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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

#931

Post by silver-machine »

Aloha wrote: post #330
nostrademons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ribbonfarm called this a couple years ago: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g... Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When a…

It's like this, I've spent a lifetime learning a rulebook by trial and error that everyone else just seems to know . It's absolutely maddening when the rules suddenly change for no discernible reason, often with little warning and grave consequences with no second chances for screwing it up. I see people clamoring for a safe spaces and I wonder where I can find such a thing? (To an extent I can find one at sci-fi, an…

One more thing: back in the nineties and oughties furries were a punchline in my crowd. Furries were hilarious. You could make any joke funnier by putting a furry in it. They were like Nickleback that way.

Things changed -- or at least I changed. I don't use furries as a punchline anymore, and none of my friends do, and I'm like "c'mon please don't do that" if anyone does.

Sure, it makes it harder to tell jokes sometimes, but who cares about that?

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

#932

Post by lyssa17 »

nostrademons wrote: post #41
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…

Ribbonfarm called this a couple years ago: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g... Specifically battlefront #8. He calls it consequential because the the neurodivergent/PC conflict highlights an inherent paradox in the PC worldview. Most applications of political correctness focus (at least on the surface) on defending a marginalized group against the verbal attacks of a privileged one. When a…

This is honestly such a disappointment. I used to appreciate your thoughts on a lot of issues and particularly loved that you were in the intersection of haskell and harry potter fanfic.

Venkatesh Rao is generally contentless and writes long winded tracts that don't actually make any kind of coherent argument for what they're saying.

Do you really think Stallman's long history of sexual harassment is because he was too gosh-darned oblivious to realize he shouldn't be doing that? This isn't exactly "Oh he maintained eye-contact for half a second too long and the thought police are after him" territory jfc.

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

#933

Post by sildur »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #707
mpweiher wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you are from originally, but the US is fairly unique in the world when it comes to these things.

I'm getting on aside note on a side note already but this bumps into something I've been thinking about for days now so I can't resist. I'm beginning to think the swearing thing in the U.S. has to do with a perception of the concept of "innocence". Because I've noticed a lot of people only begin to have a problem with swearing here when it involves children. For sure, there are people who are just generally against s…

Here in Spain we try not to swear in front of kids (because we know they will copy it), and we find jarring to hear a kid swear. More or less jarring depending on the word. I remember my surprise the first time I heard a grandma swear (I was a teen at that moment). I assumed grandmas never swore.

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

#934

Post by zwhitchcox »

jdub wrote: post #195

Richard says he's not autistic. People who try to conflate his bad behaviour and autism are excusing his behaviour and unfairly generalising about autistic people. Richard is argumentative about his bad behaviour. He's not oblivious. Plenty of people have spoken to him about it. You'd think he might take a hint after being removed from his own organisation and all the surrounding commentary. He doesn't care. (Separat…

But he didn't even say the stuff people say he did. It's literally just a witchhunt.

Let's not pretend that people are even mad at him for anything he did. It's just journalists contorting facts to make a good story, and Silicon Valley's inability to discern truth.

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

#935

Post by DanBC »

zwhitchcox wrote: post #934
jdub wrote: post #195

Richard says he's not autistic. People who try to conflate his bad behaviour and autism are excusing his behaviour and unfairly generalising about autistic people. Richard is argumentative about his bad behaviour. He's not oblivious. Plenty of people have spoken to him about it. You'd think he might take a hint after being removed from his own organisation and all the surrounding commentary. He doesn't care. (Separat…

But he didn't even say the stuff people say he did. It's literally just a witchhunt. Let's not pretend that people are even mad at him for anything he did. It's just journalists contorting facts to make a good story, and Silicon Valley's inability to discern truth.

Assuming for a moment that he didn't say it: that just shows that he's incompetent at communication. Since that's an intrinsic part of his job it shows he's not suitable for the position.

If he'd ever showed any sign that he wanted to improve people might be a bit more tolerant. He's had years to put support in place, and he's declined to do so. He keeps blaming lack of understanding on other people - [I'm sorry you misunderstood what I said, vs I'm sorry I said what I said].

And now we have dozens of people who describe the harassment and aggression they faced when working with him.

People defending RMS on HN want it both ways: when allegations are made these people will say "it's unfair to put this in public; complaints need to be dealt with in private". But then when we're trying to talk about RMS's behaviours those same people will ask for huge amounts of detail in order to litigate the accusations.

It's an inconsistent approach that's driven by defending RMS rather than wanting to find out what the truth is.

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

#937

Post by mwcampbell »

lfam wrote: post #136
dralley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they apologize? Everything they say is true. GNU software absolutely has been stagnating for the past 2 decades under Stallman's leadership. It is a little known fact that in 2005, there was an offer to merge the LLVM project into GCC, and assign the entire copyright to GNU. The patches to do so were even submitted. [0] They were rejected [1], because GNU wasn't interested in producing a modular compiler.…

Thanks for mentioning this. I think you missed the actual message where LLVM was offered to the FSF: https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html https://gcc.gnu.org/legacy-ml/gcc/2005-11/msg01112.html Even within active GNU projects, this egregious incidence of mismanagement is still not widely known, although many maintainers of active GNU projects have their own stories of when Stallman's ignorance of a…

> For at least a decade, his near-total ignorance of how people (billions of them!) use computers has been encouraged and deepened by the sycophantic acolytes who encourage him to ignore developments in computing, like the ostrich with its head in the sand.

Can you expand on this point? I don't doubt you, but I'd like to know more.

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

#938

Post by afarviral »

dralley wrote: post #579
wishdasher wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read her post, she was an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering, and by her own admittance did not ever work nor interact with RMS at MIT.

This guy, however, did. https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...

This quote stuck out: > I feel very sad for him. He’s a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I’ve met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it’s still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life’s work is a failure.

The auther (Thomas Bushnell) goes on to say the decision (to remove RMS) was the right one but for the totality of RMSs behavior over the years, not the incidents highlighted by the media.

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

#939

Post by junke »

gypsyharlot wrote: post #927
junke wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People part of the GNU movement say "we owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Stallman for his decades of important work in the free software movement". Andy Wingo said "he created GNU, speaking it into existence via prophetic narrative and via code; yes, he inspired many people, myself included, to make the vision of a GNU system into a reality; and yes, he should be recognized for these things." They also say: "Yet, w…

Thanks for finding those resources. In this one: https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and... He says: "The result, sadly, is that a significant proportion of those that have stuck with GNU don't see any problems with RMS." Yes, isn't it sad that so many don't see any problems with RMS. What can we do about that? How can we make people see problems with RMS? This is despicable activism.

"The result" in the sentence is the result of selection bias or privilege

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

#940

Post by raclage »

blagie wrote: post #883
raclage wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't much care if people around me feel...make me feel comfortable This doesn't seem consistent with the commonly accepted meaning of "comfortable." By their very nature things that make someone uncomfortable are things they care about. If they truly didn't care they would not experience discomfort. Are there really cultures where inflicting suffering on others is not "within their cultural frame and value syste…

> Are there really cultures where inflicting suffering on others is not "within their cultural frame and value system"? Yes! * Consider treatment of children in Korea, where kids are forced, by their parents, to study 16 hours per day. * Consider tactics used in many resistance movements against oppressive governments in Slavic cultures (and similar tactics recently adopted by oppressed African American communities i…

I think you've confused cultures where people have a relatively high tolerance for discomfort because they consider it to be worth it (the examples you gave) and culture where people simply do not care about others' discomfort (how Stallman's colleagues describe him).

All those cultures have a goal in mind when inflicting discomfort. Does Stallman?

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