Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF

techrights.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 943 posts

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

#801

Post by commandlinefan »

YorickPeterse wrote: post #16
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, maybe it was "hard to interact with him" only if one was unwilling to accept his difference?

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.

> a creep and general unpleasant person to work with

In my experience, the same sort of people who crusade against the Richard Stallmans of the world are the creepiest and by far most unpleasant to work with, yet they themselves are constantly being celebrated, uplifted, and raised into positions of real power and real harm.

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

#802

Post by JohnBooty »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #671
JohnBooty wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celebrating neurodiversity is crucial! It is in my view a very basic human rights issue. However it does not, or at least should not, extend to excusing/permitting behaviors that hurt others. Much human anguish and suffering could be alleviated if we had a greater understanding of one simple truth: "your rights end where mine begin." On balance, I think RMS is ultimately a person who has greatly benefited the world.…

I just fundamentally reject the equivalence between “hurt” and “uncomfortable”. The idea that people have a moral obligation to be normal, that I’ve been injured when someone acts weird or offers distasteful opinions, could come straight out of a Moral Majority handbook. It only makes sense from within a strict monoculture, where everyone feels obligated to conform and confident that the things they have to conform w…

This is not about a strict monoculture.

You can have a robust and diverse culture in which there's broad agreement that a few things are bad - murder, slavery, sex with minors, etc.

RMS defended Minsky's sex with a minor and perhaps more relevantly if we read the linked articles, it's part of a longstanding trend with him. And he feels the need to push these views on others in a workplace/academic setting, via mailing lists.

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

#803

Post by [deleted] »

DreamScatter wrote: post #786
kaba0 wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#804

Post by africanboy »

arp242 wrote: post #783
africanboy wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this comment, he did better than any other leader in the World. > Alienating of many people who are generally keen on most of the Free Software principles Did donations went up or down during his leadership? And what happened when he "left"? How many people found out that Stallman was right in retrospect? > Insisting on absolute freedom to the detriment of more freedom than the status quo. That's the cor…

That last "Our Core Work" paragraph is hilarious and straight from 1996. The special mention that Savannah gets makes it double hilarious, since it's the worst code repository software ever created and was already stale in 2001. If you want FSF to be some sort of "by hackers, for hackers" thing: sure, go for it. If you want anything more: lolno. The FSF is Free Software's worst enemy.

> The FSF is Free Software's worst enemy.

That's a bold claim, but since I don't have a horse in this race my opinion is that FOSS space is huge and one size fits all is not possible anymore.

They can't make everybody happy and it would be silly to even try.

If you don't like FSF, you can support other entities.

I believe it's perfectly fine to disagree, but I also believe FSF has never forced anybody to do anything they didn't want to do.

I personally would much prefer to see many others trying than changing what the FSF stands for simply because they are not trying to please everybody.

Anyway, I see people treating Stallman like a devil, while working for big corporations or happily using proprietary software, like Github (Microsoft), while accusing Stallman of being enemy of the free software.

it's a weird shift from the times when Microsoft was referred as M$...

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

#805

Post by seba_dos1 »

jolux wrote: post #800
seba_dos1 wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What reason is there to be coming to somebody’s defense when they are credibly accused of something like that? Accused of what exactly? See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. He didn't even doubt those accusations in any way. It's plainly written there in his e-mail. You're being dishonest.

>Accused of what exactly? Accused of having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims. >See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. It's quite plain what Stallman was responding to. Stallman himself even says he sees no reason to disbelieve it. Unfortunately, "I didn't know she was a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim when I r…

> is not much of a defense, to me, ethically

So what? It's not a defense, obviously, but it's enough to ask not to use the word "assault" when talking about those accusations because it's clearly misleading. It makes you imagine different things when you hear it than what is actually being talked about. You don't even have to give Minsky any benefit of doubt to ask for that.

Whether that changes the moral or ethical outcome is completely irrelevant (and of course, I don't think it does).

We're talking about a person who refuses to use singular they because... it's grammatically ambiguous so he comes up with and consistently uses perse/per/pers instead[0]. Like, c'mon, showing up in that thread to argue about used words is the most on-brand thing he could do.

