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A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

meribold.org

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Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#61

Post by ginko »

sokoloff wrote: post #42
johannes1234321 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reason: Lots of software is licensed under "GPL V2, or newer" or "GPL v3, or newer" The Free Software Foundation can release a new version of that license, which will relicense all those works under those new terms.

As I read it, users will still have the option to choose the existing concrete license (ignoring “or later”), so if V4 became a restrictive license somehow, “V2 or later” is no more restrictive for users who don’t want it to be.

I think the worry is that a V4 could be less restrictive. Imagine the FSF gets bought out and releases a GPLv4 that's essentially the MIT license. All existing "GPLvX or later" software like the Linux kernel could then be extended without releasing the source code.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#62

Post by [deleted] »

Zanni wrote: post #27

A critique of "A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS": the author claims that Stallman's transphobia is down to Stallman proposing a set of singular, gender-neutral pronouns other than 'they', 'their' and theirs'. Which Stallman indeed does, but if you read on, Stallman also says he'll flat out refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns if they disagree with his scheme. To overlook that in a cr…

[deleted]

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#63

Post by quotemstr »

meribold wrote: post #15
PurpleFoxy wrote: post #5

Aprox 10 minutes before dang sees this and deletes it

He stated at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636 > that it's users and not moderators that are flagging all posts related to RMS. He even said he'd be willing to disable flagging on a somewhat neutral submission, if I'm reading his comment correctly.

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome post?"

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#64

Post by vmception »

spoonjim wrote: post #10
vmception wrote: post #6

Ok I’m missing a key part of this: Why should I care about this recurring drama? Is the leadership of the FSF even important? I’ve gone my whole life without needing to follow board composition of the FSF.

Having a party on your “side” of an opinion spectrum that is very extreme — like the FSF under Stallman - is important for maintaining the Overton window of acceptability where you want it. If you want the minimum wage raised to $10, Bernie Sanders arguing for $15, and bringing people into that worldview, helps you. Such has been the FSF for open source especially in its nascent days with corporate interests still th…

so from what I can tell, people tried node-based "cancelling" where they try to ostracize people and organizations associated with the target person, and it failed and this is the tail-end of that saga

the FSF folded in the past, and has since called the weakness of this vendetta and particular approach, and it would be redundant to even rehash the particular comments Stallman has said or evaluate his leadership

people have tried tying morality to prosperity, and there is no reality where that is related

okay, anyway

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#65

Post by KingOfCoders »

outsomnia wrote: post #35
Zanni wrote: post #27

A critique of "A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS": the author claims that Stallman's transphobia is down to Stallman proposing a set of singular, gender-neutral pronouns other than 'they', 'their' and theirs'. Which Stallman indeed does, but if you read on, Stallman also says he'll flat out refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns if they disagree with his scheme. To overlook that in a cr…

... and what's actually the problem with that stance that justifies what is being done to Stallman? It should be OK with everyone to be referred to by name and the set of generic English words that can be applied to anyone.

Can he have this private opinion? Yes sure, I would just avoid him.

Can he be in a leadership role and organize conferences? No.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#66

Post by krapp »

junon wrote: post #21
joana035 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the sky is blue police has been using CP as an excuse to break encryption, search electronic devices, etc. RMS is not wrong.

I think both comments above have taken the argument to the extremes on both ends. OHO, I think RMS is making a point about the excuses governments and LEOs make in favor of censorship/anti-encryption - a good one, at that. OTOH, he does a pretty piss-poor job describing it in that blurb. I'm not convinced this is an argument in favor of child pornography. I'm simply choosing to believe it's poor wording on RMS's part…

Part of his argument is that there would be nothing wrong with possessing child pornography if it depicted consensual intercourse - and Stallman's (recently recanted on, to be fair) views that pedophilia is not harmful and that children can give consent and should be allowed to engage in sexual intercourse with adults are well documented.

His general argument is a good one, even given how reprehensible child pornography can be - there are ways to fight it without giving open ended backdoors and carte blanche to law enforcement. But part of that argument does rest implicitly on an argument that child pornography itself isn't harmful. His rationale that simply possessing an image does no harm doesn't take into account the harm that went into creating that image or the networks of harm that their creation and distribution supports.

Setting everything else aside, that's not really the sort of argument people should want a spokesperson for free software to be making on their behalf. Most people don't see child pornography as mere images with no context or moral weight, so an argument that deviates into a tangent of "and they're just pictures anyway so what's the harm? Maybe the kids were into it" isn't going to be compelling.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#67

Post by tremon »

yur3i__ wrote: post #4

As much as I like rms, I find it very difficult to move past his comments on child pornography[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/notes/2011-mar-jun.html#4_June_2011_(Bo...

On the other hand, when children can get themselves and their friends on sex offender lists for privately sharing pictures of themselves, there is undeniably something wrong with the laws in question.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#68

Post by junon »

maweki wrote: post #53
henrikschroder wrote: post #32

> The primary author of the open letter, Molly de Blanc, writes on her personal blog: > > There is no space to argue over whether a comment was transphobic – if it hurt a trans person then it is transphobic and it is unacceptable. Ah, postmodernism! Where the words are made up, and intent doesn't matter!

In a sphere where we usually choose our names and expect other people to use them, instead of what's written in some official document, I don't see how chosen pronouns are any different. Honestly, it's not hard to call people what they want to be called. You might feel the line between innocent mistake and maliciousness has not been crossed. Other people do disagree.

Because pronouns are ingrained into our language centers; we automatically and subconsciously classify people based on physical appearance and derive pronouns from that. For better or worse, it's part of our programming.

Names, however, are not. We've learned names are not connected to any physical trait, and thus we process and store them differently.

Expecting the entirety of humanity to simply "unlearn" language is a huge stretch - especially for those with gendered languages (English is not a gendered language).

Further, the fact that pronouns "hurt" trans people is largely subjective - there is a very large portion of the trans community that would disagree with that assertion.

Words are words. Perhaps we should stop placing as much weight in them, fullstop.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#69

Post by read_if_gay_ »

tomxor wrote: post #33

At this point I think the most important thing is that mob rule is shown to not be the way. I don't know RMS, I don't even know much about RMS... but I have heard enough to know he's not the intolerant idiot he's been made out to be in these hateful letters. There are possibly other very reasonable criticisms for him being removed from his position, but the mob made that impossible to discuss now due to the overwhelm…

> mob rule is shown to not be the way.

I guess humanity just has to re-learn certain lessons every couple of generations.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#70

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

lyu07282 wrote: post #41

> RMS has (for some reason) tens of thousands of political notes on his website ready to be cherry-picked That would give me literally nightmares, I really don't understand people who write their opinions online (or sharing or liking of other peoples opinions) using their real name. It seems incredibly foolish. Even if you think you are woke enough, chances of getting cancelled in the future seem very high. I have th…

You see, when he started doing this, the world was a different place. Also, he really believes it's important to fight for what he believes in.
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