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RMS Support Letter

rms-support-letter.github.io

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Re: RMS Support Letter

#41

Post by drivingmenuts »

Bancakes wrote: post #36
drivingmenuts wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the Twitter thread? It cited examples of his quite objectionable opinions. Granted, he might have thoroughly recanted those statements, but they are always going to be baggage that the FSF is going to be stuck defending, which is not part of their mission. Surely, there are other people who made better decisions about what is defensible and what is not.

>objectionable Things taken out of context, at worst. At best, personal opinions. >FSF is going to be stuck defending From what? Outrage culture? A self-made problem? FSF is about software and software licenses, not blogposting and whataboutism. >Surely, No, there is not one person as qualified on free software as RMS and Torvalds, for as long as those two are alive. It's unacceptable that a non-engineer takes the le…

I suggest you re-read that thread. The examples cited are his opinions.

The FSF is going to be stuck defending him now now, regardless if it’s in their mission or not. Maybe not every press conference but enough to be a distraction at best, no matter the source.

I wouldn’t suggest a non-engineer for a lead position in the FSF, but I would suggest they look to someone who hasn’t held such polarizing and objectionable opinions on such a polarizing topic.

Re: RMS Support Letter

#42

Post by nlpguide »

movaps wrote: post #39
pityJuke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is annoying is the original open letter failed to go into depth about all this. I'd heard rumblings about this around the original time he was removed from various positions, but the hard transcripts here really solidify the opinion RMS is a bit of a creep. Like, "pleasure cards"? Come on dude.

He was told off for asking people out. His (an autistic man keep in mind) solution was "pleasure cards", as opposed to business cards. It's a very tame innuendo which suffers from outdated language. People don't use the word "pleasure" casually today. Here's a picture of one of said cards - how shocking: https://twitter.com/bella_velo/status/1172524864193945603/ph...

I thought it was a pun on the silly question asked in old movies when you enter a country: "Business or pleasure?".

RMS hates business and renames everything, so it's a pleasure card. I wonder if he even intended innuendo other than being anti-business.

Re: RMS Support Letter

#43

Post by advicealligator »

guipsp wrote: post #15
batat wrote: post #10

People who are against bullying of Richard Stallman exists too! And there are lot of them - quiet developers, incapable of social interaction. We are not reading Twitter 24/7, we are not speakers nor evangelists. We write commit messages, not tweets. We are doing things, not loud manifestos. And all powers currently is seized by a loud crowd who believe that person should be judged by his words, not his deeds. They b…

No one is bullying RMS, they are holding him accountable for his behavior. >And all powers currently is seized by a loud crowd who believe that person should be judged by his words, not his deeds. His deeds actually make people (specially woman) feel unsafe in the community.

> His deeds actually make people (specially woman) feel unsafe in the community.

How is that his problem and not theirs?

Re: RMS Support Letter

#44

Post by batat »

parrellel wrote: post #33

RMS, a disgusting person who is often right about software, and built some good stuff.

Yeah, dead-on. Like "The right to be rude"[0], a year old events when Eric S. Raymond - co-founder of OSI - was kicked off from the OSI mailing list.

(Back then someone suggested adding a "we-don't-like-them" clause to Free licenses which prohibits the use of Free software by "bad people or bad companies" (e.g. the US Migration Service for its policy towards migrants). ESR pointed out a violation of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Open Source Definition: "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups", "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" in his usual way of communicating and... Well, you know how it's ended up)

[0] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8609

Re: RMS Support Letter

#45

Post by hjek »

batat wrote: post #29
soganess wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bout a person be judged by both their words and their deeds? Also, this quasi-poetic, we-we-we, silent-majority, US vs THEM, argument comes off as "all developers must support RMS" saber-rattling. I don't have a twitter (or any social media) and I've been a software engineer long enough that I worry about ageism. I definitely think RMS has been using his celebrity to avoid dealing with a bunch of unchecked person…

Yes, silent-majority, exactly. Because we (or this is me only?) were taught that expressing point of view which differs from current "course of the party", while may not be a subject of criminal prosecution (therefore, your freedom of speech is not formally violated), but leads to "deplatforming", you may lose your contracts, your job etc. "Cancel culture" instructs us that instant breakdown of all relations is norma…

Except that Depp did get convicted of abuse:

> A High Court judge has ruled that actor Johnny Depp subjected his ex-wife to domestic abuse on twelve occasions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54784429

Re: RMS Support Letter

#46

Post by hjek »

guipsp wrote: post #20
Bancakes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me a list of such women?

I can link you some examples, but a complete list is impossible. In the middle of this article: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

> “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. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason…I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)”

He lived in his office. Maybe that explains the mattress, huh?

Additionally, at some point another anonymous person has sat on RMS' mattress without wearing a shirt. We're setting the bar quite low for what counts as "abuse" here.

> Until around 1998, my office at MIT was also my residence. I was even registered to vote from there.

https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

> I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”

So one person having allegedly told an arguably sexist text editor joke to another person is somehow good enough evidence to punish the third person who is the subject of the joke?

> Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him. [...] He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.”

Complicated story, and arguably not nice of RMS, but saying that someone is not "a man of [their] word" because they haven't committed suicide is also not nice, in my eyes at least.

Re: RMS Support Letter

#47

Post by batat »

hjek wrote: post #45
batat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, silent-majority, exactly. Because we (or this is me only?) were taught that expressing point of view which differs from current "course of the party", while may not be a subject of criminal prosecution (therefore, your freedom of speech is not formally violated), but leads to "deplatforming", you may lose your contracts, your job etc. "Cancel culture" instructs us that instant breakdown of all relations is norma…

Except that Depp did get convicted of abuse: > A High Court judge has ruled that actor Johnny Depp subjected his ex-wife to domestic abuse on twelve occasions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54784429

You are right, good catch.

Re: RMS Support Letter

#48

Post by [deleted] »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #40
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember it very well. Please include his quote because I don't remember anything vile in it. I do remember though how several media outlets misquoted him ("Stallman defends Epstein", "Stallman describes the victim as 'entirely willing'") attributing to him the words he never said. Many of these still run this false story, with no correction nor apology.

The very fact that instead of a reply I receive downvotes is a good summary of the general situation.

[deleted]

Re: RMS Support Letter

#49

Post by galactus »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #40
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember it very well. Please include his quote because I don't remember anything vile in it. I do remember though how several media outlets misquoted him ("Stallman defends Epstein", "Stallman describes the victim as 'entirely willing'") attributing to him the words he never said. Many of these still run this false story, with no correction nor apology.

The very fact that instead of a reply I receive downvotes is a good summary of the general situation.

Exactly. They refuse to accept that what was said about Stallman was false.

It's exactly the same attitude Trump has about truth: it doesn't matter.

Re: RMS Support Letter

#50

Post by skyzyx »

“Bullying”

FSF is free to choose to bring RMS back. Likewise, people and organizations are free to choose to neither fund nor support the FSF as a result.

It cuts both ways.

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