future sexual predators, "I will try to find excuses to defend your bad behavior"; and to all future sexual victims, "There is no point in coming forward; I will try to excuse the person who did this to you."
Now maybe Stallman didn't realize that's what he was doing; and maybe the reason he didn't realize it was because his brain is wired differently, which makes it difficult for him somehow. If so, we can cut him some slack personally; but it doesn't change the fact that it's harmful to have him in leadership.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe
[+] [-] wvh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilyaeck|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|5 years ago|reply
I admit, the circumstantial evidence is, uhh, indicative, but I don't see it being a matter of public record. Then again, I only did six and a half minutes of internet research, though, and I could be wrong, thus the question mark.
[+] [-] compiler-guy|5 years ago|reply
A few final statements did bring him down, but he had been chipping at the foundation for years.
[+] [-] young_unixer|5 years ago|reply
We should just stop using our prejudice to misinterpret statements, and we should stop putting words in other people's mouths.
Autistic people (who usually talk in a very literal way) would be benefited by this change as a byproduct, but this principle should apply to everyone, not only to neurodivergent people.
Is what the person said technically correct? Yes or no. That's all that matters.
[+] [-] arp242|5 years ago|reply
Stallman is good at many different things and he doesn't seem like e bad bloke overall. But he is not good at being a leader. At all. It's just not where his aptitudes lie. As a leader he is not only ineffective, but even counter-productive and harmful.
I feel the entire conversation about the statements surrounding Minsky are a bit of a distraction; what we should really be talking about is something like "is Stallman the best person to represent us as a community?" I'd argue he's not, and has never really been.
[+] [-] capableweb|5 years ago|reply
I think this is spot on, because people stopped caring about someone's intention before judging them. Maybe people got so good at lying about their intention, that we don't believe them when they say "it wasn't my intention" when someone says something bad. The end result is the same, it doesn't matter what your intention was, you say something bad, you deserve bad back.
[+] [-] bigtones|5 years ago|reply
“There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”
[+] [-] koonsolo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw6119088|5 years ago|reply
[1] Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists (Ellen Spertus, 1991)
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7040
[2] How to Encourage Women in Linux (Val Henson, 2002)
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/
[3] What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You (Kathryn S. McKinley, 2018)
https://www.sigarch.org/what-happens-to-us-does-not-happen-t...
[4] Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, 2001)
https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-P...
[+] [-] secondcoming|5 years ago|reply
Computing can possibly be considered a 'safe space' for people like the above but that has now been dismantled to suit other people. Who owns the safe spaces?
I'm not condoning people being assholes, BTW.
[+] [-] ruined|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geofft|5 years ago|reply
Also, a lot of the people who are upset with RMS and think he should stop being the figurehead of the movement are, themselves, neurodivergent! If we're going to assume that autistic people are fundamentally incapable of communicating with mainstream norms, what do we do for autistic people who are harmed by RMS's actions but aren't able to express it in a way the mainstream can hear?
[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
[+] [-] jedimastert|5 years ago|reply
I've also been vocally against RMS's particular brand of outreach as being incredibly alienating of the people whose opinions he actually needs to address. Admittedly, if he does have autism there's a ton of things that start to make sense, speaking from my own experiences with and around it, but I can't actually find a reference to any confirmed diagnosis from him. He's said he "suspects" as such, and I might as well, but it doesn't really help as neither of us are trained professionals. That being said, from my experience with autistic folks and what I know about him, it's not super surprising that he wouldn't get himself actually diagnosed or checked.
[+] [-] IfOnlyYouKnew|5 years ago|reply
Example: it doesn’t make sense to punish a cat that eats your parrot, because that’s what cats do. It does make sense to lock the door between the cat and the parrot.
[+] [-] howinteresting|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choeger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gypsyharlot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnBooty|5 years ago|reply
However it does not, or at least should not, extend to excusing/permitting behaviors that hurt others.
Much human anguish and suffering could be alleviated if we had a greater understanding of one simple truth: "your rights end where mine begin."
On balance, I think RMS is ultimately a person who has greatly benefited the world. However, the stories of people made uncomfortable by his actions and statements are legion and in a more practical sense are detrimental to his cause. How can folks with with/under him when he's behaving in some of these ways? Why does the leader of the FSF even need to be broadcasting his beliefs that Minsky did nothing wrong when he had sex with a 17 year-old provided to him by a child trafficker?
As somebody who (like most folks on HN, probably) is not exactly "neurotypical", I realize that it's part of my responsibility to moderate my own words and actions if I want to take part in society.
[+] [-] duxup|5 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how to make that call.
[+] [-] bluehat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spicybright|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eyelidlessness|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|5 years ago|reply
With the right diagnostic criteria just about everybody who is an asshole could be diagnosed with some mental disorder or another and that is more or less the present state of psychology, that kind of reasoning is asking for a consequence free society.
The kind of person RMS has shown himself to be, regardless of diagnosis, disqualifies him from being a public figure and leader.
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivingmenuts|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdub|5 years ago|reply
Richard is argumentative about his bad behaviour. He's not oblivious. Plenty of people have spoken to him about it. You'd think he might take a hint after being removed from his own organisation and all the surrounding commentary. He doesn't care.
(Separately, "techrights" is run by an obsessive troll who harasses people in the FLOSS community.)
[+] [-] armchairhacker|5 years ago|reply
Stallman was pressured to resign from the board and MIT because of some of these controversies:
- Jeffrey Epstein coerced one of his victims to have sex with Marvin Minsky. In an online thread, Stallman argued that this might not be sexual assault if Minsky didn't realize she was coerced.
