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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

#511

Post by dataduck »

stephenr wrote: post #266
spurgu wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it refreshing to see someone willing to talk and think about these taboo kind of subjects. Myself I think it (sexual interaction) boils down to mutual consent, but there's obviously an age where a person cannot grasp the scope of what they're consenting to. And necrophilia fails this definition since consent is impossible (unless written in a will). And now having looked into what he was actually accused of, o…

The law literally is about age of consent. As a society we deem young people too immature to make important decisions for themselves. Nothing about calling him on his ridiculous views is related to "wokeness". One guy saying "hey maybe fucking kids isn't bad" is not in any way related to social injustice - society in general says that fucking kids is bad. Edit: unless you agree with his claims - then I guess you migh…

Surely thinking you've got the right to police and punish other people for their views is wokeness, regardless of how ridiculous said views are?

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

#512

Post by spurgu »

stephenr wrote: post #266
spurgu wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it refreshing to see someone willing to talk and think about these taboo kind of subjects. Myself I think it (sexual interaction) boils down to mutual consent, but there's obviously an age where a person cannot grasp the scope of what they're consenting to. And necrophilia fails this definition since consent is impossible (unless written in a will). And now having looked into what he was actually accused of, o…

The law literally is about age of consent. As a society we deem young people too immature to make important decisions for themselves. Nothing about calling him on his ridiculous views is related to "wokeness". One guy saying "hey maybe fucking kids isn't bad" is not in any way related to social injustice - society in general says that fucking kids is bad. Edit: unless you agree with his claims - then I guess you migh…

You are literally projecting your own views on this, which is exactly the problem here.

The law? In which country? Who is correct? Is 18 mature but 17 isn't? Or 15? There is no hard coded rule/value, only arbitrary laws trying to generalize.

And the rest of your post is not even worth dissecting (even though it would be moderately amusing), you're clearly missing both what I and RMS are trying to say.

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

#513

Post by Chris2048 »

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.

They tried to impeach him twice!

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

#514

Post by CRConrad »

noobermin wrote: post #470
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…

Were there any allegations of him doing unwanted flirting? This post seems to be conflating rms' cancellation with other people's unwanted behavior.

No, some chick's memory of exactly that -- from 1987 or -92 or something -- was a fairly prominent part of what everyone was howling about.

(And yes, I'm using the rather dismissive noun quite deliberately: Ordinarily this person would have been just another young [at the time; not so much nowadays] woman, and I'd have used some more appropriate term. But this bird-brained behaviour is worthy of a chicken. If anyone has a problem with that, I'm perfectly amenable to switching. How about "harpy"?)

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

#515

Post by undecisive »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #507
lanevorockz wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rewrite history, main reason Richard was pushed out was a MeToo/racism witch hunt against him. He was not the only one attacked on it, most heads of open source projects were also a target at the same time.

Every[1] reputable[2] source[3] I[4] can[5] find[6] (literally just the top search results for "stallman resigns" that have any info about the reason) says that Stallman resigned over his comments defending a fellow computer scientist over his participation in the Epstein scandal. Do you have a reason to believe otherwise? 1: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman... 2: https://www.forbes.com/si…

I think the issue here is that you've misunderstood the politics of these kinds of "resignations".

In the public mind (even if not in reality) when someone "resigns" because of "past comments", they have either been given an ultimatum - "Jump or be pushed" - or they are experiencing intrusions into their personal life (or there is behaviour from the community that makes this person believe these intrusions are imminent)

My understanding at the time was that it was the former - there were murmurings of possible action against him, and whether it was to avoid harm to the FSF or risk the public damage to his reputation I have no idea, but he decided to gracefully step aside.

So yes, officially you may be correct - but especially with someone like RMS, it is highly unlikely that he just chose to resign because he previously made comments that people didn't like. RMS is very used to making controversial statements and weathering the storm, I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that this was just one storm he couldn't weather - and much more likely that he chose the path of least damage, to himself or his cause or his legacy.

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

#516

Post by joana035 »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #497
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…

As a woman who, at my 16 was able to fool many men in selling me alcohol and nicotine, was able to interpret RMS arguments properly.

It's a shame that his words are being twisted once again after everything he went through.

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

#517

Post by hutzlibu »

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…

Accepting people to be weird is not the same thing as accepting people to be insensitive assholes. Especially not in leadership positions.

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

#518

Post by teddyh »

winter_blue wrote: post #390
teddyh wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

From your link: > With free software, users don't have to pay the distribution fee in order to use the software. They can copy the program from a friend who has a copy, or with the help of a friend who has network access. Or several users can join together, split the price of one CD-ROM, then each in turn can install the software. The type of “selling” that GNU is proposing here is exactly the same as asking for dona…

If you don’t like that kind of selling, maybe this is more to your liking? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions

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

#519

Post by dbattaglia »

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.

The difference is, in American politics there are two very distinct polarized sides, and the one he was running for doesn't really care about this kind of thing very much. It's much worse when your own side is the one "cancelling" you.

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

#520

Post by u801e »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #497
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…

> willingly resigned from his position at the FSF because of it.

I don't think willingly is the best way to put it. It was more along the lines that he was told there would be consequences and he could avoid them if he resigned.

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