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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

#251

Post by ganafagol »

the-dude wrote: post #217
minitech wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside the issue of whether inconsiderate use of vehicles is a newly millennial phenomenon for the moment and considering what this is in reply to: are you saying that the situation could have been avoided if your neighbour had been bullied enough as a child?

No, I am saying it seems like some millenials seem unaware of the possible consequences of their behaviour to others and to themselves. And if there is a confrontation, they'll report you to their teacher ( police ). While when I grew up, when I misbehaved in traffic, say concerning a taxi(cab), the driver would stop, make his opinion loudly heard, perhaps accompanied by a threat of violence ( this actually happened…

So instead of calling a mediator you would have preferred if she had taken matters in her own hands and tried to beat you up? Upon which you'd have hit back in self defense?

Of course that's not what you mean. I suppose you mean that instead of crying for help from the teacher she should have just swallowed it up and obeyed you.

But it goes both ways. Imagine you had a teenage daughter and she'd be accused of something, in her mind unrightfully, by some asshole neighbor. Would you like her to just swallow it up and do what he says? Or fight back, risking injury? Or call a mediator? That's the point of view of your neighbor.

If anything growing up with bullies teaches is that in the long run, only standing up to them works. But that's not what you'd actually how you'd have liked your millenial neighbor to react to you.

(I'm not saying you are the bully here. I'm totally with you on calling her out. But your "growing up with bullies" analogy is way off here and you need to consider all sides before drawing broad conclusions.)

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

#252

Post by Glavnokoman »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #110
secondcoming wrote: post #67

Some guy wants him removed from the GCC steering committee too [0] [0] https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html

“Some guy” being a core GCC contributor who has contributed quality code much more recently than RMS

"Some guy" is minor GSOC contributor who thinks a lot of himself and makes a lot of noise.

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

#253

Post by Daho0n »

yorwba wrote: post #206
aboringusername wrote: post #23

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. I take issue with this. I'm not hugely adept at history but from my understanding there has never been a time where you can just blurt out a communication and have it be "accepted" by society - this seems to me very American and appears very detached from reality and real world experience. Yes, you are…

> People will take offense at your crass jokes and delete you for it, perhaps it's best to step away and not click "reply" afterall. Or do click "reply", because there are billions of people out there and some may take offense, but who cares? Billions of people don't. You can delete them right back, and billions of people will keep not caring. That textarea only gives you a tiny bit of power and it gives everyone els…

Most of those billions are not known or public figures. They don't get canceled out of their job.

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

#254

Post by psychiatrist24 »

bartread wrote: post #208
psychiatrist24 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the age of consent can be discussed, it even varies from country to country. I don't understand the EMACS virgin joke? I don't think asking women on dates is automatically "inappropriate behavior". How are men and women supposed to get together? Even in a "professional setting", because the feminist claim that it is demeaning to women if somebody is attracted to them is simply wrong. I can't claim RMS is "o…

> I don't think asking women on dates is automatically "inappropriate behavior". In general I agree with you but in this specific instance RMS would have been about 50 years old at the time (please see my other comment in direct response to GP). 50 year old men asking out 19 year old women is very much inappropriate behaviour.

Serious question, why is it inappropriate? It is against the "Bro Code" from "How I met your mother", but other than that? Sure, we are trained to feel uneasy about it, but if you really think about it, why exactly? Because you consider 50 year old men disgusting? Shouldn't you leave that to the women to decide? Many people also feel a bit disgusted about gay sex, yet they are supposed to tolerate and even celebrate it.

My other thought would be it seems like a bad "investment", as the older guy will most likely die before the young woman. But these days, single parenting is the norm rather than the exception. So is it really so much worse if the partner dies than if you divorce them and exclude them from your life? Yet again, single parenting is now almost being pushed as the model to aim for. And also "rainbow families" - if your partner dies, simply find a new one, it doesn't matter if they also already have kids. It is all possible and normal these days.

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

#255

Post by pitay »

enriquto wrote: post #127
Synaesthesia wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's something we can do. We get to make choices.

