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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

#491

Post by noobermin »

yread wrote: post #453
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #427

Mob justice is not OK just because women do it. If these women have anything substantial they should make formal reports/complaints, not anonymous vogue statements like, "he make me feel uncomfortable". Cannot believe that one even has to say this. Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty? Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfor…

Are you saying that jerking off in front of people is OK or borderline? Stallman wasn't removed for "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". He wasn't criminalized at all, he resigned himself after saying stupid stuff.

I agree in part but I'm pretty sure he was pressured to resign.

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

#492

Post by noobermin »

zucker42 wrote: post #476
noobermin wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say this?

Not the OP, but GNU/FSF has stagnated in the past 20 years. There's no cohesive vision; GNU is more of a ecletic collection of software packages than a complete OS. The FSF has no huge influence; most of its impact is based on its historical role.

I guess more of what I'm asking is how rms contributed to GNU's lack of traction rather than whether it is declining/not gaining traction or not.

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

#493

Post by globular-toast »

yc-kraln wrote: post #484

Big surprise, the white male suffers no real consequences. Just keep broadcasting the message, and asking why there are hardly any women or PoC in the industry.

No consequences for what? Stallman resigned 18 months ago. Did it make any difference to woman or "PoC" in the industry? How much positive discrimination, quota hiring and preferential treatment do you need before you realise maybe women don't want to be in this industry any more than they want to be in the bricklaying or ditch digging industry.

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

#494

Post by klodolph »

noobermin wrote: post #467
dralley wrote: post #65

IMO, Stallman is a good philosophical leader, but a terrible organizational leader. "On the board" is a decent compromise. But he has been a huge contributor to GNU's decent into irrelevance in recent years. As an organization, they're perpetually stuck in the 1990s.

What makes you say this?

So, there’s a bit of a history of Stallman botching GNU leadership. The organization has grown to the scale where it requires a different skill set to lead than the skill set he has.

It’s clear he has a vision for the GNU software, but the development process itself is chaotic and needs more central guidance on a policy/process level—but he tries to lead it on a more technical/maintainer level.

One example is the glibc/emacs unexec discussion. He stepped in to meddle without enough knowledge of the relevant teams, in order to solve an issue that would have been avoided with a more explicit policies in place about the relationship between different GNU projects.

Having a vision is not enough, there are a lot of other things you need to do right in order to lead a project like that.

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

#495

Post by vngall »

thiht wrote: post #466
yread wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that jerking off in front of people is OK or borderline? Stallman wasn't removed for "he once hit on me and I had to reject him". He wasn't criminalized at all, he resigned himself after saying stupid stuff.

> Are you saying that jerking off in front of people is OK or borderline? I have no idea how you went from OP's message to this. Can you explain?

This is a good example of how pro-cancelers operate. Directly misquote the OP (as you pointed out) and put some distasteful stuff in the vicinity of mentioning the target, so people will unconsciously associate him with that.

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

#496

Post by noobermin »

Bost wrote: post #454
disgruntled101 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are saying here would get you cancelled 100 times over if you were a public person, sadly.

Once upon a time there was a dude with such an attitude and he became a president. Edit: And his story is not over yet. Apparently.

I think that's true and it definitely shows how cancel culture only hurts some people but doesn't hurt others that much depending on their wealth and their influence. That said, really add to the discussion for others who aren't that powerful relatively.

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

#497

Post by cmeacham98 »

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #427

Mob justice is not OK just because women do it. If these women have anything substantial they should make formal reports/complaints, not anonymous vogue statements like, "he make me feel uncomfortable". Cannot believe that one even has to say this. Why are women always presumed to be innocent and men always presumed to be guilty? Also, frankly, there is a point at which, certain behaviour might make you feel uncomfor…

I don't see how this is relevant _at all_ to the linked article. You seem to be taking existing arguments that aren't even related to RMS's case and arguing against a strawman of an extreme version of them.

No "mob justice" happened here. No women came forward and said RMS "hit on them" or whatever. RMS faced criticism for comments which justified rape and were close to victim blaming, and willingly resigned from his position at the FSF because of it. A position I personally believe he could have kept had he decided not to resign (and the fact that he is able to return to it so soon after leaving suggests I am correct).

Edit: I think that several people are placing too much importance on the "willingly resigned" part of my comment downthread. If you believe that RMS was forced out and he had no choice in the matter (i.e. it was "resign or get fired"), then feel free to replace the words "willingly resigned" with "was fired" in my comment (and ignore the last sentence in that paragraph), the point being made still stands.

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

#498

Post by tlear »

Did he have to issue a self flagellating tear eyed apology and ask for maximum sentence in front of the People's Tribunal?

Sounds like he did not, is the tide starting to turn? Will we stop shaming and cancelling people over a shirt they wear? (was my personal turning point)

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

#499

Post by ddingus »

CJefferson wrote: post #376
ddingus wrote: post #235

I am here to say I am pleased to see RMS active in software issues again. I am a fan of his ideas related to software, and his gift to us has paid me and most of my peers off over and over. Tons of others have added to all that and here we are today. Personally, I will consider what he says about software, data, IP. The man is not often wrong. Has a lot to say, and he should be heard. There are other issues, and that…

Genuine question, is there anything useful he has said in the last 10 years he has said you can point to? He seems helplessly lost in the past, before the web, the explosion in javascript, etc. etc.

Avoiding closed devices, say ones that a person cannot write and run a program on without some sort of permission?

Old != wrong and or irrelevant

The FSF matters, the ideas matter. RMS is an important part of all that.

Web? Javascript? There is a big world of software out there.

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

#500

Post by dataduck »

lmm wrote: post #416
sellyme wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky in who I associate with, but no-one I would consider a potential "collaborator" (either in professional or personal life) would ever demand I be incorrect about something to suit their ideals. I've been trying to come up with examples where that might happen and the best one I can think of is someone's young child asked you if Santa was real, but even then I'm about 50/50 on…

> Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky in who I associate with, but no-one I would consider a potential "collaborator" (either in professional or personal life) would ever demand I be incorrect about something to suit their ideals. I find that very hard to believe. To be correct you not only need to be able to say carefully thought-out, nuanced things; you also need to be able to speculate wildly, to take half-…

> the half-baked version of some important truths probably sounds exactly like the most offensively ignorant notions you could think of.

And good people are the ones who won't punish you for that. I'd agree an entire social group being this open minded seems unlikely in 2021, but GP may just have really effective filter bubble.

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