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Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

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Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#101

Post by 4bpp »

ariabuckles wrote: post #92
4bpp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I expect that the second- and third-degree network effects have. MIT has had a huge influence on open source software. Keeping the number of women who contribute to FOSS lower has a snowball effect of discouraging other women from contributing—there are fewer leaders to look up to, and day-to-day misogyny in FOSS spaces goes unchecked more often. Surely second- and third-degree network effects occur on the enco…

I think the negative effects spread further because they skew the field more. I think women are more likely to avoid FOSS because there are few women, even without knowing who RMS is, than men are likely to go into FOSS because of RMS or someone who was inspired by RMS. That's an assumption on my part, but I think making tech more equitable for all people is a worthy goal in itself, even if that doesn't increase the…

> implying that there's any way a rich, famous, 73-year-old man can "have sex with" (rape) a 17-year-old girl, whom he has extraordinary power over, and who, in in this case was his friend's trafficking victim.

...what are the scare quotes for? Is "have sex with" not a definitional superset of "rape"? As far as I can tell, Stallman does not assert that Giuffre was not raped, only that Minsky would probably not have known. (As far as he knew, she could equally have been one year older and legally, voluntarily engaged in prostitution...?) You could argue that (and I think that if Minsky did indeed have sex with her, you would have a very good case) that Minsky was extremely naive and/or irresponsible to not suspect anything amiss in the setting, but sexual (or any other) assault, in the view of many people, requires intent to harm someone against their will.

Here, it seems that the intent, and hence the primary guilt for the assault, most likely was squarely with Epstein and his associates: if a gun salesman takes you to his shooting range and tells you to fire a weapon at a target that he actually secretly tied a person to the back of, and you shoot that person dead, you are not on the hook for murder even if you should really have known that something is off and recall hearing muffled screams from somewhere at one point in hindsight.

> The idea that Minsky's "honour" is in any way more important than harm in what happened to Giuffre

Where did Stallman claim that?

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#102

Post by madacoo »

4bpp wrote: post #95
michannne wrote: post #38

It seems this thread and others like it has fueled a controversial honeypot, as some users are mass-downvoting comments that are perfectly in line with the content posted, simply because they stand for or against ousting Stallman, and others are doing the opposite -- mass upvoting comments that align with their predisposed view of the situation. I'd like to take sometime however to reiterate that freedom applies to a…

But consider the possibility that this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause (even if it comes at the expense of HN as a forum): the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. If you come into a HN thread believing X and then see that every post stating X got downvoted into oblivion, maybe…

> this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause

I dispute this is rational. Creating echo chambers polarises and intensifies opposing viewpoints. The rational thing to do would be to engage in polite and meaningful discussion with people with whom you disagree. This would diffuse extreme opinions and allow people time to consider whether or not their position is justified. Rather than reacting in a knee-jerk defensive manner that serves to protect identity by strengthening belief, they are then given space to examine beliefs in order to strengthen identity.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#103

Post by jakelazaroff »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #66
Frondo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaints about stallman aren't a matter of thoughtcrime, they're a matter of entirely inappropriate behavior, not just once but repeatedly, over the course of decades. This was the one that disturbed me the most: "Going to an RMS talk in the early 90s and meeting with him in person was among the worst of my experienced - I was fifteen, still obviously underage, and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a prof…

Are you actually kidding me? As you are nearing adulthood as a teenager, you are sometimes able to sneak into adult spaces and experience a bit of adult off-color talk. Not everything is guarded by a fence, but maybe more tech events should be if the alternative is catering to child sensitivities. In any case, these comments would not even be PG-13 in a Disney movie. Also, if the idea is to protect under-18s from any…

> Also, if the idea is to protect under-18s from any minor adult banter, how come 6th grade has an LGBTQ club?

What do these have to do with each other? Nothing about an LGBTQ club has to be "adult".

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#104

Post by michannne »

4bpp wrote: post #95
michannne wrote: post #38

It seems this thread and others like it has fueled a controversial honeypot, as some users are mass-downvoting comments that are perfectly in line with the content posted, simply because they stand for or against ousting Stallman, and others are doing the opposite -- mass upvoting comments that align with their predisposed view of the situation. I'd like to take sometime however to reiterate that freedom applies to a…

But consider the possibility that this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause (even if it comes at the expense of HN as a forum): the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. If you come into a HN thread believing X and then see that every post stating X got downvoted into oblivion, maybe…

Personally, I wouldn't identify an echo chamber as perfectly rational

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#105

Post by mav3rick »

4bpp wrote: post #84
mav3rick wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I've seen everything on HN to protect RMS. The Allies action was to counter gratuitous aggression and persecution of large swathes of people. Are you telling me RMS has had the same experiences in his life to warrant his egregious behavior ?

I don't think my leap from murder to war was greater than your leap from some gauche remarks during a talk in the '90s and a handful of emails lawyering about word choice that might have put some people off working in the speaker's discipline to murder. Other than that, what exactly is your point? At no point did I imply that rms's life history should be compared to the Allied intervention in Europe; I merely brought…

If any other person did this, especially someone from FAANG etc. you'll be out with your pitchforks. The double standard is so real.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#106

Post by gHosts »

grawprog wrote: post #19
sn41 wrote: post #7

In the years to come, I believe free software will be recognised as one of the paradigmatic changes in how science itself is done. Now chemists and biologists have started talking about making data openly available and so forth. It's a shame that RMS has to spout forth on every issue, and in the current climate of outrage, science may have lost an important transformational voice. I think as a society, we need to cal…

One of the things that really soured me to working as a biologist was being told the data we collected would not be allowed to be made freely available, as we originally proposed and was accepted in our grant proposal. Instead it would be locked away in a government database, available for a fee despite the data being collected using tax dollars, after we'd been working for over a year and a half on the project and h…

