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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

#181

Post by 3grdlurker »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #169
3grdlurker wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how you understand accountability but people who have clinically-diagnosed mental conditions that keep them from having full agencies over their actions are out of the question. The online political discourse you are referring to rests on the assumption that people with bigoted views and behaviors have no such diagnoses and are willfully embracing and practicing bigotry on their own. You don’t even need…

So if a vegan is offended when you eat a meat sandwich at the office, how do you know who is respecting who? Society is currently not vegan in majority, so you could say they should adapt. Also you could adapt the point of view they are trying to do the least of harm, and are suffering from the harm you do. Then, you should adapt. Diversity is bound to cause friction. That's just how it is. There is no simple good an…

A vegan can take all the offense they want to take so long as they don’t take it out on someone in the office, because there are so many reasons why doing so is wrong (sowing division is one, as mentioned in previous comment) even if veganism itself is scientifically and ethically justified. I’ll leave it at that unless you actually want to talk about veganism in length.

But, going back to the variables that diversity actually pertains to, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion, it’s not as ambiguous and complicated as you make it out to be. You cannot be discriminating people on those grounds because all that really matters in the workplace is what each individual brings to the table. You know, the output that you’re actually getting compensated for. I run a small business and I like to draw talent from a diverse pool of applicants, but anybody who makes sexist or racist remarks isn’t getting hired or is definitely getting fired because I don’t like assholes who introduce non-work related friction in the office, though I really just don’t like working with assholes.

What you also said about the minority adjusting to the majority is just disagreeable. There are so many periods in history where majority of humans believed something about the world that is also wrong. There also always tends to be an objective basis of right and wrong where a clear purpose is defined, so maybe you should clarify your purpose instead of dealing with ethics from a purely abstract level.

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

#182

Post by drewcoo »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #96
staticassertion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> This is very different than other eras.

Unsupported claim.

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

#183

Post by drewcoo »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #134
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 thin…

Now imagine that the org has fought corporate-enforced "norms" for decades and suddenly you've been ousted because of corporate-enforced norms. That's edging closer to what happened to RMS.

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

#184

Post by craigsmansion »

geofft wrote: post #88
logicchains wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. Were any of these people actually contributing in any meaningful sense, or just "participating"?

Yes, many of them were. Here's the lead developer of the HURD: https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF, including as executive director, and won the FSF's award for contributions to free software on the same day that RMS announced his return: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html Here's a whole bunch of GNU project m…

> Here's the lead developer of the HURD

Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google.

> Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF

Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach.

> Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers

Guix has been in disagreement with rms since he didn't want to adopt a CoC for GNU because it was "too punitive" in intent, and suggested using GNU's Kind Communications Guidelines instead.

> Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors

Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. After the committee did so for technical reasons, he accused them of not being punitive enough towards rms and proceeded to tally various personal suspicions against rms.

https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html

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

#185

Post by enriquto »

craigsmansion wrote: post #184
geofft wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, many of them were. Here's the lead developer of the HURD: https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF, including as executive director, and won the FSF's award for contributions to free software on the same day that RMS announced his return: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html Here's a whole bunch of GNU project m…

> Here's the lead developer of the HURD Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google. > Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach. > Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers Guix has been in disagreem…

> Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee.

> https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html

Today I learned the name of one of the first toxic people who seriously suggested to write gcc in C++. And they are admitting it themselves! What a tragedy. Of course, RMS was, rightfully again, the main opposing force. We live in sad, sad times.

Quoting this person's message:

> Interactions I've had with the SC, beyond maintainer appointment, seem to run into RMS.

Sounds like a feature to me! The main purpose of RMS's presence is precisely to keep away idiotic proposals like those of Nathan Sidwell.

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

#186

Post by bryanrasmussen »

drewcoo wrote: post #183
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

Now imagine that the org has fought corporate-enforced "norms" for decades and suddenly you've been ousted because of corporate-enforced norms. That's edging closer to what happened to RMS.

different norms than they have been dedicated to fighting, and probably the corporate enforced norms here are not ones that the corporations actually care about enforcing but only do so because they feel threatened by other, non-corporate enforced norms.

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

#187

Post by throwaway8581 »

staticassertion wrote: post #120
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.

Is that the real question? I don't really think so, but even if it were it's one with numerous obvious answers. Some obvious answers: Companies are made of people, so decisions that are made are often a reflection of the values of those people, not necessarily those of some country or another. That some group of companies tends to be American is unsurprising since (a) America owns tons of 'loud' industries like tech,…

You missed my whole point, which is that the norms being viciously enforced aren’t even widely held.

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

#188

Post by throwaway8581 »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #175
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.

I agree with the first sentence (Whence the e-giant custodians?)but not the second. Every major institution throughout history (kingdoms, churches, trade companies) has enforced top-down norms and expectations (i.e prescriptive norms). This was the case even mid- and late- 20th century America (i.e post-Sexual Revolution). There were respites from the prying eyes of society. Secret parties, meetups with friends, coun…

Yes that’s my whole point. The norms being enforced now aren’t those of “general society” but of a tiny elite. That’s what’s different.

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

#189

Post by imposterreality »

This "crisis" is all so absurd. RMS is one of the greatest programmers of all time, if not the greatest. Fabrice Bellard is a script kiddie by comparison. How many of you use gcc? Emacs? You think he should be kicked out of the FSF? He founded the freaking FSF! All of you critics are a bunch of parasites. You either make room for the guy or start your own thing.

The software world would be such a startlingly different place without him, this may be difficult to grasp for younger people. Things like Github may not even exist without him. I guarantee you a Github would not defend a youtube-dl in that RMS-free reality. Git itself wouldn't exist, or you'd have to pay for it. Even Git's creation story, via Linux, becomes unlikely in absence of a free software movement.

He created an entire world of software. Given how things are going, with software eating the world (rapidly accelerating over the past year), he may very well be responsible for creating the world as we know it going forward.

Everybody worships Steve Jobs because he wanted money. And people put up with his abuse because he made them money too. But there's no more money to be made from RMS, and his defenders are thinning.

It's so upsetting to see an old man's life work ripped from his hands, for him to be treated as a nuisance (rather than lionized), but the world is not a good place.

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

#190

Post by amluto »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #65
tinus_hn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is an extremely obnoxious man capable of doing the job of a publicly visible board member?

If history is any indication, then yes, he can. He had created the movement that has transformed the industry forever and motivated dosens of thousands developers to contribute their efforts towards Free Software. And he did it because of the very qualities he is vilified now: persistence, pedantry, having strong opinions.

Regardless of whether he created the movement, the FSF has IMO largely been on the wrong end of the movement for years. FSF has been a poor so-called leader of the open source movement for many years.

This entire focus on his supposed personal failings is a distraction. Even if RMS had completely reformed his behavior, he should not be running the FSF —- someone with a vision for the FSF that is still relevant should be in charge.

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