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Joint Statement on the GNU Project

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Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#271

Post by throwanem »

jlokier wrote: post #270
throwanem wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A remarkable theoretical twist on argumentum ad hominem , I concede - but argumentum ad hominem all the same.

It's in the context of public character assassination. The debate is to determine what is right, just, fair, and proportionate. Fairness in justice does, in fact, depend on the character and behaviour of the assasinators and wider social group, not just the target in isolation from them. If you want to argue against those principles, that's fine obviously, but argumentum ad hominem fallacy does not apply where the ch…

This is the same argument that's frequently used against victims of rape and other sorts of assault - used to deny them justice, on no better grounds than that their own past behavior has been merely human, and thus fallen short of whatever arbitrarily absurd standard of impossible purity that unsympathetic interlocutors choose to establish - and to re-establish, as often as necessary, in order to make absolutely certain that the standard cannot be met.

I wouldn't find that a terribly comfortable place to stand. That you seem to find it congenial gives me to wonder about the quality of your own character. Ordinarily, of course, such doubts would be unworthy of this sort of discussion. But since you've found it meet to broach the subject, why shouldn't we start the inspection of character with you? Clearly you feel yourself above reproach in this regard, so I'm not sure what reason you could possibly have to demur, when I require that you prove, to my satisfaction, your standing to argue as you do on this subject.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#272

Post by shadowgovt »

bitwize wrote: post #180
shadowgovt wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 whi…

So,

* Former GitHub Community Management senior developer

* Linux kernel contributor

* Eiara Limited founder

* ext2 dirty bit, ChunkFS developer

* Chief consultant at DevMynd

* Linux contributor and winner of the FSF Free Software Award

* Frequent Hacker News contributor, author of "The Rust Programming Language," member of Rust core team.

Seems like some solid contributors to the ecosystem and people who have earned a seat at the table defining what the community looks like; not sure why we're singling them out. Or should we also disapprove of the time rms founded an entire Free Software Foundation for the purposes of putting political pressure on various institutions, organizations, and people to respect the Four Freedoms?

Are you sure you disagree with the methods of the people you listed? Or do you merely disagree on what behaviors someone's reputation should suffer for?

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#273

Post by shadowgovt »

flukus wrote: post #243
shadowgovt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, they're complimentary if you turn your head and squint a bit; the Four Freedoms are targeted at minimizing the creation of a classist world where some people control software and others merely run it. Avoidance of a classist world is a "social justice" concept.

The current social justice movements believe in things like deplatforming, they don't have the conviction to defend Freedom #0.

The Black Hat Conference this year pulled a talk given by Crown Sterling because it was, in the opinion of the people in attendance and security researchers, absolute psuedoscientific trash.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xw9kp/black-hat-talk-abo...

Don't let anyone convince you hackers are anti-deplatforming. They merely disagree on what behaviors or speech are worthy of having a platform.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#274

Post by bitwize »

shadowgovt wrote: post #272
bitwize wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whi…

So, * Former GitHub Community Management senior developer * Linux kernel contributor * Eiara Limited founder * ext2 dirty bit, ChunkFS developer * Chief consultant at DevMynd * Linux contributor and winner of the FSF Free Software Award * Frequent Hacker News contributor, author of "The Rust Programming Language," member of Rust core team. Seems like some solid contributors to the ecosystem and people who have earned…

Yes, I'd say that there's a world of difference between setting up a project and a foundation to attract people with like-minded goals and practice advocacy while always showing your hand and keeping a focused scope for your activism on the one hand, and a long march through the existing open source institutions on the other with the aim of subverting and controlling them and assuming their moral authority to redefine what open source is and what our values are, and to drive out all dissenters, on the other. It is literally the difference between a startup and a hostile takeover.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#275

Post by 68plus57equals5 »

throwanem wrote: post #262
jlokier wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "he opened by asking the organizers to turn the house lights back up so he could see if there was anyone in the crowd he might want to have sex with" There's video. This alleged event occurs at about 6:11 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uckLT7mPPIw I think your words mean the opposite of what RMS actually said. So much for justice. Your words: "so he could see if there was anyone in the crowd he might want to ha…

Yeah, I actually posted the video you linked, transcoded from the con's DVD of the talk - so it's hardly as if I'm afraid of its content being known. It's a two-parter, by the way, and the Q&A is in part 2. My commentary is timestamped in the description; if you haven't yet seen it, you're really missing out on a great opportunity to call me names. You're welcome, of course, to maintain whatever interpretation you li…

You almost got me convinced by your alleging RMS asked organizers "to turn the house lights back up so he could see if there was anyone in the crowd he might want to have sex with". I thought, whoa, that sounds not good, bad joke, nothing criminal, but it definitely isn't a good look.

However the moment I found the video with the actual quote and the extent of your mischaracterization of the situation I reverted back to my former opinion on the whole issue (which is very close to "this is witchhunt").

