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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

#711

Post by lasagnaphil »

cblconfederate wrote: post #362
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…

Not everyone is dispensable. I doubt there would be true free software without him. We need militant people to push towards that direction and there are not many

It’s not the problem about being dispensable, it’s just that regardless of the hard work Stallman did over the past decades, it’s becoming harder and harder to justify his presence when many other contributors are losing faith the org because of him (such as the 33 people who signed a joint statement on the GNU project: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...). Stallman should at least have apologized over some of his awkward and potentially offending behavior over the years and do some self-retrospection (which is what Linus did, and as a result has much higher ground than Stallman, since even if he still might think the drama was overblown it still shows that he cares and emphasizes others to a certain degree.) But it seems that none of that is done even at a superficial level, so I expect FSF would significantly lose more trust among developers after Stallman’s revival. (Note that HN isn’t the only place to measure overall dev opinion...)

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

#712

Post by unanswered »

jedimastert wrote: post #698
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've always been against this scarlet letter mentality that seems pervasive. I've also been vocally against RMS's particular brand of outreach as being incredibly alienating of the people whose opinions he actually needs to address. Admittedly, if he does have autism there's a ton of things that start to make sense, speaking from my own experiences with and around it, but I can't actually find a reference to any conf…

Would his getting a diagnosis and publicly sharing that private medical information make you start treating him as an actual human being, or nah?

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

#713

Post by [deleted] »

unanswered wrote: post #712
jedimastert wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been against this scarlet letter mentality that seems pervasive. I've also been vocally against RMS's particular brand of outreach as being incredibly alienating of the people whose opinions he actually needs to address. Admittedly, if he does have autism there's a ton of things that start to make sense, speaking from my own experiences with and around it, but I can't actually find a reference to any conf…

Would his getting a diagnosis and publicly sharing that private medical information make you start treating him as an actual human being, or nah?

[deleted]

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

#714

Post by angry_octet »

temp8964 wrote: post #697
angry_octet wrote: post #694

It is now clear that the FSF will never denounce the behavior of RMS, as they are his creature forever. As such, the organization is inherently toxic. That many of you cannot recognize the problem of having RMS in a leadership position, or indeed see nothing wrong with his words or behavior, is itself a savage indictment on tech culture. Please wear FSF and Free Stallman badges prominently so I know to avoid you at c…

We should have moral giants lead every institution. Saints! The Perfect Beings! Please come down Earth to save this planet!

There are many exemplary and inspiring individuals in the open source community. Doubling down on a shitty one doesn't make any sense. But FSF is willing to sabotage its own reason for existence to satisfy his ego.

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

#715

Post by unanswered »

NationalPark wrote: post #703
skissane wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just wondering what the source is for Stallman being autistic? I see people saying he's autistic, and I even see people saying he has called himself "borderline autistic", but that's not quite the same thing as a diagnosis If you understand the concept of the broad autism phenotype (BAP), it is hard not to see it in his behaviour. He obviously has autistic traits. Now, is it BAP (sub-clinical ASD) or is it clinical…

If the line is that blurry, when do we begin holding people accountable for being apparently deliberately inconsiderate and rude? Most people don't have a problem with social cues, are we to quietly accept abuse and harassment even from people who have been told they're hurting others and don't change?

Do we quietly accept not being listened to by the deaf? Do we quietly accept our visual cues not being correctly interpreted by the blind? Do we quietly accept our grandmothers forgetting our birthdays? Do we quietly accept service animals (well I suppose a lot of people don't)?

But it's okay to treat autistic people as less than human because they are not a politically powerful group. You learn a lot about people from how they treat politically disadvantaged, and we have learned a lot about you.

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

#716

Post by _ov7i »

temp8964 wrote: post #689
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would entirely agree but police also have a horrible track record when it comes to these things. The mob justice happens because the cops can’t be trusted to do justice, and haven’t been shown themselves worthy of that trust for generations when it comes to sexual assault. (Sometimes the cops themselves are the ones doing the assaulting!)

Yeah. Unless cops are all saints we should rely on mob justice.

We should not - it's a dangerous idea which gets people's lives destroyed. "Innocent until guilty" is an important concept which mob justice often forgets which causes a lot of damage.

