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Joint Statement on the GNU Project

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Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#141

Post by sprash »

Many people here talk about "cancel culture" which is in fact a fake culture that is completely artificially generated via paid actors, like some on this list of signatures. Most of the people taking part in the character assasination plot against Stallman running right now work in fact for Saleaforce, IBM or some other FAANG type of organization. You can look it up by yourself.

Stallman is a very eccentric person which makes him the perfect target for a devide and conquer operation in order to take ownership of the (hobbyist) FOSS movement.

Also ycombinator seems to have an agenda in this too, offing every post about Stallman from the frontpage. Never trust anything you get for free (like this site) except it came from Stallman, I guess.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#142

Post by falcolas »

dtornabene wrote: post #121
falcolas wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm dramatically misreading all the various articles, only a few women that were directly approached by Stallman for a romantic encounter felt discouraged. This did not impact a vast majority of the women who have, and do, contribute to GNU projects. Yeah, he fucked up in approaching those women and making them uncomfortable. However, a couple of data points do not a trend make.

I'm not sure how you're getting any kind of round statistics here. especially since its well known that most people who suffer harassment never report it, never say anything, for precisely the reasons being demonstrated on this thread today. And that was only one of the things wrong with that post, another being: people who choose to take a stand on harassment are somehow going to be mediocrities compared to stallman…

So, statistics. Allow me to fabricate a few number using some well known ballparking methods.

In November of 2010, 4,600 people contributed to GNU.

If we follow the 1-9-90 rule of speaking out, for every 1 woman who went to the authorities, 9 women have spoken out publicly, and, 90 others have not. I'm aware of 6-7 who have gone public with their accusations, and none who went to the authorities. As such, it seems safe (if likely excessive) to say that less than 100 women have been actively harassed via awkward romantic advances over the last 20 years.

So, in this scenario, not even 2% of the contributors from one month were harassed by Stallman. If we consider GNU to be on par with other software projects and say that about 30% of the total contributors for that month were women, then about 7% of the woman contributors from one month were harassed by Stallman over 20 years.

It's still too high a number, but it's not exactly a vast majority.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#143

Post by snotrockets »

falcolas wrote: post #135
kennywinker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... from the sounds of it, I assume the pull-aside convo happened and failed. Maybe I'm too trusting. I have no evidence that kind of a convo happened. But the allegations are that RMS has been a missing stair for well over 20 years. I find it very hard to believe that someone who's been causing problems in a community for 20+ years has never had a friend pull them aside and ask them to change their behaviour.

If we're changing the analogy to specifically look at Stallman again, we need to make a few changes. Specifically, a quick note that now you're visiting his house for dinner. This changes things a bit. He may have the best open source dinner spread out there, but it's ultimately your choice to keep participating.

He is no longer the sole occupant of that house.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#144

Post by yongjik »

falcolas wrote: post #115
dtornabene wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ability for women to be able to contribute and simply be a part of the free software community without harrassment does not fall under "no real bearing on the project", just so we're clear here.

Unless I'm dramatically misreading all the various articles, only a few women that were directly approached by Stallman for a romantic encounter felt discouraged. This did not impact a vast majority of the women who have, and do, contribute to GNU projects. Yeah, he fucked up in approaching those women and making them uncomfortable. However, a couple of data points do not a trend make.

If the nicest thing we can say about a leader of an organization is that most women were not harassed by him because they didn't get to meet him, then maybe it's time to look for a leader who is, you know, capable of actually meeting people without creeping them out.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#146

Post by virgilp »

kennywinker wrote: post #123
gfosco wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn't invite you over for dinner again, but it ends there. They don't get to come for your job, your career, your legacy.

Right, so if the assholery happens at work then the equivalent of "shouldn't invite you over for dinner again" is being asked not to come back to work.

Except that in this analogy, RMS is the one who invited them for dinner. You don't simply get to tell the host that "we don't like you but I think we'll keep meeting in your house for dinner.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#147

Post by snvzz »

shadowgovt wrote: post #58
simion314 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only seen some accusation that appeared now after 20 years , where RMS said something and some people were made uncomfortable. I agree RMS is not a sociable person but I would have preferred to see some significant "crime" , now I have the feeling that you can be kicked out from your own project if you made a stupid comment or thing in the past and the social media gets enraged by mostly FUD and exagerations of you…

If that's your concern, I recommend reading up further on people's issues with rms. It's not "some accusations that appeared after 20 years," it's 30 years of pattern. https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

That article is basically a hit piece, meant to character assassinate Stallman based on lies and misinterpretations[0].

[0] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#148

Post by dtornabene »

yongjik wrote: post #144
falcolas wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm dramatically misreading all the various articles, only a few women that were directly approached by Stallman for a romantic encounter felt discouraged. This did not impact a vast majority of the women who have, and do, contribute to GNU projects. Yeah, he fucked up in approaching those women and making them uncomfortable. However, a couple of data points do not a trend make.

If the nicest thing we can say about a leader of an organization is that most women were not harassed by him because they didn't get to meet him , then maybe it's time to look for a leader who is, you know, capable of actually meeting people without creeping them out.

amazing that this is such a difficult to grasp concept. just amazing.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#149

Post by rowanG077 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
rowanG077 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't show respect to people that throw their leader under the bus at the first sign of trouble. They have achieved some cool technical stuff but that is no excuse for being a sad sack of a human.

> I don't show respect to people that throw their leader under the bus at the first sign of trouble. If they had done that, Stallman would have been gone decades ago.

Which would have been fine. It's not fine that this happens when external pressure due to the media is happening.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#150

Post by t0astbread »

simion314 wrote: post #90
badrequest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll never call for my head because I wouldn't suggest that minor-aged victims of sexual assault could have been engaging consensually.

But you will maybe have an unpopular opinion in private and is leaked to the public(like it happened with Mozilla CEO) or you used some bad words 20 years ago or made someone uncomfortable and they will remeber it tomorrow.

Question is (at least in case of Brendan Eich), when does an opinion stop being an opinion and start being just harmful hate? Surely we can all agree that there is a line to draw somewhere.
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