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Joint Statement on the GNU Project

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Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#171

Post by rowanG077 »

kennywinker wrote: post #155
rowanG077 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me writing off a bunch of people that are mostly unrelated to me and a group of people expel their leader are vastly different things. There is(should be) an inherit trust from the leader to the group and the group to the leader. It's fine for the group to expel. What is not fine in my opinion is for the group to do this under external pressure. This clearly show the group has no allegiance to the group itself. Only…

Apparently some other non serious groups include: governments, most major corporations.

That's exactly right. Governments enforce their power through force and major corporations through money. Not groups that deserve any respect or their stance be taking seriously.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#172

Post by goatinaboat »

badrequest wrote: post #42
simion314 wrote: post #29

I would suggest GNU people to not rush into decisions, the things are too heated at this moment, I am afraid we get a fracture of the project. I am also having a bad feeling that Linus Torwalds is next, that a list of 20 years old emails is already prepared and some people are ready to tweat something that maybe happened long in the past that made them uncomfortable. Maybe that public apology Linus did this year was…

There are probably a number of people who are attracted to Linus Torvald's attitude and style, but I can assure you the number of people who do not contribute to the Linux kernel because they're turned off by it is significantly larger. It's absolutely in the best interest of the project that he adopt an attitude change permanently or step down. Just as most sports are 90% mental and only 10% physical, managing a lar…

who do not contribute to the Linux kernel because they're turned off by it is significantly larger

I’ve heard a few people now assert that they “would have” contributed to open source if it wasn’t for RMS/Linus/whoever but none of them appear to have contributed to any open source not managed by those guys, or have any independent projects on GitHub, or even be employed as professional programmers.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#173

Post by xnwdq »

t0astbread wrote: post #159
sprash wrote: post #141

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 wh…

> 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 Maybe those corporations do a better job at providing an inclusive environment than the free software community? And those people are interested in bringing the same to the FS world. (Whether or not it was necessary to push Stallman out for th…

The pigs in Animal Farm also did a splendid job on inclusiveness.

Amazing how brainwashed people here are by their FAANG salaries.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#174

Post by ghettoimp »

blub wrote: post #113
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.

Women will never "be able to contribute and simply be part of the free software community without harassment", because any online community is a reflection of society at large, which is becoming more fragmented, agressive and embittered. Did female harassment get solved in society at large? No. You can't solve it in online communities, you're only building bubbles of false-safety which will pop once the pressure from…

Er, what? The harasser is aggressive and bitter? They harass people in real life? It sounds like they have some problems. Maybe they can go work on themselves and come back to the community when they're ready to be civil.

We wouldn't tolerate sexual harassment, etc., in the workplace or in civil society. I don't see why we wouldn't expect a basic level of decorum in respectable online communities.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#175

Post by rowanG077 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #152
rowanG077 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think a problem escalating to mass media attention makes it less appropriate to deal with it.

It does when that mass media attention is based on easily verifiable lies.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#176

Post by zabzonk »

dtornabene wrote: post #154
falcolas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question then. Why has it taken the airing Stallman's dirty laundry to step forward? What has stopped you (that is, the "we" and "us" from your statement) from standing out on your own merits before now?

I'm going to go with: So women can participate without having to be asked out on dates? So they don't feel harassed? You want to run cover for people do it in your own org man. This is beyond obtuse.

> So women can participate without having to be asked out on dates?

What is so wrong about being asked by a man for a date? I (a man) have been asked lots of times for a date by women I worked with, some of them my superiors. Mostly I said "no", because I generally don't like mixing love life with work life, but the best relationship I've ever had was the time I said "yes". I don't see why RMS couldn't look for such a relationship.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#177

Post by DuskStar »

shadowgovt wrote: post #139
DuskStar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't have to be friendly to those who would want to use our software to take freedom away from others. We should be friendly to everyone who wants to use our software freely, regardless of their skill level. "We should be friendly, unless we don't like the people using our software"

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance In the specific case of free software, the paradox of tolerance plays out concretely, in that failure to enforce copyleft on software can lead to the creation of software derived from that work that is itself copyrighted in such a way that the deriver could sue an original source creator deriving work from their derivations. I don't think anyone would consider copy…

I agree that enforcing copyleft licenses is extremely necessary. My thought here was that "those who would want to use our software to take freedom away from others" is a bit too broad to apply to just that, especially when considering things like the recent Chef outage.

In other words - some people are going to use GNU software to take freedom from others (imagine a prison running Linux, etc) in ways that conform with the license. I do not think GNU should oppose this.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#178

Post by Accujack »

tssva wrote: post #156
blub wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utterly destroying a person's reputation should come with a damn high burden of proof. That article would be laughed out of any courtroom. Reading that has been a complete waste of time. To save everyone else some effort: 1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy. 2. He used a bad pick-up line, saying he'll ki…

1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy. People are free to hold and discuss them but others are just as free to exercise their democratic right of free association by choosing not to associate with you because of them.

This last is a major contributing factor to the volume of those asking for his ouster... they are free to walk away and not use GNU or other free software, but they don't want to. They want to have their cake and eat it too, they want to keep free software and get rid of the guy that makes them feel bad about it because he's awkward and poorly socialized... like very many computer savvy people are.

These people are arguing for their own desires more than anything. They want an FSF they can feel good about, not this one with a flawed person producing the software they can't give up.

If he doesn't sit well on a pedestal, push him over and set someone else there.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#179

Post by Accujack »

snotrockets wrote: post #34
etiam wrote: post #20

Oh my god. " all computer users" with the implication that Stallman is not representing the ones who demand to go straight to lynch mob behavior without a shadow if due process as soon as the word "sexual" is mentioned? And therefore Stallman should be thrown out of the project that is his creation and life's work? That's got to be one of the most forced political readings ever of that point in the manifesto. Well, i…

Due process is for the court. If you ousted yourself as an asshole in public, people not wanting to associate with you isn't legal, it's civilized society.

The problem is that they want to keep his ideas and achievements, but don't want to keep him.

They're free to walk away from Stallman and the movement he created, but they won't because they can't let go of the shiny. Instead, they convince themselves they deserve free software and GNU without the nasty man who built it.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#180

Post by bitwize »

shadowgovt wrote: post #132
bitwize wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither did Stallman. What he said was that it likely appeared that she was engaging consensually. And he was certainly no fan of Epstein, whom he called a serial rapist. Lest you think this is a niggling distinction, Sage Sharp pronounced Linus guilty of inciting violence by making a humorous comment about his friend Greg Kroah-Hartman's height. (Something like: "Greg is a giant; watch out or he might squish you.")…

"They." You'll have to be clearer which conspiracy you're talking about; I don't have a binding for that pronoun.

By "they" I mean the principals involved in social-justice entryism into free software. None that I know of are signatories to that list. They include:

* Coraline Ada Ehmke

* Sage Sharp

* Aurynn Shaw

* Valerie Aurora

* Sarah Mei

* Matthew J. Garrett

* Steve Klabnik

These are some of the loudest voices calling for the removal and systematic reputational destruction of key free-software developers based on behavior which ranges from bad but not worth a purge to downright innocuous.

The list signatories, near as I can tell, are doing damage control on the optics of being affiliated with Stallman and are, to my knowledge, not themselves calling for purges the way the above named individuals and their fellow travellers are.

(Edited to include Klabnik. He expressed the need for a "tech antifa" and approved of the use of violence by the same. I think he counts.)

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