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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

#351

Post by teddyh »

fastball wrote: post #331
phreack wrote: post #327

This is a controversial opinion, but I believe someone who turns any space he's in into an unsafe place for women should not be leading the FSF. No matter who or their accomplishments. I never saw him being kicked out as unfounded, there were years and years of people being solicited sexually even after explicit non-consent by this man. He just seems to be unwilling to be professional towards women.

Wait what? I haven't heard these allegations and a quick check of Wikipedia didn't surface anything either. Citation?

Here’s a summary: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

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

#352

Post by koonsolo »

higerordermap wrote: post #289
hourislate wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that the media outlets and "Woke Twitter", etc, were misquoting him saying he was defending Jeffrey Epstein and doing everything they could to get him fired from the FSF, etc. What's even worse was none of these "WOKE" were even concerned with "the victims of sexual assault" or any other noble cause. This was organized for ideological reasons and their goal was and is to replace everyone in a relevant positi…

There's a reason wokeism is fastest growing religion in the world.

What is the reason?

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

#353

Post by inglor_cz »

higerordermap wrote: post #289
hourislate wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that the media outlets and "Woke Twitter", etc, were misquoting him saying he was defending Jeffrey Epstein and doing everything they could to get him fired from the FSF, etc. What's even worse was none of these "WOKE" were even concerned with "the victims of sexual assault" or any other noble cause. This was organized for ideological reasons and their goal was and is to replace everyone in a relevant positi…

There's a reason wokeism is fastest growing religion in the world.

If they keep eating one another so publicly and randomly, they won't achieve the necessary internal stability.

Successful authoritarian movements have a clear set of rules that make you safe as a member, and only turn to internal purges once they destroyed any external opposition.

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

#354

Post by kodah »

serf wrote: post #94
YorickPeterse wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just the same excuse as the age old "Boys will be boys" excuse. Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep and general unpleasant person to work with, without there eventually being repercussions.

not really. 'boys will be boys' doesn't assert that 'boys' get away with whatever they want because they are neuro-divergent, it asserts that gender allows for additional privilege. >Just because somebody is different doesn't mean they can be a creep For the sake of argument : what if that person has neurological quirks which disallow 'non-creep' , to use your parlance, behavior? To take the example even further , it…

"Boys will be boys" was usually said when boys were doing something asinine. I've never heard someone frame it the way you did.

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

#356

Post by enriquto »

nicklecompte wrote: post #76
SilverRed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is RMS a bad person? He has always seemed pretty honest and well intentioned. Its just he doesn't know when to shut his mouth or which hills are worth dying on.

I will say his “opinions” on child rape and children with disabilities are despicable and immoral, and not just a matter of him being eccentric. While he might sincerely believe such things that is hardly an endorsement of his character. But it’s not just his horrible opinions: for decades he constantly harassed women at MIT (students and faculty), especially teenagers. The details are really quite gross: https://sel…

> He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it.

LOL'd hard at that. My PhD student used to have a mattress on her office because she liked to take a nap after lunch. She also had her office next to the main door, and left it always open (except when taking the nap), so the mattress was visible to everybody that went into the lab. As far as I can tell nobody felt "threatened" by that, if anything many people said that it was a good idea and that they would like to bring a mattress as well. If you see "implications" in something like that you are truly a deranged person.

> He’s a sex pest and a creep.

I find your assessment of the facts really creepy!

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

#357

Post by kelnos »

bobsled wrote: post #223
howinteresting wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an autistic person, that really does not matter. Even though I don't believe in free will, I do believe that a functioning society requires people with power (like RMS, in his capacity as a free software leader) to be held responsible for the harm they cause regardless of how neurodivergent they are. What about all the other people who were excluded from the movement because RMS was an ass? A common human…

How does one accurately quantify hypothetical contributions by people who may or may not exist?

I agree with the sibling that there are many things in life that we just can't reduce to numbers. Sometimes you can't make a decision based on hard, irrefutable data. You just have to go by what you think will or won't happen based on the possible choices.

In this case, though we actually could, if we wanted to, find some data. We could go around and ask a bunch of people if they wanted to get involved with the FSF but didn't, and see how many of those people were turned off by RMS. Another option could be to look at the demographics of people getting involved in the FSF before and after RMS had been outsted, and compare.

None of that is perfect, and especially the second option would only give you a correlation, not necessarily causation. But, again, our data will always be incomplete, and you just have to go with what your experience tells you will or won't happen.

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

#358

Post by teddyh »

winter_blue wrote: post #18
varispeed wrote: post #9

I wish FSF also started caring about the developers. Free software was and is a great idea, but unintended consequence is that it also facilitates exploitation of software developers by big corporations who from the perspective of FSF are just users as regular people. This means they make billions off of a software who someone built in their rented flat, living a modest life, sometimes struggling with bills, meanwhil…

Exactly this. I love and support open source[1] , but I don’t support all software being “free of cost”. [1] Not the OSI definition of it.

> I don’t support all software being “free of cost”.

Stallman and the FSF agree with you; selling software is perfectly OK:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling

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

#359

Post by mvzvm »

yongjik wrote: post #258

We've all heard of the bus factor. Software project isn't a one-man show. There's no shortage of brilliant pioneers handing the baton to someone else or just sliding into obscurity for any number of reasons (e.g., got bored, found another passion, started a new project, gone off the rail, etc.). People no longer care about ESR's opinions, and that's OK. There's no reason FSF should need Stallman's continued presence…

Agreed 150%. I think a lot of older generation engineers like him because he is an asshole, and says things to women that they, in turn, feel. I think the sun is setting on the old, rude, archetype of engineer that cannot tolerate those different from them.
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