Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue isn't one problematic statement. It's a history of behaviour that's documented to have driven multiple people away from the free software community and an absolute unwillingness on his part to do anything about it. If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already.
People who run away from something when their feelings get hurt are no great loss to whatever "movement" they're too weak to contribute to. Free Software has much bigger problems than these losers.
It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
71–80 of 128 posts
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't you have a reasonable discussion? Stallman emailed a big mailing list for a computer science department the following about a child sex trafficking victim: "The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem…Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it). ... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as en…
If a person has sex with a minor without knowing they are a minor it is a crime. But should they lose their livelihood and reputation if they didn’t know the parts that make it a crime or didn’t commit the coercion themselves? If I buy a car cheaply at auction that was seized as part of a drug-dealing crime and then get busted for having drugs still stashed in the doors, I am now a drug offender. I did not knowingly…
In every case you suggested, yes you would be charged as described, except the theft unless there was evidence you were not involved. In the first two you would go to court to prove your lack of guilt. We're talking about grown adults going to the house of a convicted sex offender finding young women who are held against their will in a harem and then having sex with them because they were told to make you happy. If you cannot understand why your defense wouldn't hold up in this case then you'll never be convinced. Stallman, a man I've met and had a very nice conversation with, holds views that literal children have the intellectual and emotional capacity to engage in sexual relationships with adults on equal footing. This is just plainly untrue. A child cannot fully understand the consequences, they aren't even fully developed yet. This is not the middle ages, this isn't the neolithic. We know the proper development is required for children to become proper adults. Stallman has repeatedly made statements and actions that are inappropriate, blatantly sexist, and has himself abused his position within the community for personal gain and satisfaction. As much as he has given to the FOSS community, it's time for him to step back as being the face, if he's not willing to do so then it's up to the community to police itself lest we all be considered supporting his positions.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#73I didn't read this as RMS minimizing sex trafficking or defending rapists. I read it as him making an inappropriate argument about semantics in entirely the wrong place. These are very different things, and it seems like many people, including the author of that Medium article, really want it to be the first instead of the second.
The best-case scenario is still incredibly sordid: Minsky partook in sex acts with a young woman 50+ years his junior who was part of a billionaire's "harem" without checking her age or true consent status.
Quibbling about whether it's actually sexual assault still leaves RMS using his position, stature, and reputation to defend this still horrible "best" case scenario. He still needs to go even if you believe this is what is going on here.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#74Who remembers Jimi Hendrix?
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#75> 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 mode…
The issue isn't one problematic statement. It's a history of behaviour that's documented to have driven multiple people away from the free software community and an absolute unwillingness on his part to do anything about it. If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already.
> If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already.
You are making a baseless assumption that it hurts the movement and are using it to push a change in leadership to someone, who is ideologically more aligned with your views (presumably, maybe you have hidden agendas, who knows). To me it seems that politically correct leadership afraid to talk about controversial topics and express controversial opinions is going to hurt free software much more by letting "the mobs", corporate PR attacks, etc. influence them and shape the movement.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
So they only work on commercial software projects because of Richard Stallman?
Yes. They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software.
> They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software.
This is clearly a fabricated justification. But if such people were to actually exist they would not participate in the free software movement either way due to misalignment of values and ideologies.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#77I 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.
> The problem is that not getting those people to stop doing that - or, if necessary, excluding them - causes them to exclude other people.
And getting those people to stop excludes people who don't like for anyone to force them to stop and to cave to the mobs.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> totally cool I didnt read that in the email thread. Human trafficked sex slaves appearing willing to Minsky does not mean everything is totally cool.
He keeps saying it shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or rape. If it’s not that then what is it?
For Minsksy it’s at least statutory rape, not cool at all. For Epstein it’s the whole gamut of messed up stuff, also not cool.
It seems to me that Stallman is saying that qualifying language is valuable as statutory rape in USVI (and most other jurisdictions) has a much smaller penalty than other forms of sexual assault. So using the same word for Epstein and Minsky is not fair, I think, to their victims.
But saying “use more accurate language” is not the same as saying what Minsky is accused of is totally cool.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
He keeps saying it shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or rape. If it’s not that then what is it?
For Minsksy it’s at least statutory rape, not cool at all. For Epstein it’s the whole gamut of messed up stuff, also not cool. It seems to me that Stallman is saying that qualifying language is valuable as statutory rape in USVI (and most other jurisdictions) has a much smaller penalty than other forms of sexual assault. So using the same word for Epstein and Minsky is not fair, I think, to their victims. But saying…
He also spends a lot of time arguing that statutory rape shouldn’t count. So if he thinks that’s all Minsky did, it seems entirely fair to summarize that as “totally cool.”
Not to mention that if Minsky did in fact have sex with a slave who was forced to do it, that’s real actual rape, and the best thing you could say there is that Minsky was somehow tricked into committing rape.
Re: It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue isn't one problematic statement. It's a history of behaviour that's documented to have driven multiple people away from the free software community and an absolute unwillingness on his part to do anything about it. If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already.
> If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already. You are making a baseless assumption that it hurts the movement and are using it to push a change in leadership to someone, who is ideologically more aligned with your views (presumably, maybe you have hidden agendas, who knows). To me it seems that politi…
These are not “controversial opinions.” Controversial opinions are things like “Chernobyl wasn’t that bad” or “abortion is murder.” This is just a guy defending the rape of children.