Nevertheless I feel grateful to you for reinforcing me in the belief one should never ever trust any accusation without a concrete proof. I'm deeply indebted to you for this important lesson.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#276

Post by shadowgovt »

bitwize wrote: post #274
shadowgovt wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, * Former GitHub Community Management senior developer * Linux kernel contributor * Eiara Limited founder * ext2 dirty bit, ChunkFS developer * Chief consultant at DevMynd * Linux contributor and winner of the FSF Free Software Award * Frequent Hacker News contributor, author of "The Rust Programming Language," member of Rust core team. Seems like some solid contributors to the ecosystem and people who have earned…

Yes, I'd say that there's a world of difference between setting up a project and a foundation to attract people with like-minded goals and practice advocacy while always showing your hand and keeping a focused scope for your activism on the one hand, and a long march through the existing open source institutions on the other with the aim of subverting and controlling them and assuming their moral authority to redefin…

Or the difference between an entrenched status-quo closed-source commercial software ecosystem and an industry-disruptive open-source free software movement, perhaps?

the downside to revolutions is that sometimes the revolution gets away from the control of those who start it. ;)

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#277

Post by teddyh »

javagram wrote: post #261
jlokier wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't answer that question. But this HN comment does a good job of describing events at a recentish conference, although not a banning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21186822 Although I'm a big fan of RMS's deeper works (as will be obvious from my other comment), it's easy to imagine him (or to be honest, anyone insufficiently skilled at public speaking) making terribly misguided (at best) "jokes" and the li…

Interesting to see the latest replies to the linked comment debunk it using video. People’s memories are slippery indeed!

People don’t have memories, as such. People have opinions about what their memories ought to be. Then they construct false memories as needed.

Note: I am describing everyone, not just “other people”.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#278

Post by throwanem »

68plus57equals5 wrote: post #275
throwanem wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I actually posted the video you linked, transcoded from the con's DVD of the talk - so it's hardly as if I'm afraid of its content being known. It's a two-parter, by the way, and the Q&A is in part 2. My commentary is timestamped in the description; if you haven't yet seen it, you're really missing out on a great opportunity to call me names. You're welcome, of course, to maintain whatever interpretation you li…

You almost got me convinced by your alleging RMS asked organizers "to turn the house lights back up so he could see if there was anyone in the crowd he might want to have sex with". I thought, whoa, that sounds not good, bad joke, nothing criminal, but it definitely isn't a good look. However the moment I found the video with the actual quote and the extent of your mischaracterization of the situation I reverted back…

As I said to another interlocutor here, you're welcome to your opinion. How finely you need to split the hair to preserve it is no concern of mine.

As I also previously mentioned, the video does not show the people who immediately got up and left in response to that remark. It seems I'm not alone, either, in being more concerned about their opinions than about yours. Judging by the content of the statement here under discussion, many of those who have in recent years, by volume of code and effort invested, been the actual leaders of the GNU project, incline to a reading of the situation which rather more resembles mine than yours.

I doubt you will find it easy, with intellectually honest arguments, to convince anyone that these people are engaged in a "witchhunt" which, if it were so, would critically endanger the reputation of the project in which they've invested so much.

But, again, that's your problem, not mine.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#279

Post by shadowgovt »

blub wrote: post #256
shadowgovt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"anyone can be made to look bad" is an opinion that basically throws the human capacity for discernment under the bus, and if humans can't discern things then why bother with anything? No; rms is gross and creepy because rms is gross and creepy. Not because some conspiracy has worked to make him look like he is.

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This is why we have due process and innocent until proven guilty. Even if he were gross and "creepy", that's no reason to oust someone from the organizations they helped create and destroy their reputation with absurd unverifiable anecdotes, like the ones about plants or vi. Or the note hang…

We have innocent until proven guilty as a guardrail against depriving people of their freedom. That doesn't even fully describe the entire US court system, which includes civil court (standard of proof is "preponderance of evidence"), and neither of these are the same as the softer standard of when we deprive a person of the privilege of their trusted station (which is what is happening to rms). In that court, "burden of association with tarnished reputation" is plenty. That's why concepts like "the appearance of impropriety is impropriety" exist.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#280

Post by shadowgovt »

bitwize wrote: post #267
bitwize wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify I don't think the long-time hackers on that list are trying to oust major free software figures. What they are doing is a partial capitulation to those who are, most of whom are trying to effect a value shift in the free software community that undermines the bedrock principles of free software itself. I refer you to Coraline Ada Ehmke's views on the "pernicious cult of meritocracy" and her attempts to get…

I stand corrected. What this may be really about is that Ludovic Courtès wanted a Code of Conduct for the GNU Project and Stallman did not. Since having a Code of Conduct, an easy and fashionable tool for excommunicating those you find problematic due to their pesky different points of view , is obviously the Right Thing, and increasingly considered a requirement, that meant Stallman had to go. Sorry, pal. Maybe if y…

Nothing has happened to Stallman's 35 years of work. Last I checked, nobody's deleting the emacs repo today.

... but he increasingly doesn't represent the future of computing, let alone GNU and FSF. There's a reason so much of Ars Technica's reporting on rms gets headed with that "Old Man Yells At Cloud" meme image. Sometimes, leaders are changed out. Stallman's continued work is up to Stallman, but he doesn't necessarily get the privilege of continuing to lead GNU (and he doesn't have the privilege of continuing to lead the FSF).

Besides, this is open source we're talking about, not a VC company. If people rally behind rms and fork the projects, the projects get forked.

But I anticipate that won't happen, because he increasingly doesn't represent where software is going. I don't think he actually wields the thought-leadership cachet he used to. We shall see.

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