This is why we need initiatives like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#107

Post by 4bpp »

madacoo wrote: post #102
4bpp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But consider the possibility that this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause (even if it comes at the expense of HN as a forum): the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. If you come into a HN thread believing X and then see that every post stating X got downvoted into oblivion, maybe…

> this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause I dispute this is rational. Creating echo chambers polarises and intensifies opposing viewpoints. The rational thing to do would be to engage in polite and meaningful discussion with people with whom you disagree. This would diffuse extreme opinions and allow people time to consider whether or not their position is justified…

Can you elaborate on why you dispute it is rational? I'm working with a definition of "rational" that is more or less "the optimal way to attain your goals", and assuming that the goals of Stallman's detractors imply that everyone agrees that Stallman/people like him should be cancelled. My argument, then, is that (1) upvote/downvote patterns on a forum like HN are a useful tools to reduce the frequency of the case against Stallman's cancellation being made in other settings than HN, (2) in the long run, the case against the cancellation being made less frequently would result in more people assuming the belief that the cancellation was good. (Of course, if this were at all realistically attainable at this point, many in the pro-Stallman camp would also want "cancel Stallman" to be downvoted so hard that people would be afraid to argue for it in public.)

I don't really see how the rest of your post argues against that, or what your argument for "the rational thing to do would be to engage in polite and meaningful discussion(...)" is. Maybe we are using different definitions of "rational" and/or different assumptions about people's goals, in which case it would help if you could state yours.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#108

Post by mav3rick »

4bpp wrote: post #72
mav3rick wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are okay forgiving people as long as their "net impact" is positive? Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ?

In general, yes. Murder is a very peculiar case that is hardly suitable to be the benchmark for building our intuitions about trading off harm in general: human lives are not fungible, murder is not reversible, the victims do not generally get a meaningful way of influencing how the murder impacts them etc., all properties that do not apply in the case of being put off a pursuit like FOSS. (Even then, we're sometimes…

Also notice how it is almost always okay for "women" to be discouraged and counted as collateral damage. The fact that you do that tells me a lot.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#109

Post by salawat »

Just wanted to drop a Cliff Notes of the RMS controversy.

Specifically, Stallman has been accused of

(1) Defending Jeffrey Epstein (while in reality Stallman was defending Marvin Minsky);

(2) Describing Epstein's victims as entirely willing (while in reality Stallman was arguing that one specific victim of Epstein, Virginia Giuffre, was presented to Minsky as entirely willing because she was coerced by Epstein, not that she was entirely willing);

(3) Defendinf pedophilia (while in reality Stallman was arguing that age doesn't matter in a case of rape because rape is always a terrible act no matter the age of the victim);

(4) Defending pedophilia in the past (while in reality Stallman already countered his controversial claim from 2006 -in which he expressed skepticism in case of consensual sex- with a comment in 2013, where he said that children can't really be consensual);

(5) Condoned sexual assault (while in reality Stallman was arguing that the term "sexual assault" does not fit the description of Minsky's act towards Virginia Giuffre since she wasn't assaulted by Minsky but coerced by Epstein; Stallman also added that the term is generally too vague as it refers to bad acts that can range from harmful to very harmful, and that the term usually makes readers think of the worst case);

(6) Implying that the victim wasn't harmed (while in reality Stallman explicitly claimed that she was harmed);

(7) Making comments that are excuses about rape, assault and child sex trafficking (while he condemned all three as explained above);

(8) Used to keep a mattress in his MIT office, implying sexual activity and/or macho behavior at work (while in reality Stallman is known to have lived in his office for a certain period of his life).

As a consequence of these writings, Stallman resigned from his position at MIT and also from his position at the Free Software Foundation.

Sources in chronological order:

September 12

https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...

September 13

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/091320191... https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r... September 14

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_Septe...

Septembet 16

https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relations... https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-spea... https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September... https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns

OTHER REFERENCES Stallman on his home

https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

Stallman on Pedophilia, 2006

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

Stallman on pedophilia, part deuce, 2013

https://stallman.org/archives/2012-nov-feb.html#04_January_2...

There is a petition floating around for journalists to own up and post a retraction (not that anyone is expecting miracles), but if you're against having the Press straight up spreading lies, consider offering a signature.

https://www.change.org/p/journalists-to-stop-the-persecution...

I leave it to every individuals conscience to make of it what they will... I just know that to me, this entire thing stinks to high heaven. I cannot see any way in which any of this boondoggle can be remotely said to have happened in good faith. Spread the word, or just at least make your decision on the most accurate information possible.

For me, Free Software comes first, but a bit of journalistic integrity is also a primary concern. If journalists and these "cancel culture" are willing to go after the figurehead of the movement, and defile the primary values of the movement by twisting every detail imaginable, There is no real telling where things will stop.

I'm not one to usually get fired up over this sort of thing, but I do insist that some semblance of integrity be maintained when trying to challenge something. If you have a good case, then it will see you through to the end. If you have to cheat and lie to get what you want, it stands to reason that the ground you are arguing from May not have been that solid in the first place.

In the interests of keeping the "Free" in "Free Software" as good as the "Free" in "Free Beer"; please, raise awareness, and keep up the fight against disinformation.

Thank you.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#110

Post by 4bpp »

JamisonM wrote: post #96
donatj wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? lol. Why does everything always come to the Trolley Problem? I think anyone who was ever in favor of any war would agree that sometimes a death is justified when it saves many more?

It is not the Trolley Problem, you seem to misunderstand the issue. There is no binary choice here, it is not comparable.

There is one: (1) let Stallman keep his position and inspire/encourage one set of people, while discouraging/putting off another; (2) remove Stallman from his position, foregoing both the inspiration/encouragement and the discouragement/putting off.
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