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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

#341

Post by beaconstudios »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #119
beaconstudios wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what did he actually do that you would consider "bad behaviour"? I know he's widely regarded as a blunt/offensive speaker, willing to speak his mind on topics most sensible people just keep quiet on, but has he actually harmed anybody? Committed any crimes? [edit] this is a genuine question. I've seen him write edgy things but am not aware of any harm he's done to others.

“It’s only bad if there’s a law against it.” We used to be able to buy LSD on sugar cubes at record stores, because there was no specific law against it. Most folks just became really annoying for a few hours, but a number ended up in hospitals for the remainder of their lives. There’s a strong argument that all drugs should be legal, as it will allow natural selection to work, but tell that to the families of drug o…

> “It’s only bad if there’s a law against it.”

From my question:

> but has he actually harmed anybody? Committed any crimes?

So I'm not sure who your argument there was aimed against, but it wasn't me. I suspect any resemblance between the law and the morality of harm-reduction is merely coincidence.

> As a former manager, and as someone that holds a fairly senior position in an organization that has very little to do with what we talk about here, I can tell you that words have consequences.

Obviously yes, saying dumb things will get you criticised and people may think you're a dick. But there's a difference between saying "RMS is socially indiscrete and thus should not hold a political position within our advocacy organisation" and "RMS is a bad person and even suggesting that he hold such a position is a resignation-worthy offence". FWIW I agree that RMS seems to be socially incompetent enough to not be a political leader, but that doesn't account for the feeding frenzy around the prospect of his re-appointment.

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

#342

Post by buisi »

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…

It's been a while, but the "child porn" post links to Rick's blog post. Rick made a blog post calling to legalize child porn, and it went over about as well as you'd expect.

He later explained why he called for that. The law is being used against things it shouldn't be. Like historical war photos, cartoons, a mother recording her child's unusual behavior (a sign of abuse) to submit as evidence to the police and getting charged for it, teenagers sexting, and so on.

The argument was never that child porn was good, but that we're going down a really dark path of censorship, and that we'd be better off doing away with that law, if this is what it means doing.

It isn't that child porn is good, but that censorship is worse, and dangerous to the fabric of society. If a former politician like Rick can be misunderstood and taken out of context like that, I can imagine it being even more hazardous for RMS.

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

#343

Post by Traster »

simion314 wrote: post #315
Traster wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reference to Linus is a great example that completely undermines the entire fundamental argument of "cancel culture". If people complain about your bad behaviour, you apoligize and we all move on that's not cancel culture is it. That's just people making mistakes, being picked up on them and apoligizing. People aren't setting out to cancel anyone, they've highlighted something they don't like, explained why it's…

Your changing the history, cancel culture failed to cancel Linus, he had a smart strategy and enough supporters to escape. For what specific issue RMS did not apologized yet? Let us know the issue, why does he need to apologize for that specific one and why if there is no apology for that issue should he be canceled from his own project?

It's not "a smart strategy" to apologize when someone points out you've done something wrong.

Well fortunately RMS collates all of his posts here: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_Septe... , so a start would be... actually apologizing for what he said about Marvin Minsky.

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

#344

Post by pseudalopex »

jhugo wrote: post #306
orra wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to this standard, they would be being disrespectful whenever they meet someone with a strong preference about their pronoun, even if they had no knowledge of the preference. No, the point is to use somebody's preferred pronouns once you know them. My complaint is the GNU guidelines explicitly allow you to not correctly pronoun/gender somebody, once you know their gender identity. Re non-native speakers, e…

I think we agree - but I do notice that there often seems to be a lot of "assumption of intent". (The below is general in nature and not related to the article from which this thread grew.) I've had >30 years of conditioning to select the pronoun according to the physical appearance of the person I'm referring to. Until last year, the concept of a person stating a preference of pronoun and expecting me to follow that…

A person who struggles with gendered pronouns because their native language doesn't have them would struggle with them when talking about cis people too.

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

#345

Post by ganafagol »

the-dude wrote: post #263
ganafagol wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somethi…

I appreciate your response. What I find puzzling about most responses is that it is not fully acknowledged that she is already behaving violently by threatening injury to others by using her vehicle as a weapon basically. If you hit an elderly full-front with a bicycle, I wouldn't be surprised if they died of the consequences. And you are correct I am not promoting bullying, that would be insane. But total non-violen…

Her being violent is just your view though. It's not hers. Thus calling a mediator here.

I'd honestly like to hear how you'd have liked her to respond instead of calling the cops. Be silent?

And I'd also honestly like to know how you'd expect your teenage daughter to react if some bully comes and accuses her of something unrightfully, from her perspective.

The answer to both has to be the same since it's the same story, but from different perspectives.

