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Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

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Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#131

Post by legulere »

Natsu wrote: post #63
legulere wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we not act like the Second World War and consequently Karl Popper’s “ The Open Society and Its Enemies” didn’t happen? You cannot run a tolerant society without being intolerant to those that want to destroy it. You are right, that there is too much intolerance in today’s society, but I don’t think that it’s the case here. I think Stallman’s public statements about child rape deserve all the shunning he got.

> You cannot run a tolerant society without being intolerant to those that want to destroy it. Popper predicated that right on the right to self-defense against people who use "fists or pistols" instead of words to argue. Has RMS been out there punching or shooting people or using some other physical violence? Last I knew he wasn't even accused of intolerance at all but of some absurd defense of his now-dead friend w…

Child rape is a form of violence. You think we should tolerate sentences like the following? Richard Stallman: “I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.”

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#132

Post by KingOfCoders »

skissane wrote: post #73
KingOfCoders wrote: post #8

How 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…

> Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion. Generally speaking, a blind person can't do anything to improve their vision. A person with a social disability can learn coping strategies to perform better in social situations, in spite of their disability. In the literature on ASD, this process even has a name – "masking". They may never be as good at socia…

"Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him"

If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release.

"Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger."

So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#133

Post by watwut »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #86
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #46

Punishments should have limits, but the point of removing a toxic member of a team is not to punish the individual. If I hang out with a group of friends, and one of those friends repeatedly makes some of the rest of us uncomfortable, I will stop inviting that person to our gatherings. This is not meant as a rehabilitory or a punitive measure. It's simply a group of people who aren't comfortable with someone else's p…

> Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. If someone decided not to participate in Free Software because they couldn't stand Stallman, then they don't have a strong urge to do so anyway. It is likely that they didn't even participate at all, but were seeking some attention and did virtue signalling. Does anyone really believe Sara Mei would have contributed…

Actually healthy adults put boundaries on how they allow themselves to be treated fairly often. That includes selection of environments to work in.

In turn, desperate people who cling at the position for emotional reasons are not all that great.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#134

Post by bryanrasmussen »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #8

How 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 you were leading an organization, and had grown it from nothing to being important, then if you are removed from that organization for things you have said that is obviously a punishment, if it is done without a court taking part it is non-judicial punishment. Of course non-judicial punishments exist all over the place and that's just the way the world works, although really for some of the things he's done I think he might open up to judicial (civil court) punishment as well.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#135

Post by kstenerud »

jordigh wrote: post #100
kstenerud wrote: post #58

What'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 confere…

Yes, yes, and I'm sure the other camp would have similar complaints about the quality of your camp's signatures and membership. This is how it always goes when people square off on emotional topics: Victory through decibels.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#136

Post by Natsu »

legulere wrote: post #131
Natsu wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot run a tolerant society without being intolerant to those that want to destroy it. Popper predicated that right on the right to self-defense against people who use "fists or pistols" instead of words to argue. Has RMS been out there punching or shooting people or using some other physical violence? Last I knew he wasn't even accused of intolerance at all but of some absurd defense of his now-dead friend w…

Child rape is a form of violence. You think we should tolerate sentences like the following? Richard Stallman: “I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.”

I think the very idea is reprehensible and strongly disagree with RMS, but I also don't think that talking about it is the same as doing it.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#137

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

neilk wrote: post #130
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. If someone decided not to participate in Free Software because they couldn't stand Stallman, then they don't have a strong urge to do so anyway. It is likely that they didn't even participate at all, but were seeking some attention and did virtue signalling. Does anyone really believe Sara Mei would have contributed…

You seem to be new to this argument. Are you aware that we have had a bifurcated Open Source / Free Software movement since the 1990s? And how that came to be? There were real philosophical disagreements, and I'm not even saying RMS had the wrong side of the argument. But he definitely gave everyone a huge incentive to go off and do something different because at least you wouldn't be working with RMS. I can think of…

Why would anyone working on Free Software would need to work with rms personally? It is not like it's some weird cult where you need to be initiated into it by the high priest. We have created our software and released it under GNU GPL / AGPL licences without ever meeting anyone.

As for 'bifurcation': it happened because different people have different goals when they release their software. Some are driven by some idealistic values, others do it because it fits in their business plan for whatever reasons. Thus different groups of people might have different requirements to freedoms they grant to their code.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#138

Post by dragonwriter »

echelon wrote: post #33
legulere wrote: post #19

The FSF looks even more like a sect if you do mental gymnastics like that for your former guru. RMS publicly defended child rape. Someone like that should not get to define what freedom means. RMS has all the right not to get attacked about his awkward behavior, but he has to feel the consequences on his ideological thought.

> should not get to define what freedom means. This little bit right here sounds fascist. I'm not going to defend RMS' words or actions (I don't even know what the entire case against him is, and the more extreme this gets the less I want to pry into his personal life). I do think people are losing their minds to assassinate the guy. RMS has given us our entire industry and careers. Without free software, you wouldn'…

> He apologized and spent several years away from the organization he founded.

September 2019 — March 2021 isn’t “several years”. Many of the othern elements of your description are similarly creative interpretations of the facts.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#139

Post by mindslight »

eschaton wrote: post #110
throwaway8581 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s curious that you think these norms are not widely held.

I certainly hope that piling on to yellow journalism is not a widely held norm.

Re: Bruce Perens: On Non-Judicical Punishment of Individuals

#140

Post by skissane »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #132
skissane wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion. Generally speaking, a blind person can't do anything to improve their vision. A person with a social disability can learn coping strategies to perform better in social situations, in spite of their disability. In the literature on ASD, this process even has a name – "masking". They may never be as good at socia…

"Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him" If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release. "Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20…

> If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release.

If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release. (Board members aren’t technically employees but I think the principle is the same.)

> So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?

If the FSF board wants to give him the opportunity to demonstrate an ability to change, why shouldn’t they? Also, they are much better judges of whether he is trying to change, and whether or not he’s having success in that, than external observers such as you or I can be. They are engaged in communications with him to which the general public are not privy

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