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John Sullivan resign as executive director of the Free Software Foundation

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

#151

Post by quonn »

oytis wrote: post #99
thefz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds. While I agree with most of your points on RMS: Freedom of speech exists and is enforced in other countries. Its dawn can be traced back to ancient Greece passing through renaissance and the French revolution. And ironically, the SJW cancel-culture is a US phenomenon only, it's nonexistent in the EU at l…

Still freedom of speech is understood much more literally and with fewer exceptions in U.S. than elsewhere. In Germany for one, there is no such thing as freedom of speech, but rather "freedom of opinion". Practically that means that if you want to say something that someone else is not going to like, you have to a) take care not to bring up any facts (e.g. say that someone touched you inappropriately), because as so…

> a) take care not to bring up any facts (e.g. say that someone touched you inappropriately), because as soon as you do that you have to either provide a proof or face slander suit

Surely you would face slander suits in the US as well if you lie about being touched?

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

#153

Post by orra »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #74
zecg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what I gather from the discussion is that there is a _pattern_ of bad behaviour. I disagree, it's all very much overblown.

I can't comment on most of the accusations, I have never met rms in person. But what really shocked me was that the authors of the anti rms letter label him as "transphobe", as a source for that claim they link to his GNU Kind Communications Guidelines [1], which to me spell the exact opposite. Why put such a claim in there? I find it really disturbing that so many people willingly accept that it's ok to mix legitima…

The footnote of that policy allows you to persistently call a trans man "they", even if his preferred pronoun is he. That is, the policy endorses you misgendering.

Calling a he/him person a "they" is a way of saying that you don't think they're a real man. It's really not much better than calling a trans man "her".

Finally, the previous version of the said guidelines used to reject singular they. Singular they is a great way to refer to somebody whose pronouns you don't know. Moreover, it's the preferred pronoun for many non-binary people.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

vmception wrote: post #78
haunter wrote: post #61

Says a lot about the HN community that a lot of people need to post under throwaways because there are legit others would otherwise go after them or their employers Say whatever you want about reddit but at least it's more anonym than this site

imagine not having sockpuppet accounts on HN [or reddit] imagine posting under your real name and having all that in your bio imagine thinking hackernews is different than a subreddit

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by krapp »

Jonnax wrote: post #14
risky_opinions wrote: post #9

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…

Stallman has stated that he does not have Aspergers or Autism. But for some reason people online can't stop themselves from diagnosing him with it.

>But for some reason people online can't stop themselves from diagnosing him with it.

Doing so makes it easier to excuse Stallman's behavior and demonize his critics by implying their only motivation is hatred of conventionally unattractive and neurodivergent people - an argument designed to strongly resonate emotionally with the tech community and serve as a thought terminating cliche.

It's ironically exactly the sort of bad faith strategy they constantly accuse "the SJWs" of partaking in.

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

#156

Post by Stratoscope »

risky_opinions wrote: post #9

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, and he's the reason we all have jobs.

WTF? I had a job long before RMS came on the scene, and I still have one. Whatever my feelings about Stallman, he doesn't get credit for that.

And I was giving away source code way before FSF existed. We didn't have fancy names or licenses back in those days, we just called it "public domain".

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

#157

Post by willeh »

bitwize wrote: post #43
fen4o wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ and the counter-letter https://rms-support-letter.github.io/

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

I hope that I'm wrong here and there is evidence of actual bots, but as far as I can tell you're making this judgement based on the fact the people signing the RMS support letter have Russian sounding names. First off, yes I don't doubt that the totalitarian oppressive and oppressive governments are using this type of technique, in fact they are probably using it a lot because it is highly effective. However, it seems exceedingly unlikely that they have any interest in a spat in an, on the whole, insignificant professional organization.

I think it is worth reevaluating your opinion, as understanding the other side of an argument is useful and helps us understand the world better. Generalising, a bit in my experience Russians tend to be slightly technocratic valuing pragmatism over ideology, which seems natural considering that it was beaten out of them by a series of absolutist despots.

Still their opinions are valid even if most people in Europe and the US, no matter their political beliefs, will consider RMS to have perjured himself as an ideological leader to the extent that trust can not be mended, and consequently must resign.

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

#158

Post by vkou »

verytrivial wrote: post #133

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…

Being on the autistic spectrum does not require you to act like an asshole.

I know a couple of autistic people. The main difference between them and RMS is that they give a shit about what other people think of their behaviour.

He's an incredibly intelligent man, who is quite capable of understanding that people don't want him to act like a creep. Many different people, at many different times, have explained it to him, and have asked him to stop. He's already been given far more patience and leniency and second and third and fifth chances in this respect than any other person would have. Even if he is incapable of understanding why his behavior is wrong, he is an adult that is capable of understanding that he should stop it.

He just doesn't care.

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

#159

Post by hutzlibu »

verytrivial wrote: post #133

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…

So .. you propose people should be able to say anything free of consequences, because of "aspergers"?

Because no one ever made that claim. It was always about sexism and co. Or is sexism related to asperger in your opinion?

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

#160

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #131
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter if rms is a nice person or not. He didn't do anything criminal, his only offense is stoically and pedantically expressing his views, unyielding to public pressure. In other words, displaying those very qualities that helped him change software development forever. People should not be destroyed for not being nice enough to certain individuals prone to offenses, and conforming to someone else's view…

Not having a board position isn’t anything close to being destroyed. I’m totally against heavily exaggerating everything RMS did wrong but can we not swing the other way around and equivocate a highly privileged position with life and livelihood?

Pushing a person from his life's work and from the organization that exists only because of him is effectively destroying.

This won't stop with him resigning again.

What do you think, this mad cancel mob will tolerate rms to appear at some Libre Software conference? Hell, no! They'll harass organizers till they quit, threatening with boycott and pressuring all the sponsors and venue providers. We've seen this in action many times. This mob must be stopped.

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