Apparently you don't like "call a mediator" as an answer, presumambly because that answer is only because somebody grew up without a bully and thus has not learned how to handle this kind of thing on their own.

Obviously "fight back" can't be the answer here since you would not have liked that with your neighbor. But "keep silent" can't be the answer either that you are requesting.

So, which is it?

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

#346

Post by pseudalopex »

incrudible wrote: post #196
mhh__ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. >…

Since when has Stallman cared about what other people consider acceptable?

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

#347

Post by antientropic »

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…

> I note that children are incapable of consenting. That’s what the age of consent means.

Completing 18 orbits around the sun does not magically imbue a person with free will and the ability to consent. Of course the law has to draw a line somewhere (and many jurisdictions draw the line differently), but that doesn't mean that people under 18 are categorically incapable of consenting.

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

#348

Post by Roark66 »

noirscape wrote: post #312
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…

> 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? Quite a lot of them actually. In a sense, that is the big advantage that free software (but really the copyleft, since let's be honest that's Stallmans most meanin…

I'm not arguing to put him in charge of FSF nor that he is the right person to do PR. I'm arguing against "cancelling" him altogether because of few stupid opinions he held and few others that got blown out of proportion. Let me refer to them one by one.

On pedophilia- his original opinion is not defensible. He eventually understood and admitted his error. Personally I believe the change is genuine. Can one blame someone for holding a wrong opinion based on genuine lack of knowledge of the subject specially when that person changes that opinion when presented with facts contradicting it? I don't think so.

On sexual assault - you said he is/was redefining the definition to exclude many victims. I assume this stems from his email in defense of Marvin Minsky in which he wrote:

"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X... The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing... We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates…"

It is not the kindest way to discuss situations of abuse, but factually I see no attempt to redefine sexual assault as a term. Just an objection to its use in one very particular situation. A situation in which the victim herself didn't know if the alleged perpetrator is aware she is being coerced. Additionally, "sexual assault" is already a very imprecise term. It means different things in different places. My opinion of Epstein is based on a Netflix documentary. I assume the information given there is truthful. Based on that it is unknown if "visitors" on the island were aware of the coercion. Recently I heard in the local news a gang of criminals was caught by police. Those criminals forced prostitutes to pay them "protection", forced unwilling (often trafficked) women into prostitution, and attacked independent prostitutes that didn't pay them. Did men that unknowingly used services of trafficked/coerced women abuse them? They definitely did, but is the term sexual assault adequate to describe both what they did and an encounter where unsuspecting victim is violently attacked? Hell no. Am I now guilty of redefining the term in a way that excludes many victims?

Age of consent-I think this has to be linked with his opinion on pedophilia which I already did comment on.

Coming back to Foss. >We don't need Stallman anymore. There's plenty of great voices and developers in Free Software. Stallman is what, 68? He's past retirement age in my country. He won't be around forever. If anything, we should be looking to successors for him.

As mentioned before I don't want him in the driving seat of FSF, but at the same time I don't think he should be cancelled from the Internet.

I do think this whole current vendetta against the guy was created by one "activist" as a tool to make her famous/or to make her feel good.

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

#349

Post by pseudalopex »

Daho0n wrote: post #269
smt88 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tolerance" doesn't mean someone can have any prominent position they want. I completely support Stallman's right to say that he believes children can consent to sex. It's not sexist or edgy -- it's repulsive and sounds like the stuff Epstein used to say. But he still deserves to have friends and rights. What he doesn't deserve is coworkers or teammates who are forced to pretend he didn't say that stuff. He said it a…

The consequence was that he talked to people about it, changed his mind and apologized. That this gets brought up after the fact is not a consequence of his current opinion and everyone knows this. This is a consequence of a mistake he were big enough to public apologize for (unlike most people online) and then later used against him. Besides much of what RMS is saying and doing that makes him stick out and he gets h…

He didn't apologize for his comments about sex between adults and children.[1] And he didn't say he changed his mind until after he came under pressure to resign. It was his current opinion as far as anyone knew. And that's just 1 of the examples they gave.

Neuroatypical people I know are pretty angry about mostly neurotypical people using their condition to rationalize Stallman's bad behavior.

[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

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

#350

Post by twic »

risky_opinions wrote: post #15
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/

I could see companies starting to screen applicants using these lists. Different companies would choose which list to use according to their own politics and culture. Totally hypothetical: Coinbase and Google will probably turn rms-open-letter into a denylist. Twitter will do the opposite. This is all conjecture, but I could see it happening. It's why I feel I shouldn't sign.

There's already a script to block people on GitHub based on signing one of the letters, written by an infosec furry (but i repeat myself):

https://twitter.com/kyhwana/status/1375651591672324096

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