Just because one system is broken, doesn't mean that we have to replace it with another broken one.

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

#717

Post by kaba0 »

zajio1am wrote: post #643
kaba0 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt people can compartmentalize things that are in vehement disagreement with their core values. Would Stallman work on implementing a DRM? And not in this case, but what about someone denying the other’s existence? Actively supporting groups that work on restricting someone’s basic rights? (Mozilla with Eich)

> Would Stallman work on implementing a DRM? It is a big difference working on A with people i disagree about B, and actively working against one's values. I can work with non-vegetarians on software, but i would not work in slaughterhouse. > And not in this case, but what about someone denying the other’s existence? As an LGBT person (and pro same-sex marriage), i think that mixing up 'being against same-sex marriag…

I don’t see what are you disagreeing with.

I only mentioned the Mozilla case, but I was talking about the topic in general. Vehemently disagreeing with something is not working with vegans/non-vegans. Denying the other’s existence in case of trans people is unfortunately quite common.

Do you think a Jewish person can work together with a nazi?

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

#718

Post by wrycoder »

dkersten wrote: post #171
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…

The worst part is that the blog post that started a lot of that literally quoted RMS one sentence and the rephrased it as something completely different in the very next sentence. And nobody called them out for it. He basically just said "Minsky may not have known because Epstein most likely forced the girl into acting as if her was willing" (paraphrased from memory) and it got turned into "RMS said the girl was will…

Those who read the extensive threads back in 2019 will remember that Minsky, at the time, commented to one of his associates about the interaction with the young woman. That’s how Stallman heard of it.

And, further, there is no evidence that Minsky took any further action relative to her. Quite the contrary - he seemed bemused by the situation.

Some of the discussion in these threads strongly implies that Minsky had a sexual interaction and that Stallman was defending him. This is wrong, in both cases.

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

#719

Post by africanboy »

KronisLV wrote: post #693
africanboy wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's move on and talk about effective leadership for the movement instead. Let's move on and welcome Stallman back, because we need him more than those that slandered him. Let's also talk about what should change so it won't happen again, to anybody else. Not everyone is a gentle giant like Stallman is. Do you remember what happened to poor Aaron Swarz when he was falsely accused and prosecuted for things he hadn'…

This does seem like a slightly emotionally charged response, but overall i agree with you. Stallman said things that would get most people "cancelled" nowadays, while his intent might have been to debate the language used, how it was dishonest and how jumping to conclusions might be a disingenuous way to go about things. His words, from another post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535974 The announcement of t…

It's funny that we are both being downvoted by the same people that think they could do better than Stallman, but are usually younger (sometimes much younger) than the FSF itself.

I was merely 10 years old when it was started, so basically FSF is as old as the self conscious me, did only good, never betrayed their ideals, never harmed anyone, but Stallman seems to deserve hatred and disrespect only because he exists and don't care about other people opinions enough to be scared by them or by their mob behaviour.

In the past 35 years the best I could do is convincing less than a hundred people in total to switch to using Linux as their default Operating System at work (of course 99% of them still use proprietary systems at home), Stallman started a visionary movement that changed the way we look at software to its very foundation.

I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for what he did.

Meanwhile you can see people jumping on the BC, NFT, Apple and other bandwagons, praising them, describing them as "the future" despite the pervasive damage to society and environment they are (allegedly or not) producing, only because they own something of that brand.

If only Stallman thought of creating a fashion brand to scam people... how silly of him!

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

#720

Post by h_anna_h »

pseudalopex wrote: post #645
scohesc wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman has autism. I don't think he really understands the intricacies of social boundaries, situations, and limits.

Stallman said he isn't autistic.[1] The people with autism I know abhor what Epstein did as much as anyone else. And they're pretty angry about unqualified neurotypicals diagnosing anyone they want to let off the hook. [1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551458/asperger-s-oxy...

> The people with autism I know abhor what Epstein did as much as anyone else

So did Stallman.

> Stallman said he isn't autistic

His justification is basically that has no trouble with rhythms so he self-diagnosed himself as not having asperger's.

I would suggest reading this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535390 and more specifically this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26538554

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