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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

#191

Post by birracerveza »

krapp wrote: post #186
birracerveza wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to not be publicly judged about what you say. This is not just about being judged, it's about being judged and executed for your opinions. The judges and the juries have already handed out their verdict and will personally hand out the punishment, and if you dare question it you'll likely be next on the list. For example, I've seen that those who sided against RMS create a script…

>For example, I've seen that those who sided against RMS created a script to block those who signed the petition that supported him. And people who support RMS want to have Molly Le Blanc arrested for starting the petition to remove him[0]. [0] https://debian.community/molly-de-blanc-arrest-and-prosecuti...

Sorry, I feel like I should have pointed out that this behavior comes from both sides. I touched up the comment to account for it.

Thanks for making me notice.

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

#192

Post by mkl »

thinkingemote wrote: post #129

I think people should just create their own foundation and get on with things. It seems like the FSF is going to be doing things their way - there's no compulsion for anyone to follow them, listen to them or to agree with what they do. So why not just start your own Foundation?

Even ignoring FSF projects, there's an awful lot of software with a license like "GPLv2 or any later version". That means whoever controls the FSF controls the future licensing of a lot of software, and software developers have invested a lot of trust in the FSF in the belief that the license will stay true to its original intent. An awful lot of people are hence compelled to follow the FSF and listen to them. I think creating a new foundation wouldn't solve many problems.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by marcus_holmes »

533474 wrote: post #106
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…

good article that deals quite well with the controversial topics [1] [1] https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

really good read. thanks

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

#195

Post by orra »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #177
orra wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Then what about the following part from the guidelines: > Honoring people's preferences about gender identity includes not referring to them in ways that conflict with that identity. For instance, not to use pronouns for them that conflict with it.

The guideline argues "they" is gender neutral, so it does not conflict with anybody's gender identity. This misses the point.

"they" is indeed gender neutral. But when we talk about specific individuals, we almost always use gendered pronouns.

Hence, as I said, persistently using "they" for a binary trans person is a veiled insult. Again, it's like saying 'You're not a real man, but I am not allowed to call you she, so I will call you they'.

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

#196

Post by incrudible »

mhh__ wrote: post #115
mhh__ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Richard Stallman has said some sexist and edgy things. done some sexist and edgy things. On stage, spoken directly at women. Also, Stallman is a totally incompetent leader - the project is sufficiently niche that I won't name it, but the maintainer mentioned to me that he entered rms's bad book merely by virtue of having children.

C+P of a compelling list from the gcc mailing list I read: 1. 'skeptical that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.’ stallman's own archives 2006-mar-jun I note that children are incapable of consenting. That’s what the age of consent means. 2. 'end censorship of “child pornography”’. Stallman's archives 2012-jul-oct.html Notice use of “quotes” to down play what is actually being requested. 3. 'gentle expressions of…

The question of whether children are capable of consenting to sex with adults is something that's been widely debated in the time and space RMS grew up in. Several important people on the leftist/queer side came out in favor of it:

https://uncommongroundmedia.com/derrick-jensen-queer-theory-...

RMS may simply not have gotten the memo that this is a completely unacceptable opinion in the 2000s. Sensibilities change.

> Defends someone charged with ‘"sexual assault" on a "child"

This is just not true, it's the same misrepresentation that RMS attempted to defend Marvin Minsky against.

Marvin Minsky was never charged with anything, on account of being dead and unable to defend himself. Marvin Minsky also has never been accused of sexual assault by the victim herself. The victim accused Ghislaine Maxwell of directing her to have sex with Marvin Minsky.

There's a huge difference between "Marvin Minsky sexually assaulted a child" and "Marvin Minsky had sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old that was forced into prostitution by a third party". Not just in terms of labels, we're talking about years of prison time.

Even if we supposed that the latter was legally considered "sexual assault" (which it is not), it should be acceptable to argue that the name doesn't fit the crime.