- 10 years ago, Stallman claimed that 14 year olds are old enough to consent to sex and it's not pedophilia. He since retracted this claim
- He is generally very weird and doesn't have etiquite. For example, he was invited to a fancy restaurant and then pranced around the tables because he wanted to dance
Overall, Stallman is very unaware of societal expectations, so sometimes he says things ranging from non-PC to outright sexist, albeit unintentionally.
EDIT: Fixed some inaccuracies
[+] [-] yongjik|5 years ago|reply
I just find it frustrating that Stallman is considered beyond reproach, because he wrote something great decades ago, when his contribution in the past 20 years or so was hardly irreplaceable. Almost makes me wonder if he's being held as champion because he is an asshole who can't talk to women without creeping them out.
[+] [-] dralley|5 years ago|reply
But he has been a huge contributor to GNU's decent into irrelevance in recent years. As an organization, they're perpetually stuck in the 1990s.
[+] [-] de_nied|5 years ago|reply
https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/blogs/lxo/2021-01-10-resignati...
https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/blogs/lxo/2020-12-19-leadershi...
[+] [-] mustafa_pasi|5 years ago|reply
Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfortable, but that does not mean it is grounds for firing that person. At some point you have to just fend for yourself and tell the person to fuck off. We cannot just fire anyone who has some harmless quirk that you don't appreciate. I myself have to work with loads of people with nasty behaviours, but I don't presume to demand they all get fired just because of that.
I mean, this has gotten ridiculous. We went from "he grabbed me by the pussy" and "he jerked off in front of me" to .... "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". The latter is perfectly normal behavior unless you propose we criminalize being a man.
[+] [-] srer|5 years ago|reply
I recall https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... happening at the same time as the FSF incident, which fortunately didn't pan out.
It felt to me that we were attempting to purge a man from his life work, for...What? I'm still not sure, a vague allegation of alienation of a hypothetical future user base.
I found the whole thing distasteful, and moved away from guix as a consequence. I do in earnest hope they rescind their statement - if nothing else the timing of it was terrible, like they were jumping on a bandwagon.
[+] [-] userbinator|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creamytaco|5 years ago|reply
There are many invididuals in the Free Software world that backstabbed RMS and tried to destroy him with malicious character attacks. Here is one example:
https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and...
Has Andy Wingo apologized?
[+] [-] ddingus|5 years ago|reply
I am a fan of his ideas related to software, and his gift to us has paid me and most of my peers off over and over. Tons of others have added to all that and here we are today.
Personally, I will consider what he says about software, data, IP.
The man is not often wrong. Has a lot to say, and he should be heard.
There are other issues, and that is all quite difficult. Painful. I would say unnecessary, but I know better, save to say I do not see that in terms of bad intent. I do see a very different set of priorities. Not speaking to right or wrong here, just understanding and a desire to move open ideas further along, bolster them to endure.
I sincerely hope everyone involved can help keep the focus where it counts.
I do not plan on speaking to RMS as a person, nor giving his opinions weight outside of computing freedom. Given these times, an RMS, however painful, seems necessary.
I just want the software, data, IP vision to endure, thrive and continue to deliver far more use value than any one contributor adds or user invests. He can really help to do that, and I think he should.
OSS is a beautiful thing.
I remember the first time I heard about GNU. Was profound.
Took a while, and the likes of ESR and others who took the time to write and speak to people like me seeking to grok it all.
Unlike physical goods and services, software can be a multiplier. The whole is greater than the parts. We can, and often easily do, get more than we may give.
These ideas have empowered people all over the world.
And they range from curious, driven people of little means dumpster diving to get going through to others who may want for nothing, all able to pick up the body of OSS code and open data and run with it.
I feel deeply our actions, law, norms, expectations all set now will matter for a very long time.
Getting all that more right than wrong is going to touch pretty much everyone and the potential impacts are profound. The possible futures vary widely, and not just degrees of good. It could all be not so good at all.
Either way, this will all solidify.
Does not have to be bad. I sure hope it isn't.
[+] [-] zoobab|5 years ago|reply
http://techrights.org/2020/09/10/the-fake-door-sign/
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
So this was the original post that lead to RMS resign.
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
Here is a defending one.
https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...
But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign.
"not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he removed but not before someone took a photo of it"
Was the sign a one-time joke, someone knowingly did, RMS left amused there for a while, days, weeks, months?
Or was he annoyed and removed it once he got to it?
Or was it part of a smear campaign? Even just happened recently at the time of the attacks, or way before?
Quite different scenarios. I suspect the first one to be true. But I am open to more solid facts, for example by someone, who actually was or is at the MIT.
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|5 years ago|reply
It's great that he's back, but he shouldn't have been gone in the first place. Mob justice ("cancelling") shouldn't be a thing. It's time we had a serious discussion about what we can do to stop this. Step 0 should be finding the courage to stick up for people like RMS in the first place.
Subsequent steps? I'm not sure. We need to collectively get the feeling that it's gone way too far and the costs of sticking up for people like RMS are i) smaller than they seem, and ii) worth it.
[+] [-] Andrew_nenakhov|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hda2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonvorhe|5 years ago|reply
I haven't been a fan of the FSF in years (especially after meeting a few of their employees in Germany) but bringing RMS back is the definitive nail in the coffin of that organisation. I wouldn't be surprised if the few reasonable people still working for FSF leave and the org shuts down in a few years because they can't attract talent anymore and their donations dry up.