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

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401–410 of 426 posts

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

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are part of the same system that vilifies assault / harassment victims "I'm out of arguments, so you're just a ..." Please don't do that. >by saying accusations are "too old" / "he / she isn't remembering correctly". It's been nearly a week now. That's a long time for people to come forward with police reports, official complaints, etc. So far there is "Knight for Justice (also: hot ladies)", and, "I hear people…

Oh wow. You get to decide how much time is enough to exonerate someone of all accusations i.e. 1 week ? You say that other accusations are "too old", this is precisely why victims are afraid to come forward in every such case. No one takes them seriously and in fact vilifies them more than the alleged perpetrator. Have fun being a "Knight of RMS", defend him on his most egregious qualities.

> You get to decide how much time is enough to exonerate someone of all accusations i.e. 1 week

Not at all. Again, something I didn't say or imply. Please make an effort to read what I write, not what you think I wrote (e.g. "That's a long time", empatically not: "That's enough time"). If something substantial comes up at a later time, I will make sure to critically read it.

> You say that other accusations are "too old"

I said that one specific accusation is probably too old to retrieve the exact words and circumstances, and as such can be considered unsubstantiated.

> this is precisely why victims are afraid to come forward in every such case.

What case(s) are you referring to? To put it differently: what, exactly, do you think Stallman is "getting away" with here? And why do you think he's getting away with it?

> No one takes them seriously and in fact vilifies them more than the alleged perpetrator.

That is of course very regrettable, but again, how does Stallman fit in here? You can't just take a person you obviously dislike, ascribe various characteristics and motivations to them, and then rile against that.

> Have fun being a "Knight of RMS", defend him on his most egregious qualities.

I'm not having "fun", and I don't see why you would assume that. I find the whole situation very regrettable.

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Church of GNU / Emacs video..."a virgin girl who hasn't used Emacs before". If that isn't alienating then I don't know what is.

You are aware that the St. IGNUcius bit is a spoof on dogmatic religion, right? Maybe that offends you as a religious person, but it's hardly fair to hold that against Stallman whose audiences are usually mainly fellow atheists, or religious people who can tolerate being the subject of a bit of light satire.

Conveniently ignored "a girl who is a virgin". How frustrating must that be for a girl in the audience.

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

#403
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ? That is a yes or no question. That is literally a binary choice. Yes or no - is murder OK if that murder saves more than one person. That is literally the Trolley Problem.

It is not the Trolley Problem because the literal question is "Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before?" and that is not the Trolley Problem, that is the "letting someone off the hook for present and future misdeeds based on past good acts."

It just isn't the same thing.

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

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Church of GNU / Emacs video..."a virgin girl who hasn't used Emacs before". If that isn't alienating then I don't know what is.

You are aware that the St. IGNUcius bit is a spoof on dogmatic religion, right? Maybe that offends you as a religious person, but it's hardly fair to hold that against Stallman whose audiences are usually mainly fellow atheists, or religious people who can tolerate being the subject of a bit of light satire.

Oh so now it's the audience's fault to not be "tolerant" of RMS' bullshit.

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

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you publish, you're required to release everything necessary for a practitioner reasonably skilled in the art to reproduce your results, without undue effort. For example, releasing a tarball of source code missing the Makefile that runs the arcane build process is not within the spirit of free software and you will be soundly ridiculed and if GPL is involved may be sued. Dumping a database that, together wit…

Free software is only concerned with software. If you publish your software , you are required to release everything needed to develop it further, yes. However, if you publish your paper , you are not required, under the free software principles. If I am wrong, show me where the FSF/GNU say that. I believe your argument is that there's a clear parallel to publishing a paper and publishing the software. However, there…

You're correct about FSF/GNU having narrow focus. Also that the GPL doesn't say anything about what biologists can't publish. Analogically we can make the arguments but we can't attribute these arguments to the FSF. Whether the west coast hackers influenced the open access science movements -- it's obvious that they did, this is not all post hoc parallels that everyone missed at the time.