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

#197

Post by hutzlibu »

the-dude wrote: post #112
minitech wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was reading comments in another HN thread, and one poster suggested that this might arise from raising kids without bullying. Like the immune system, if we don't develop a central tolerance, perhaps we start attacking everything we find unpleasant? No basis in behavioral science, of course. Forget basis in behavioral science, this has no basis in anything, and you’re deluded if you think kids aren’t still bullied…

The environment is profoundly different today than say, 40 years ago. Being different is much easier today. I was seduced by my parents to join a Judo club so I could stand up to myself ( this works wonders ). Last year, I confronted a new millenial neighbour of mine repeatedly on her behaviour of biking on the sidewalk. The biggest problem was she was doing blind corners as well. There are small children here playin…

So with your martial arts training you confronted your neighbour - and she called the police?

Well, maybe you should try talking calmly next time, then maybe others feel not threatened enough to call the police.

Otherwise you have the right to call the police if she insists on being a threat to the children around.

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

#198

Post by thefz »

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…

Sorry but that is plain wrong. Freedom of speech in Italy is more or less the same of what you state to be "American freedom of speech", i.e. the right not to be persecuted for your ideas, with some eexceptions being hate speech or incitement to violence. This right includes other forms of communication such as writing and artistic expression.

If you have time to translate this, the Italian form is even a bit less strict in definition : https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A0_di_manifestazione...

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

#199

Post by noirscape »

bartread wrote: post #89
kosinus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American freedom of speech This specifically is such a weird expression. Other than that, just because Stallman did a good thing once, doesn’t excuse him from other mistakes. And making mistakes is not itself a problem, you can always own up to them and learn. But what I gather from the discussion is that there is a _pattern_ of bad behaviour.

> Other than that, just because Stallman did a good thing once... Come on: this is a massive trivialisation of RMS's achievements. I have often disagreed with him but his contributions to OSS, and to the wider foundations of modern software and software development, are huge and are the product of decades of devotion - of consistent, motivated effort - from him. Like it or not, all of us who work in software - even t…

What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)?

Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability since the main things that got him attention were:

- Using his rights as GNU lead to veto the removal of a bad, outdated, US-centric, abortion joke from the glibc manual. This is after all other project maintainers agreed to remove it.

- Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible).

Even outside of that, there's also literal years of the following:

- Many examples of Stallman being a creep to women and an insensitive dickhead in general is something that existed before but really came to a head.

- The FSF maintaining a very egocentric approach to FOSS (thinking it's the sole relevant authority on advancing thoughts and ideas behind FOSS, as well as getting very cranky when projects don't want to join the GNU), something which seems near universally pushed by Stallman since every case of this somehow ended up involving him.

- Consistently vetoing plugin framework support for GCC out of an ideological fear that seems to consistently be cited as the main cause for it being superseded by clang/llvm.

> Fortunately, we are all equipped with the capacity to change even long ingrained habits and patterns.

It does come at the prerequisite that the person in question actually wants to change. Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia) was wrong and he's never even bothered to address any of the others.

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

#200

Post by Denvercoder9 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #64
davty wrote: post #39

It was briefly discussed in this episode of floss weekly https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/622?autostart=fa... and I think the guest made an interesting observation in that quite a big issue in FSF is that the board is entirely self-selected, the community is not really involved. Thus, the future of the GPL is entirely in the hand of a few people who picked themselves so to say.

>Thus, the future of the GPL is entirely in the hand of a few people who picked themselves so to say. What does this even mean? As Linux staying on v2 shows, the FSF doesn't have any real control over GPL licenses. And I'm fairly sure the only limitation on modifying the GPL myself is I couldn't use the word "GNU."

The FSF can issue new versions of the GPL, which will automatically apply to software licensed under the GPLv2 or GPLv3 with the "or any later version" clause (which is present in the standard boilerplate).

A completely non-representative grep through copyright information indicates that about two-thirds of the GPL-licensed packages on my Debian system have the "or any later version" clause.

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