In Defense of Richard Stallman • Hacker News Board

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#31

Post by megous » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #11

Totally right as regards the private mail. However, the fact that he is homeless has nothing to do with the discussion. It just adds some "feeling" to the problem which should not be there. A MacArthur fellow (1990) is supposed to be able to manage his life (or get someone to do so).

You're brushing aside the whole social pressure thing.

That's something that can make normal people kill themseleves at the worst, or throw them into a pretty bad emotional turmoil with some very real effects on their life.

Intelligence has nothing to do with this.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#32

Post by blackhaz » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

Why do we even need to invoke Stallman's achievements as an excuse here? What did the man say - he expressed his opinion that accusations of sexual assault are probably inflated and inaccurate. For fuck's sake!

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#33

Post by brain5ide » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

kolektiv wrote: post #18

Sigh. No. It's not just about one incidence of some mistakenly pedantic comments, as has been made clear by many, many people. It's a pattern of behaviour over years combined with no interest in listening to other people or accepting that he might be in the wrong. His behaviour towards women in particular has resulted in a lot of people sharing stories of his behaviour which, on their own, should be enough for someon…

Would you be willing to provide a few links to those stories over the years? I never knew enough about his personal behavior to judge that and have no idea how to search for it.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#34

Post by rndgermandude » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #21

computerex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is he a creep and what did he do to justify how he was treated? Did you read his comment about his defense of Marvin Lee Minsky? Precisely what was creepy or wrong about it?

It is not an isolated incident. There are multiple documented cases of him behaving like a creep and spouting "controversial" statements.

Name them please? The "creep" incidents, that is.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#35

Post by coldtea » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #10

> They focused on his tone deaf communication style and awkward demeanor. They spoke of behavior from decades ago and pointed out the fact that he had a mattress in his office. It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. > He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused h…

I hope people thinking like above, or sad finger-pointers like the ones writing the articles, are removed from the tech industry...

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#36

Post by sergiosgc » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #10

> They focused on his tone deaf communication style and awkward demeanor. They spoke of behavior from decades ago and pointed out the fact that he had a mattress in his office. It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again. > He held his positions at MIT, GNU, and the FSF for over thirty years, and in that time nobody accused h…

> It wasn't just awkward demeanor. He actively made women feel unwelcome in the workplace and behaved unprofessionally over and over again.

Every episode I read about fell into the category of "socially awkward adult male". If we can't, as a group, tolerate awkwardness, we are very much down the rabbit hole of mandatory social conformity.

By all means, point me to a real abuse scenario by Stallman. I like being proven wrong.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#37

Post by anatoly » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:39 AM UTC

Thank you so much for this post.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#38

Post by bantunes » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:39 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #8

> blatantly lie about what was said, I've seen this said a few times, and it needs to be cleared up. Stallman defended Minsky by saying it wasn't rape and it was assault. To mount this defence Stallman had to ignore common English definitions for both words, and he had to ignore the legal definitions of both words. People are angry at Stallman for what he actually said, not what you think they think he said. If you w…

> We don't get the free software movement we have without Stallman, but what's that actually saying? How popular would gnu be if it had someone who was better at communication involved?

Not many people thinking about it in this way, kudos.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#39

Post by Maxbunny » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

While I am also saddened by the dishonest nature of the reporting on the Minsky accident and the cowardly lack of push back against it, one should not go to the other extreme and simply dismiss all the complaints about Stallman's behavior as him merely being "a clueless aspie". A good example is his emacs virgin joke, which he as as I read specifically made about individual female members of the audience. Due to our hysterical politicized environment we are not able to deal with incidents like this : acknowledge that behavior like this is unprofessional but does not make Stallman a horrible monster, especially since he indeed stopped making that joke after some criticism.

Re: In Defense of Richard Stallman

#40

Post by enriquto » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #17

I don't know RMS personally, but from what I've seen and read about him, he's a bit eccentric. There's nothing wrong with that, but people tend to dislike or distrust those whom are different from what society considers 'normal'. I suspect part of the 'witch hunt' was in part fueled by this eccentricity.

> I suspect part of the 'witch hunt' was in part fueled by this eccentricity.

It seems to me that the exact opposite is happening here. He is "hunted" because of his uncompromising stance on freedom for software users. The eccentricity is just an excuse, useful to gather a horde of angry people, but inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.