> We get to make choices. I'm quite disillusioned at that point, I'm not sure that our choices can be good after all... There's lots of well-intentioned people doing horrible things, and at the same time I find myself systematically in the losing team when I try to take what it seems to be the correct stance.

Chin up.

The world may be a far more horrible place than is commonly known but you can help your friends and loved ones. You can support the people you like and you can do nice things for yourself; such as a nice walk, have some great food, get a very decent sleep.

Yeah, seeing what is happening can be very very depressing, dealing with people who don't care about their own hypocrisy and double standards, who have no problem in damning a person for very minor things.

But there are other things in life and more people support your stance than you think, they're just unwilling to say it with how things are. Hope things go well for you.

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

#256

Post by Roark66 »

noirscape wrote: post #199
bartread wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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)?

For one he managed to keep the whole GNU project true to its values by being someone people listen on the subject. How many other people do you know you can guarantee not to "monetize" and sell out such a huge project to a highest bidder in the meantime?

>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

You do realise that his role is not so much being a coder nor even a manager, but being what in business is sometimes called "a visionary". Thankfully there are enough coders and managers involved to have GNU and Foss going. The value of Stallman in the 80s and earlier was not just in the code he wrote but the ideas he managed to implement in our collective consciousness by doing that. Now more than ever we need someone we can count on to offer advice and leadership that has no agenda other than the original values.

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

What is it that he actually said that was so "horrible"? Are you sure you are actually talking about what he said or have your opinions been formed by lies? Read this and tell me what is so horrible in his actual stance on the subject: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web

>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)

Please do enlighten me on what Stallman's stance on pedophilia is? But please use actual text written by him (not ripped out of context) rather than he said she said.

I believe this lie that Stallman justifies pedophilia came from an opinion the previously linked article describes like this "(his point) is mainly that we overuse and distort the term child pornography to refer to any depiction of any minor in any context that is even vaguely sexual." Is that untrue? Have you not heard about cases where actual 17 year old people were prosecuted for pedophilia because they had their own photo on their phone that was deemed sexual in nature by some judge?

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

#257

Post by ganafagol »

Taniwha wrote: post #241
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called pirating, now. I think Stallman contributed a lot to keep the sharing economy legal.

No it's not, sharing the source code of stuff you create yourself with others is not 'pirating', it basn't then and it isn't now (we're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_track_tape here)

Creating and advocating for a legal framework elevates this to a different level. There is a difference between passing floppy discs to your buddies and software that whole industries are based on. It needs a solid legal foundation. And a philosophocal framework too, i it's supposed to survive.

And that's what we should credit rms for.

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

#258

Post by gjulianm »

mhh__ wrote: post #135
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

Is there evidence that this is really the case (the "going after" rather than the throwaways)? e.g. I think Stallman is driving free software into the ground regardless of how right he is about it's value, but I'm not going to chase anyone up - beyond thinking they're stupid

Given how much the term "cancel culture" is being thrown around, I think that if someone got fired because of something they posted in HN (specially if it's a normal and reasoned opinion like almost all of the ones I'm seen in this thread) we would have seen it go round the presses five times over.

I think a lot of it is echo: someone creates an anonymous account to say something because they think they're at risk, people see it and think that they're at risk too and repeat that and in the end you have a lot of people worrying about something that practically does not happen.

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

#259

Post by illustriousbear »

aboringusername wrote: post #23
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…

> I don't want to live in a world without American freedom of speech - where we can't be blunt and speak our minds. I take issue with this. I'm not hugely adept at history but from my understanding there has never been a time where you can just blurt out a communication and have it be "accepted" by society - this seems to me very American and appears very detached from reality and real world experience. Yes, you are…

There is a big difference between fair accountability and the internet mobs that want to wipe out your whole reputation/career.

We don't let internet mobs run courts yet we allow them to ruin people's lives for some reason.

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

#260

Post by Daho0n »

hutzlibu wrote: post #197
the-dude wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A confrontation with "martial arts training" is being mindful and resting in yourself. You try to make it sound like it is behaving aggressively and ready for violence. That's the opposite of what you learn and the risk of someone behaving like this is way higher in those without martial arts training.

Besides, I bet you are fully aware that the point GP was making was that his training made him dare say something where he before wouldn't.

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