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John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

social.librem.one

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Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#141
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to not be publicly judged about what you say. Thank you for putting it so clearly.

The problem is who's deciding what is and isn't acceptable, RMS has been saying clearly derogatory statements about religion, the basis of most of our shared morality, for decades without a single peep from the virtue crowd. He says a few edgy this about something else and then the pitch forks are out. The problem is that I'm not sure we have much of a shared morality any more.

Perhaps we should see it a different way.

Software development forces us to be more precise about what our process is. Sales wants to automate their pipeline - oh but what do you mean I have to tell you who to call next? Just call the important ones. We can no longer 'fudge' things.

Agile methodology is causing this problem in many companies. Asking senior management to stack rank their projects is an intensly political issue. Saying the project timelines will vary based on team velocity takes away simplicity of project management.

As software eats the world then more of the world must be upfront and precise about what it means. This is going to lead to a lot of soul searching. The most obvious example is the Trolley problem in autonomous cars - do you program a car to swerve to avoid the child, killing the driver, or save the driver, kill the kid.

This sort of devils own choice will become more rampant as more of the world becomes automatable.

Online speech is just one of these. Now that every pub conversation can be spread to millions of listeners, we need to find ways to agree on what is and is not acceptable.

The problem people are finding is that what was tolerated by people in the 19th hole in Alabama is not acceptable by people listening in Delhi.

The human species is going to have to find ways to get along together. I think that will (eventually) be a good thing.

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#143
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One is signed by the directors of major open-source projects and initiatives. The other is mainly signed by Russian bots.

The fact that the Twitter Khmer Rouge are currently making lists of people signing the Stallman support letter might help explain why only Russians, safe from American wokeness and cancel culture, are willing to sign that letter.

I understand the point but Khmer Rouge?

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#144

I'm creating a throwaway that I hope won't irk dang. If this breaks the rules, I'm sorry and I'll stop. Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. Google and Facebook might not have been possible in a world where you couldn't spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license. Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things. He als…

> I don't want to live in a world where we can't be forgiven. Forgiveness requires accountability and commitment to change, neither of which have been forthcoming.

Forgiveness technically does NOT require those things. That’s the point. It’s fore-give-ness.

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#145
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> open source There are many in the FSF that view the aims of "open source" as opposite to Free Software. FSF aims for the elimination of all proprietary software. Microsoft and IBM support open source and the resignation of the FSF board. Open Source has basically won. No one really gets what Free Software is anymore.

That's not the issue here. FSFE have condemned the FSF, for example.

Bitwise's comment says that it's the open source community which is being harmed. FSF is Free Software - the FSF don't view the Open Source community as their support base. But open source broadly views free software as part of themselves.

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#146

I'm creating a throwaway that I hope won't irk dang. If this breaks the rules, I'm sorry and I'll stop. Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. Google and Facebook might not have been possible in a world where you couldn't spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license. Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things. He als…

"What do we do about this? "

I would start with having debates based in reality and not ideology, like this:

"Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. "

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#147

I'm creating a throwaway that I hope won't irk dang. If this breaks the rules, I'm sorry and I'll stop. Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement, and he's the reason we all have jobs. Google and Facebook might not have been possible in a world where you couldn't spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license. Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things. He als…

> Richard Stallman single-handedly created the free software movement

The "Free Software" movement (cap F, cap S), yes.

> and he's the reason we all have jobs

No.

There was a sizeable movement for public domain software before Stallman. Stallman brought along a particular ideology and one which resonated with a lot of people, as well as coding a bunch of software himself. But it is an incredible reach to say that, without Stallman, there wouldn't have been the option to "spin up a server for free and compile code without paying a license". How do you know that?

I ran a "public domain library" back in the 8-bit days, as did many others. It was code you could distribute freely, and where you could play around and build upon the source. You could argue that Stallman's Free Software was another descendant of the early '80s public domain software culture, but you cannot presume that public domain software would have withered and died without Stallman. I think it's vanishingly unlikely, in fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-sourc... is worth reading.

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#148

Is the quality of RMS's work so good that he is worth all of this effort?

No. His writing is still prescient but his leadership seems to have no upsides I'm aware of in the last few decades or so. GCC Plugins leading to LLVM come to mind, Chris Lattner even offered LLVM to the FSF (not sure of the exact chronology here, can dig up the emails later if desired).

Oops

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#149

So should we eject all Austism Spectrum / Asperger's people from positions of leadership, or just this one guy? [Edit] I've worked under at one, perhaps two ASD people, both brilliant engineers, and you're probably using some of their infra software right now -- he's been poached a few times. The one certain guy did not have a diagnosis that I knew of but would come out with the most outrageous opinions regarding wor…

RMS claims not to be Austism Spectrum / Asperger's.

Conversely, plenty of people who do manage not to behave in the way he has.

Re: John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

#150
post #17

I've given a lot of thought to this issue and though I've wanted to give Richard Stallman the benefit of the doubt, I've come to an inescapable conclusion: The FSF board of directors really stepped in it bringing Stallman back, especially in the clandestine manner that they did. They have squandered the goodwill of the community by promoting a controversial figure known for his toxic opinions and decades of bad behav…

> because of the toxic effect he has on the community, in particular driving women -- and more recently, those repulsed by pedophilia -- away. Can you name one person who was driven away from contributing to free software because of Stallman? Sarah Mei? Lol. I believe that it is unlikely for someone _really_ willing to contribute to society to abandon this idea simply because some person he's never met being an unple…

Creating new free software has nothing to do with RMS. (From the software side, he had impact on licensing) People did it before him and will continue after him, many without knowing who RMS is. More likely effect is closer to "This conference invited RMS? No thanks." from both potential attendees and speakers. Supporting FSF will also be less likely.
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