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

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that the St. IGNUcius bit is a spoof on dogmatic religion, right? Maybe that offends you as a religious person, but it's hardly fair to hold that against Stallman whose audiences are usually mainly fellow atheists, or religious people who can tolerate being the subject of a bit of light satire.

Oh so now it's the audience's fault to not be "tolerant" of RMS' bullshit.

Again, please read what I wrote. I'm starting to doubt you are providing an argument in good faith here as you are constantly generalising.

If some religious members of an audience, who are very serious about their faith, go to see a known outspoken atheist, maybe that wasn't the best idea. As far as I know the St. IGNUcius skit is fairly well received in general.

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

#407
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How excellent of you to redact the most damning part of your quote of the initial accusation, that literally says: > He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason Now go ahead and tell me it's a coincidence you kept that part out, and it was probably not a big deal, and they w…

I've been in grad school offices that had cots or bean bags in them. Is the contention in here he explicitly said that "people fuck me in my office" or something as coarse as that? Tbh, the only purpose those beds served was for people to rest on them during late nights working. Now, the issue of course why they need to spend so many late nights at the university working, but that's besides the point. Btw, you seem t…

Sure. There are plenty of first-hand accounts of his behavior, a quick Google search will lead you to many.

Here's a link to one I've most recently run into from someone who worked at MIT. Yes, it's a Reddit comment, but if you check out his profile you'll see the user's been on the site for 11 years, has close to 140k karma, and has many posts in the past that refer to his professional career.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...

>A lot of people are acting like this is just about the Epstein comments. The MIT community was up in arms not just over that but at the mountain of shit Stallman has gotten away with over the last few decades, including crap like telling female researchers he'd kill himself unless they dated him, keeping a mattress in his office and inviting people to lay topless on it, defending pedophilia and child rape. He's been making women at MIT uncomfortable for years

>I wish there were more to tell but it's exactly what it sounds like. He had a mattress in the corner of his office and he'd leave the door open and if you were a woman who happened to walk by or heaven forbid need to talk to him for academic reasons he would find an excuse to invite you to use it

You'll also find other similar stories on that thread.

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

#408
post #294
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in public positions have always had to be careful about what they say. It really lowers the quality of discussion to talk about "thought crime" in this context. Stallman isn't being thrown into prison for expressing his political views. He's being fired from his job (to the extent that it is a job) for making ill-judged and offensive comments. > It seems the real reason he was fired was because he expressed a…

Do you think RMS argument is wrong here though? Why? Age of consent in my (European) country is 16. Do you think we are all rapists here? And looking up the law 14 is permissible (with a few caveats), even if the other person is over 21. In the United States it depends on the state. So Minsky would have done a horrible rape crime in the US Virgin Islands (age of consent 18), but in Massachusetts (age of consent 16) .…

At the time the age of consent was 16 in the US Virgin Islands...

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

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that the St. IGNUcius bit is a spoof on dogmatic religion, right? Maybe that offends you as a religious person, but it's hardly fair to hold that against Stallman whose audiences are usually mainly fellow atheists, or religious people who can tolerate being the subject of a bit of light satire.

Conveniently ignored "a girl who is a virgin". How frustrating must that be for a girl in the audience.

Wondering about your effort to maintain an argument in good faith, I read up a little:

"mav3rick: What about the KoolAid that HN drinks against anything Facebook, Google ?"

"mav3rick: He seems like an out and out terrorist."

I think these are indicative you will say whatever it takes to discredit rms, because he takes a stand against everything you believe in.

You are being dishonest in your motivations. I think I'll conveniently ignore you all together.

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conveniently ignored "a girl who is a virgin". How frustrating must that be for a girl in the audience.

Wondering about your effort to maintain an argument in good faith, I read up a little: "mav3rick: What about the KoolAid that HN drinks against anything Facebook, Google ?" "mav3rick: He seems like an out and out terrorist." I think these are indicative you will say whatever it takes to discredit rms, because he takes a stand against everything you believe in. You are being dishonest in your motivations. I think I'll…

Nice, attack the person and not the point I made. Did you address the "virgin girl" that RMS uses in his stupid speech.

Even your comments are all pro RMS yet I'm engaging you.

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