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Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

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Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#141

Post by ttt0 »

astrange wrote: post #122
dralley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they apologize? Everything they say is true. GNU software absolutely has been stagnating for the past 2 decades under Stallman's leadership. It is a little known fact that in 2005, there was an offer to merge the LLVM project into GCC, and assign the entire copyright to GNU. The patches to do so were even submitted. [0] They were rejected [1], because GNU wasn't interested in producing a modular compiler.…

I knew the maintainer of GNU libtool and I remember him getting randomly fired by Stallman one day because he was a macOS user, and therefore not motivated enough to support free software OS uses.

Pretty shitty to do this to an actual maintainer, but on the other hand I wish the Linux Foundation started doing this.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#142

Post by henearkr »

mjg59 wrote: post #54
dempseye wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did he say that?

This is probably a reference to https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html : "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

The context is the one of the accusation of Marvin Minsky, in a case involving Epstein. The victim was a 17 yo girl, and "if" the condition of sexual slavery of the victim was not made clear, it could have been misunderstood as a voluntary act, and I would indeed understand that a voluntary sexual act with a 17 yo girl does not systematically lead to harm.

What was criticized by RMS was the overly broad generalizations of the harmfulness.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#143

Post by nostrademons »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #125
wmf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they can control it?

Then why would someone choose to be an ass - or generally choose to be unlikable?

It's usually a matter of priorities.

Neurodivergent/autistic people are usually unaware that what they say could cause offense: they lack either the emotional capacity to feel those emotions themselves, or the ability to empathize and predict that other people will feel them.

Assholes know, they just care about other things more. They might throw their coworker under the bus for a promotion. Or they'll sexually harass women because 1 out of 10 times, it gets them laid. Or they care more about being right than being diplomatic. Or they stop paying rent because there's an eviction moratorium, even though they could, because it saves them money and their landlord has no way to enforce agreements anyway. Or they sell drugs to children because they want money. Or they cut people down because it makes them feel big in the moment.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#144

Post by nicklecompte »

subjectsigma wrote: post #131
nicklecompte wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman himself said he wasn’t autistic[1], so this is really a case of his fans inventing a diagnosis to protect someone who doesn’t deserve it, smearing millions of innocent people in the process. It’s really indefensible. And one of the most frustrating things about bullshit like “RMS can’t help himself because of his autism” is that bullshit never goes away no matter how definitively it is debunked. I also never…

Well, that is pretty damning. If he says he's not autistic then people should stop saying he is. I don't think anyone here is trying to insult others with autism, though.

They might not be trying to insult people with autism but they certainly succeeded. And “it wasn’t malice, it was reckless indifference and dishonesty” isn’t a good defense.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#145

Post by young_unixer »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8

I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally of…

I don't even think we should be "advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people".

We should just stop using our prejudice to misinterpret statements, and we should stop putting words in other people's mouths.

Autistic people (who usually talk in a very literal way) would be benefited by this change as a byproduct, but this principle should apply to everyone, not only to neurodivergent people.

Is what the person said technically correct? Yes or no. That's all that matters.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#146

Post by joshuamorton »

r3856283 wrote: post #121
wmf wrote: post #108

For those who do not know RMS personally: "I worked for RMS longer than any other programmer. ... This was an own-goal for RMS. He has had plenty of opportunities to learn how to stfu when that’s necessary. ... I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS’s behavior was a concern [in the 1990s], and that [Marvin Minsky's] protection was itself part of the problem. He was never held to account; he was himself coddle…

He didn't work with or for RMS longer than any other programmer, there are many who have longer. Gerald J. Sussman is a programmer and hired him at MIT and is still on the board of FSF and still working with him, that is over 40 years. And RMS has grown over the years. This is from over 20 years ago.

"for" and "with" are different words.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#147

Post by JarlUlvi »

ramraj07 wrote: post #110
cambalache wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was he being an actual child-predator, was he sharing child porn? Suppose some guy (Stallman or not) argues that the age of consent should be lowered to 14. Now you are in your right to oppose to that proposal or even be disgusted by it. What you dont have the right to is to silence and ostracize the guy or even suggest that opinion must have any type of consequence , be it legal or moral.

I have the right to attempt to silence or ostracise anyone for anything. Whether or not it’s successful depends on the situation and climate of the world at that time. He has the right to say whatever he wants to say as well. He wasn’t jailed for it just fired for it. Ask him to suck it up and then everyone here can also do the same thing instead of crying a river. Also, please try to show a single example of a perso…

You don't need a high IQ to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_age_of_co... and understand there are huge definitional problems of defining pedophilia.

> Also, please try to show a single example of a person who defended pedophilia and ended up not being one?

You've managed to stuff many logical fallacies into a fairly short statement.

Bravo!

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#149

Post by etrabroline »

bigtones wrote: post #87
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8

I think it is strange that, on the one hand, the tech world has been advocating for the rights of neurodivergent people – society should accept that people on the autism spectrum are different and that’s OK. But at the same time RMS has been attacked for some statements very probably stemming from his autism that, while they may seem a bit shocking and at odds with the mainstream, were not illegal or intentionally of…

Selam Jie Gano, a female at MIT when he worked there wrote: “There is no single person that is so deserving of praise their comments deprecating others should be allowed to slide. Particularly when those comments are excuses about rape, assault, and child sex trafficking.”

Great quote. I think a large fraction of male programmers would disagree with Selam Jie Gano's characterization of RMS's statements. These kinds of "culture war" battles should not be happening in GNU. Free Software should be happening and people should be willing to leave these disagreements at the door. If you aren't, I am significantly less interested in working with you and I suspect many GNU contributors are as well.

Re: Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

#150

Post by astrange »

hedora wrote: post #38
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the only thing implied by the above comment is that "all autistic people are capable of being decent to other people." That doesn't seem offensive, although it may be incorrect (I simply do not know).

It is incorrect. Autism is a spectrum.

Note that RMS says he doesn't have autism. High functioning autism doesn't look like being rude anyway; it's just some combination of talking for too long and being very sensitive to environmental disturbances.
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