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It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

mjg59.dreamwidth.org

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Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#3
Open source software is driven by powerful economic forces, not by RMS or his politics. In contrast, “free” software is a sideshow. The FSF is mostly irrelevant these days.

It’s interesting to note the history of the GNU project, which bootstrapped itself by ripping off pre-existing BSD licensed projects and publishing new implementations as GPL. Open source predates “free” software.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#4
Oh. I didn't realise Stallman's rigid stance to freedom of software also extended to having sex with children and victims of sex trafficking.

It's amazing how much hanging out in the tech world you don't hear anything about this.

Of course, just like he argues that a perpetrators is the real victim. I'm sure I'll read some article about how admirable Stallman's views are.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#5
I grow more and more tired of these discussions. Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist. Conferences are getting shut down, people are having their world turned upside down for being ignorant. Every topic is a hot potato. I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is. It’s easier to just be quiet than express opinions.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#6

I grow more and more tired of these discussions. Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist. Conferences are getting shut down, people are having their world turned upside down for being ignorant. Every topic is a hot potato. I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is. It’s easier to just be quiet than express opinions…

> Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist.

The problem is that not getting those people to stop doing that - or, if necessary, excluding them - causes them to exclude other people.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#7

I grow more and more tired of these discussions. Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist. Conferences are getting shut down, people are having their world turned upside down for being ignorant. Every topic is a hot potato. I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is. It’s easier to just be quiet than express opinions…

It turns out that if the opinion in question is “maybe pedophilia is ok” I am OK with the speaker being shut down and/or banished.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#9
> Remove everyone, if we must, and let something much better be built from the ashes.

This is cancel culture taken to the extreme. Now that everything is built, the builders are expendable. They're "problematic."

We're facing down a new form of puritanism that is a greater threat to civil rights than the "problematic" individuals they seek to destroy.

No defense for RMS' statement, it's absurd, but if there's no moderation whatsoever in regards to a proportionate response (eg. he's either "clean" or "unclean"), then no one else is safe as the mob ratchets up its criteria for existing as a virtuous person.

Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

#10

I grow more and more tired of these discussions. Talks of banishing people because they’re ignorant, rude, sexist. Conferences are getting shut down, people are having their world turned upside down for being ignorant. Every topic is a hot potato. I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is. It’s easier to just be quiet than express opinions…

>I feel i can’t even have a reasonable conversation about diversity, ignorance, or whatever the controversy of the day is.

Conform, or else.

I mean, I don't agree with what rms said, and I think sexual degenerates should be shot in the head, but Jesus, what the fuck do I care about his stance on politics. It's not my fucking problem.

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