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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

#361

Post by incrudible »

orra wrote: post #168
user-the-name wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, even if he did, implying that it is ok to be abusive or a sexual harasser because of it is not just absolutely wrong, but a massive, massive insult to all people with autism.

This is spot on, even though predictably and depressingly you've been downvoted to hell. Autism does not excuse sexual harassment. Pretending it does is a complete ableist trope. As you say, it's a disservice to everybody with disabilities who have learnt, as necessary, to not sexually harass others.

If I crack a bad joke due to my social ineptness, you may call that sexual harassment. However, due to my social ineptness, I will simply reject your definition of sexual harassment and insist that I was just making a harmless joke.

Perhaps some people with different expressions of that "disability" have the capacity to "learn" that they're "wrong". I don't. To suggest that I should have that capacity because others do is... ableist, I guess?

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

#362

Post by sofixa »

astorgard wrote: post #353
sofixa wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would still defend the right for some random person to publicly state that "we should kill all xxx", not because I agree with him, but because we should be able to discuss the reasons and try to convince him to do otherwise I think that's incredibly naive and doesn't actually work in the world we live in. Take a look at any of the genocides of the last century, with people on one side saying "we should kill all X",…

Saying (as I do) that everyone should be able to express their ideas (no matter how atrocious) publicly without facing administrative punishment does *not* mean that other actions (such as keeping a close eye on them) should not be taken. I doubt that preventing the Nazis from discussing their ideas would have stopped them. Having their ideas not suppressed from public forums at least gave the chance to others to und…

If i may respond with two quotes from the Nazi Propaganda minister:

"To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realised as being true, that is called propaganda. In the beginning there is the understanding, this understanding uses propaganda as a tool to find those men, that shall turn understanding into politics. Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things from what I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall. Speech on 9 January 1928 to an audience of party members at the "Hochschule für Politik", a series of training talks for Nazi party members in Berlin

We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we. Why Do We Want to Join the Reichstag? Der Angriff, 30 April 1928"

He seems to have been of the opinion that giving them a platform to voice their hatred even louder was beneficial for them.

Is saying things not an action? Especially when the things being said are of the genocidal-wannabe kind?

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

#363

Post by twic »

pseudalopex wrote: post #320
rich_sasha wrote: post #8

A whole different angle, I wonder how well the FSF folk get on with RMS. For all the defenses people mount of him, no one says he's a nice guy to be around. I'm still against the Twitter mob etc., I do wonder though if RMS nuked his own organisation by joining the helm again. Life's unfair.

FSF employees said they unionized to deal with him.[1][2] And more recent accounts are bad too.[3] [1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 [3] https://twitter.com/georgialyle/status/1374504389155508232

These sound bad, but it's notable that they don't contain any concrete examples. These could easily just be smears.

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

#364

Post by Traster »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #338
Traster wrote: post #261

Personally, I don't think the leader of any organisation is really free to make public comments about controversial issues and expect them not to reflect on the organisation they lead. I don't want to know what the leader of the FSF thinks about rape, the age of consent of the pros and cons of aborting foetuses. Which leaves two options: Either RMS stops publicly talking about those issues, or RMS stop being the lead…

That seems weird - you’d rather have RMS keep his controversial opinions in secret than have him state them and ultimately change his mind?

Hey, if he changed his mind I'd be happy with that, but I still don't think he should really getting in to those conversations as the leader of the FSF.

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

#365

Post by astorgard »

sofixa wrote: post #362
astorgard wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying (as I do) that everyone should be able to express their ideas (no matter how atrocious) publicly without facing administrative punishment does *not* mean that other actions (such as keeping a close eye on them) should not be taken. I doubt that preventing the Nazis from discussing their ideas would have stopped them. Having their ideas not suppressed from public forums at least gave the chance to others to und…

If i may respond with two quotes from the Nazi Propaganda minister: "To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realised as being true, that is called propaganda. In the beginning there is the understanding, this understanding uses propaganda as a tool to find those men, that shall turn understanding into politics. Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rathe…

Thinking that "people are easy to manipulate, thus we must prevent lies from spreading to protect society" is too paternalist and (in my limited experience) does not reflect reality.

You are right in that propaganda is a very powerful weapon (I openly admitted that on my previous comment) but, then again, we are all adults that should be able to navigate the ocean of misinformation to find out what is true in order to form our own opinions.

Having all the Nazi propaganda available today is an invaluable tool to prevent it from happening in the future... while not having allowed it in the first place would probably not have prevented WW2 (or maybe it would, we don't know for sure).

As you say (and this might be a bit far fetched, but bear with me) in this instance, voicing their hatred was beneficial *for them*, *at that time*, but not for "genocides in general", as now (thanks to how public their whole ideology became) we have data to fight it, were something similar to happen in the future.

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

#366

Post by pseudalopex »

twic wrote: post #363
pseudalopex wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FSF employees said they unionized to deal with him.[1][2] And more recent accounts are bad too.[3] [1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 [3] https://twitter.com/georgialyle/status/1374504389155508232

These sound bad, but it's notable that they don't contain any concrete examples. These could easily just be smears.

#3 has a specific example. Their stories are consistent with non FSF employees' stories. Bradley Kuhn painted a similar picture.[1] What's more likely?

[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html

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

#367

Post by unrequitedlove »

As an outsider (i.e. someone from a different culture) this is equal parts hillarious, terrifying and englightening to watch. Like, all of a sudden you people can’t say racist, sexist or edgy things, and no one can explain why – it’s some kind of unspoken axiom, it’s just, like, wrong, man, dont’ you get it, it’s not polite. Not halal. Well, who deciced that politeness is halal? Did you people have a vote or something?

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

#368

Post by pseudalopex »

rich_sasha wrote: post #334
pseudalopex wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FSF employees said they unionized to deal with him.[1][2] And more recent accounts are bad too.[3] [1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 [3] https://twitter.com/georgialyle/status/1374504389155508232

Well, that’s tangible and something I can relate to. Though still seems far from Twitter mobs, seems better suited in a labour court or sth. But it also answers my question, and it sounds like perhaps FSF is itself not stoked to have him back.

Not all bad behavior is illegal. And people let Stallman get away with a lot because they believed public criticism of Stallman would undermine the free software movement or their careers.

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

#369

Post by slenk »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #338
Traster wrote: post #261

Personally, I don't think the leader of any organisation is really free to make public comments about controversial issues and expect them not to reflect on the organisation they lead. I don't want to know what the leader of the FSF thinks about rape, the age of consent of the pros and cons of aborting foetuses. Which leaves two options: Either RMS stops publicly talking about those issues, or RMS stop being the lead…

That seems weird - you’d rather have RMS keep his controversial opinions in secret than have him state them and ultimately change his mind?

Where did he say he changed his mind? I can't seem to find anything where he takes back his statements

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

#370

Post by simion314 »

Traster wrote: post #343
simion314 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why are you still vague, what did he said and why is it legal, immoral, unpopular or incorrect.

Yes i would like a logical phrase that starts from "RMS said X" then I want to see how you extrapolate that using logic to conclude that RMS supports some illegal practices.

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