This has nothing to do with RMS, this is a power flex by the same forces that made Linus "take a month off".
Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
91–100 of 227 posts
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#92RMS is abusive. I'm autistic too. When I've behaved in similar ways, I've been similarly forced to account for my behavior. I resent the fact that ostensible defense of him as a person on the spectrum is so ideological. I distrust most of his defenders' sincerity when they talk about his neurodivergence, and I don't consider them allies.
You clearly are not an expert on autism. The disease is a huge spectrum of different behaviors, from almost normal, to severe retardation. I've seen RMS in real life, he's borderline can't take care of himself, that's not being abusive.
I didn’t claim to be an expert. He’s not abusive because he can’t take care of himself. He’s abusive because he’s mean spirited and takes advantage of being excused for it because of his celebrity. I was never afforded that. Take your expertise and shove it up someone who isn’t a nobody.
Edit: I regret saying anything please carry on praising the guy who treats people like garbage because people enable him. I’ll just go back to doing my best to triangulate my emotional reactions with empathy so I can survive and have moderately healthy relationships.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#93I think we can all agree that RMS has been too abusive to corporations. Corporations that now push back in the form of twitter lobbyists.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#94It seems a copout to blame his behaviour on his Autism. Plenty of people on the spectrum go about daily life without making grandiose public statements about pedophiles or eating toe jam in public - even for an Autistic person it's obvious that this will cause a negative reaction.
It’s called Autism Spectrum Disorder for a reason. There are many different ways an individual’s personality can be impacted by it.
Of course. But Stallman was quite eloquent and had a well-adjusted social network. Arguing that Stallman's neurological wiring made him completely unaware that, for example, having bad personal hygeine was off-putting and anti-social is ridiculous. He must have been told this literally hundreds of times by people he trusts.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#95I don't think this argument makes sense. In fact if we follow it to its conclusion, it's an additional reason for RMS to be removed from his job. 1. RMS is not being punished by the FSF. He does not have any right to a particular job, even as the founder of an organization. Many people, including FSF board members, believed he was not competent to serve the organization in a leadership role. One could argue about whe…
> 2. RMS is not obviously asking for any understanding nor promising to be better. You can't apologize once there is a mixture of 10% truth and 90% defamation. The libelous press will then print that the target has apologized for 100%, and therefore has validated the libel.
This is an interesting argument. So the existence of bad faith actors means that one should never address one's own harms?
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#96I'm no fan of Stallman, but I do find it worrying that some companies can unilaterally decide to sink the FSF if they don't like what it's doing. Of course, any foundation with companies on its board is at risk for that, but the fact that people who support Free Software, who ideally should shun corporate control of software, are cheering it on is disappointing, and is directly due to the kind of easy judgement peopl…
> I'm no fan of Stallman, but I do find it worrying that some companies can unilaterally decide to sink the FSF if they don't like what it's doing. Why? That's like, the entire basis of every organization, that supporters don't have to support it. If a company selling a product behaves in a way you don't want to support you stop buying, if a charity stops supporting a cause you stop supporting it, etc.
The real question is why every single major company in America is vigorously enforcing social norms that significant portions of the population, often a majority, don’t even agree with. This is very different than other eras.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#97The ADA requires reasonable accomodations, not unlimited accomodations.
Reasonable accomodations are wheelchair ramps so they can enter your building, elevators for people who can't climb stairs, and changing your user interface so that people who can't see colors can operate it and people who can't see at all can use screen-readers.
Where is the line to unreasonable accomodations? When a person permanently cannot do the essential features of the job: if you do not have a minimum physical strength and endurance, you cannot be a firefighter. If you can't comply with driving laws, you can't be a truck driver.
And in the case of the FSF Board, I would argue that when RMS persistently behaves badly in public over the course of decades, he can't represent that organization in the way that thwy want to be represented.
But all that is bullshit, because while I'm sure RMS feels like he's being punished, he has had decades to address this problem and he just isn't interested or capable. Either way, it's not a matter for the ADA -- and if RMS thinks it is, he should take it up with the ADA and settle that.
Perens' argument is lacking.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... >I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.” >Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him. There are plenty of primary sources, and they're not "corporate lobbyists". RMS is toxic.
>>Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him. I said exactly that many times to girls when I was a teenager. It was a joke. Taken out of context, those phrases can mean anything good or bad.
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Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#99How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment. Can you rejoin if you have learned reading and writing? Yes. Stallman is not a janitor but in top management (I have the highest respect for janitors but…
>if your views hurt a significant amount of people
Stallman's views hurt people in the sense that some people got offended that he believed in things that they did not. None of his views could hurt people in any other way, he never posted any racist/sexist/transphobic/etc views.
Downvotes are not cancelling. Downvotes won't get you fired. Nobody will bully you for being downvoted (or even having this opinion really). They just show that people find your argument dishonest or disagree with you.
Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals
#100What's interesting is that in this particular case, we did kind of get a sort of "jury" vote in the two open letters to the FSF: One asking that he be removed (3000 signatures), and one asking that he be kept on (5000 signatures). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Return_to_FSF
The counterletter accepted signatures for longer than the original letter, and it was heavily promoted in the Eastern bloc, which is very sympathetic towards causes that exclude women and other minorities.
The original letter is signed by many of us who actually write the free software and who are part of GNU. I recognise people in the original letter I've collaborated on GNU software with, people I've met at conferences, people I've worked on bug reports with.
There are a few personalities in the counterletter, but if we're going by "jury of peers" there are far more peers in the original letter than the counterletter. The signatures in the two letters are a clear case of quantity vs quality.