RMS' letter is good; it settles my concerns about him. I can't say that keeping him in the board is good for the FSF, but oh well...
RMS addresses the free software community
71–80 of 537 posts
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://time.com/5651186/jeffrey-epstein-investigation-co-co... "Minsky’s widow, Gloria Rudisch, denied he had sex with Giuffre or any other girls, telling the New York Post that the couple had visited Epstein a few times, but that she was always with her husband."
His email was written with the presumption that he slept with her: > Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
Exactly. The problem is that the behavior he defended was problematic, whether or not it actually happened. This signals to potential predators in the future, "I will look for excuses for your behavior if I like you".
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#73> Some have described me as being "tone-deaf," and that is fair. With my difficulty in understanding social cues, that tends to happen. For instance, I defended Professor Minsky on an M.I.T. mailing list after someone leaped to the conclusion that he was just guilty as Jeffrey Epstein. To my surprise, some thought my message defended Epstein. As I had stated previously, Epstein is a serial rapist, and rapists should…
> In many places this makes Minsky a rapist, whether or not he knew i) she was trafficked or ii) she was coerced or iii) her age.
In most places rape, like most crimes, require both actus reus (victim was coerced) and mens rea (perpetrator was aware of that). This is a complicated by the age issue (as a mistake of age is often an explicit exception to mens rea), but in general you cannot be thief, murderer or rapist without knowing that.
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://time.com/5651186/jeffrey-epstein-investigation-co-co... "Minsky’s widow, Gloria Rudisch, denied he had sex with Giuffre or any other girls, telling the New York Post that the couple had visited Epstein a few times, but that she was always with her husband."
His email was written with the presumption that he slept with her: > Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
[deleted]
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
rms has a long history of what today qualifies as sexual harassment, independent of his current controversy surrounding the Minsky/Epstein mailing list posts. He's also a bad leader (a drama llama that causes misunderstandings and controversies at every turn) regardless of his extremely controversial views on things like pedophilia, the definition of "sexual assault", Epstein's victims, et c.
Are there sources for rms's long history of sexual harassment?
Mostly in-person around MIT (just like Captain Crunch or Jake Appelbaum in the conference scene... informal until
it wasn't), but a few have made it onto the web.
See #2 here:
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#76Now, would the journalists who wrote articles with titles that are a variation of "RMS defended Epstein" [1,2] apologize or at least correct their articles? Also, now that RMS has explicitly clarified his position on these issues, can the people who leveraged his "silence" and "bad behavior" to oust him from the FSF at least admit that their motive was less about making the free-software movement welcoming and was mo…
No, no that’s not how journalism works. They report the FACTS as they see them. /s There’s no such thing as a retraction anymore, it’s just clarifications. I would have more faith in the media if they admitted when they were wrong, or at least presented, thoughtfully considered, opposing viewpoints. My faith in the media perhaps really took its first hit with Nick Sandman. I just felt weird that all these people were…
> There’s no such thing as a retraction anymore, it’s just clarifications.
I think journalism always mostly did "corrections."
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#77The good side of this witch-hunt is that the bad and the ugly revealed themselves. E.g. RedHat or Mozilla stopped their support to the fsf[1] with this hunt as scapegoat. .. really sad for RedHat though .. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/redhat_fsf_funding_ri...
Do you mean IBM? :-D
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#78RMS doesn’t have to throw in an obligatory attack on Epstein to defend Professor Minsky. It’s just not necessary. Don’t apologize to the mob or cave in to their demands. They will pounce on weakness. They’ll say this message doesn’t go far enough. They’ll say it is evidence you knew you were wrong. And at the end of it you’ll be left feeling like you were dishonest with yourself and spineless for giving in at all. We…
Emphasizing a belief he already publicly expressed isn't caving to a mob.
In my opinion it is, because repeating a belief he held already to defend himself it is a forced action that he wouldn't take unless the mob forced him to. Such an action lends credence and power to the mob, which in turn hurts everyone else.
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#79I wonder if RMS wrote apology emails to the individuals that he hurt:
> I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women.
If not, someone might need to explain to him that that too is customary in our society.
Re: RMS addresses the free software community
#80The Minsky defense was not the primary, most important reason RMS can't serve as an effective, inclusive leader for free software, it was just the one that got the most attention. This does nothing to address the numerous complaints of harassment towards MIT students, the _other_ times he spoke out in implicit support of pedophilia, the public gaffes that are unacceptable as a public representative (e.g. the foot ski…
Sure, but does any of that keep you from empathizing with the content of this letter?