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Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

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Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#51

Post by endisneigh »

I don’t have a particular opinion of Stallman since I don’t have all of the facts but I wish Mozilla put more effort in making themselves more sustainable. From a cursory search it doesn’t appear that Stallman has every physically or sexually harassed anyone. Perhaps he has said questionable things but nothing substantial turned up on a search.

Hundreds of millions from Google and basically nothing to show for it other then Firefox. Firefox is cool, don’t get me wrong, but literally every year we have startups from Ycombinator come out with impressive, sustainable projects for less than half a million.

As for Stallman, is there an exhaustive list of so-called unacceptable behavior that he has done?

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#52

Post by dang »

konjin wrote: post #24
datavirtue wrote: post #11

What did Stallman do specifically? Why is it always so hard to find out what someone actually said or did when they are being cancelled?

He was (((white))) and a not quite black enough student needed a scalp for her future career. It pays to destroy lives: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop.

This is not a site for political or ideological hell war.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#53

Post by geofft »

jrm4 wrote: post #39

I'm trying to weigh this very carefully and it's hard to get a complete picture (which is part of the problem,) but I think the thing that rubs me most the wrong way is the general flimsiness of the arguments against RMS. It's very clear that he has words and actions in the past that must be addressed and atoned for (and perhaps has) -- but it is not at all clear to me that these words and ideas justify removing the…

Quoting from their website, "The FSF is a charity with a worldwide mission to advance software freedom."

The question for the FSF Board isn't whether Stallman deserves to be punished, or anything - they're not a court of law. The question for the FSF Board is whether adding Stallman to the board accomplishes their mission of advancing software freedom.

The FSF is not the Stallman Foundation (the way that there's a Gates Foundation or a Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative or whatever), whose goal would be to support Stallman in his works and in making the changes he wants to see in the world. It has a specific mission, and the question isn't whether Stallman is so bad that he deserves to be excluded, it's whether associating themselves with Stallman helps them achieve that goal.

Given how much of the free software movement he has alienated, including past FSF staff, past FSF board members, and a number of present and former GNU contributors, as well as other organizations like Software Freedom Conservancy that work closely with the FSF and defend the GPL and software freedom, it seems very unlikely that it does.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#56

Post by mark_l_watson »

tubbyjr wrote: post #41

Well, there go my annual Tor donations, oh well. Let's see if they can make up for these losses by going the cancel culture/censorship route. And Mozilla has been a joke for a while with their latest CEO. He's literally trying to jump on anything currently trendy, to hold onto his seat and salary for as long as possible while he drives its projects into the bedrock.

I just did the same - no contributions to Tor from me. As I mentioned in a different comment, I also just uninstalled Firefox.

Slightly off topic, I have been hammering my friends when they start spouting off cancel culture. I am considerably to the left of most of my friends who are democrats so I don't think it is political. Too many people judge written or spoken words based on who said them, rather than the content.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#58

Post by krapp »

ipnon wrote: post #44

I believe there is a significant chilling effect in regards to speaking out in the defense of Richard Stallman, a man who has never been convicted of a crime, and who in response to the allegations in the open letter has said things such as: "We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex – by Epstein. She was being harmed," "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a c…

>I believe there is a significant chilling effect in regards to speaking out in the defense of Richard Stallman

Sorry? What chilling effect?

People are coming out of the woodwork to defend him. Most of the comments on most threads on Hacker News defend him. I can't think of anyone more vigorously and vociferously defended by the tech community except maybe Aaron Swartz.

If there's any chilling effect at all, it's in the other direction. It's impossible to disagree with the countrvailing narrative that Stallman Did Nothing Wrong without being called a bigot who hates neurdivergent people, a witch-hunting SJW and a traitor to free software. No one is even willing to concede the possibility of disagreeing with Stallman or his positions in good faith.

Meanwhile, only thing anyone suffers from defending Stallman is surplus karma.

Edit - yep.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#59

Post by nammi »

orra wrote: post #22
datavirtue wrote: post #11

What did Stallman do specifically? Why is it always so hard to find out what someone actually said or did when they are being cancelled?

Stallman seems to have a history of being manipulative and sexually harassing women. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He also has some troubling views that at best make him an inappropriate spokesperson. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

I checked one of those citations, and wow....

> I expect that Sudanese law defines "rape" to exclude rape by the husband. That's comparable to US laws that define "rape" to include voluntary sex with under N years of age (where N varies). Both laws falsify the meaning of "rape".

https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html#14_May_2018_...

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#60

Post by kinghajj »

dang wrote: post #52
konjin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was (((white))) and a not quite black enough student needed a scalp for her future career. It pays to destroy lives: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. This is not a site for political or ideological hell war. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you.
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