[0] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html

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

#806

Post by ddingus »

de_nied wrote: post #652
CJefferson wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about having a mouthpiece. The point of him being at the helm, so to speak, is that he has, for lack of better words, put his money where his mouth is. RMS can be trusted and depended upon to hold up the idea of free software and lead it. Cancellation mobs and political opportunists cannot be trusted, because they will never be satisfied with their agenda, and because they do not truly care about the foundat…

>RMS can be trusted and depended upon to hold up the idea of free software and lead it.

Well said. I agree.

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

#807

Post by ddingus »

CJefferson wrote: post #593
ddingus wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is (in my mind), the FSF doesn't matter, and RMS is a major part of that. He pushed away the vast majority of the leading voices in open source over the years (I don't se meant major open source coders / project leaders defending or supporting him. Most dislike him).

This is simple:

Are the ideas worth it or not?

To me, they are worth some effort. How likable RMS happens to be is an entirely different matter.

And, frankly an excuse I have seen used to dodge a meaningful discussion about the ideas.

My only interest in RMS is related to those ideas, put another way.

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

#808

Post by ddingus »

CJefferson wrote: post #593
ddingus wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is (in my mind), the FSF doesn't matter, and RMS is a major part of that. He pushed away the vast majority of the leading voices in open source over the years (I don't se meant major open source coders / project leaders defending or supporting him. Most dislike him).

So, let us frame it all up another way:

Forget RMS. Does the FSF matter to you personally?

Why or why not?

If it does matter, I submit the best course of action is to help others better understand.

If it does not matter?

...

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

#809

Post by jolux »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #805
jolux wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Accused of what exactly? Accused of having sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims. >See, the whole point of Stallman's statements was to clarify what exactly Minsky was being accused of, no more no less. It's quite plain what Stallman was responding to. Stallman himself even says he sees no reason to disbelieve it. Unfortunately, "I didn't know she was a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim when I r…

> is not much of a defense, to me, ethically So what? It's not a defense, obviously, but it's enough to ask not to use the word "assault" when talking about those accusations because it's clearly misleading. It makes you imagine different things when you hear it than what is actually being talked about. You don't even have to give Minsky any benefit of doubt to ask for that. Whether that changes the moral or ethical…

> It's not a defense, obviously, but it's enough to ask not to use the word "assault" when talking about those accusations because it's clearly misleading.

Is it though? If the victim was coerced, and he’s complicit in causing a great deal of harm, why wouldn’t we call it assault? Not all sexual assault involves battery, and pretending that it does is silly.

>Like, c'mon, showing up in that thread to argue about used words is the most on-brand thing he could do.

I don’t think I ever argued this was atypical behavior for him. The fact that it’s expected is the part I find unacceptable.

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

#810

Post by hutzlibu »

pnt12 wrote: post #769
hutzlibu wrote: post #746

I am on a quest for facts, hard in this debate. So this was the original post that lead to RMS resign. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21... Here is a defending one. https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili... But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign. "not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door,…

In your quest for truth, do you question yourself: what's the harm of the sign? Is it sexual assault? Harassing? A bad joke? And what should we do about it? Ask him to take it out? Refuse to have him at conferences and universities? Kick him from MIT and the FSF? We're too quick with our judgment and punishment nowadays. This level of offense used to be normal from the Christian prudes and the scared moms, not the pr…

"In your quest for truth, do you question yourself: what's the harm of the sign?"

To me it would be not such a big deal, but to a pretty, but insecure hacker women - probably yes. As she would then avoid RMS and the FSF. If the FSF is fine with that, fine for them. I am also not joining.

But to me a big deal is, how people are dealing with facts.

Because saying, someone else wrote it and put it up and RMS put it down implies he did not endorse it. People here told me it is fake.

But if he would have left it there for good and only put it down much later after people told him that it is not appropriate... then saying the sign is fake would be lying propaganda to be.

And if someone would have put it there with the purpose of discediting RMS - would tell about about its enemies.

Thats why I want facts. So far I gathered quite some facts about quite some people involved.

But like I said, for all I care, RMS can be total or partial leader of the FSF again. They are not really my crowd anyway, despite myself living and loving open source.

Post reply on HN