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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

#321

Post by Roark66 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #299
Roark66 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Stallman's skill was as a visionary. His role wasn't limited to that unfortunately. Multiple FSF employees say they unionized because of Stallman's management.[1][2] And people have pointed out several examples of him overriding GNU project maintainers. Stallman said several times adults having sex with children was fine if the children consented.[3][4][5] He changed his mind in 2018 or 2019 apparently.[4][6] [1] htt…

Ok, I wasn't aware of this. I agree his point of view was narrow minded. I can't defend it. He did change it as he says (in 6th link) based on conversations with someone who explained to him the harm caused.

People learn all their life. I'm glad he did. Should having that view before and understanding own error disqualify him from FSF? I don't know. At least we're talking about it based on fact not hearsay.

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

#322

Post by mandmandam »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #230
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/

Thanks for the links! And I guess the rms-support is getting yet another "russian bot" signature.

2 hours and this still isn't grey? What the f*ck is your deal HN.

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

#323

Post by shaan7 »

astorgard wrote: post #284
YarickR2 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on all points. Freedom of speech is the same as freedom of thought. Actions should be punishable, words shouldn't

You are literally the first person I find who agrees with me. Hi there! :) Just for the shake of discussion, let me put on the table some other extreme examples people bring up: A) Apology of "something bad" (for example, "apology of terrorism"). Is it OK for someone to appear on TV and say that he is happy about all the people killed in 11-S and that others should repeat the attack? B) Targeted attack. Back to the n…

> You are literally the first person I find who agrees with me. Hi there! :)

And I'd like to say the same to both of you! I wonder why the idea is not more popular though :(

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

#324

Post by psychiatrist24 »

bloodorange wrote: post #275
psychiatrist24 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But these days, single parenting is the norm rather than the exception. This is a rather unusual observation I have to say. How did you come to this conclusion, might I ask?

I didn't look it up beforehand. Just googled for it, for example here it says 57% of millenial mothers are single moms. https://comparecamp.com/single-parent-statistics/

Talk about divorce being on the rise has been going on for years.

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

#325

Post by iSnow »

mpol wrote: post #231
iSnow wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, if you are of a divisive personality type, you maybe should not lead an organization as others might not want to work with you, companies might want to withdraw funding because they don't like to be associated with the controversy around you. And lastly, you might reduce the reach of your own ideas.

Or maybe other people are divisive and want to destroy or compromise the FSF?

Maybe, but I've yet have anyone describe Stallman as empathetic or integrative.

Given the choice between believing multiple persons and orgs have a hidden agenda or believing them, I choose the latter unless I am given good reasons for the first.

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

#326

Post by simion314 »

mhh__ wrote: post #319
simion314 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any proof that LLVM is chosen now on most universities? Because I also have anecdotes where I was offered a job to work on GCC for a specific hardware architecture and bring improvements. Though I would be more interested on what compiler or license brings the most real value to the society and not which ones brings more money to a small group of mega rich guys. Why not credit GPL or RMS for the Linux success over BS…

All the new fangled optimizations are being done on LLVM, Sanitizers were LLVM first etc. GCC target support remains incredibly impressive of course, but that's not the sexy stuff. Also I regard GNU's success in userspace as mainly stemming from the 90s, my comment was regarding roughly post- somewhere in the 2000s

Is that LLVM success good for society or for the giant SV companies? LLVM is still not a clear winner in performance or supported platforms.

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

#327

Post by DanBC »

rich_sasha wrote: post #300
DanBC wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He didn't do anything criminal, Not breaking the law is the bare knuckle minimum standard that we expect. Imagine going to a job interview and when asked about your achievements you say "well, I didn't break any laws".

It's kind of the other way around here. RMS: "Well I invented the free software movement, did a lot of badass things for open source etc." Interviewer: "What about personal hobbies?" RMS: "I write unpopular opinions on my personal blog and express them in ways that annoy people" Is this enough of a reason to not hire someone?

> Is this enough of a reason to not hire someone?

1) Yes, when most of the job is public facing.

2) That's emphatically not only what he's accused of. He's accused actions in the workplace while carrying out his official business. Imagine being 18 and going to a conference and a 50 year old bloke gives you a "pleasure card".

https://twitter.com/tihxu/status/463691653035745280?s=20

sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance

tender embraces

unusual sense of humour

Richard Stallman

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

#328

Post by ben_w »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #203
js8 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. People can do things about cancel culture, in particular, give a thought about whether something that people are saying about somebody is really true and whether to participate in an online boycott (of an individual) based on a 2nd hand experience. Especially if you're in a position of power, consider if you should give in to the mob, which might not even relate to you.

Or just delete your Twitter account. Then it all magically goes away.

I know someone who deleted their Twitter account and still gets harassed by people that want to get him fired over a year later. Not going to give details for hopefully obvious reasons.

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

#329

Post by bm3719 »

Elaine-H wrote: post #289

I signed the support rms letter with my real name. I hope you do the same if you want to support him. I was born in mainland China and these attacks on rms remind me of the Cultural Revolution.

Being in the US and in the industry, deciding to sign it gave me pause. There's already talk on Twitter about what to do with the list of signatories.

Like others have said here, my daily life is substantively better thanks to rms. I use GNU Emacs all day and of course benefit from the vast infrastructure that GNU and other GPL-ed software provides. There's probably no one many of us (including many in the anti-rms crowd) owes more to than rms in the context of technology.

Once it's clear FSF won't be bending the knee, I'll be adding an FSF membership to help counter some of the corporate sponsorship pullouts. I wish there were more I could do to give back.

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

#330

Post by orra »

ardfard wrote: post #264
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…

> 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. This one of example here is why I think RMS debacle is a bit overblown. This really just stretching it to make his statement seems offensive. It even put him in a stance in which he never had. I cannot in my best intention to read "Honoring people's pref…

The old version of the document was worse, and Stallman's personal website to this day rejects the use of singular they. That's the context. It's why there's little doubt to give the benefit of.
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