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Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

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Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#31

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

danpalmer wrote: post #13
semitones wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toxicity isn't a binary thing - there's levels to it. If the benefits one can bring to a team outweigh their negative attributes, then you should let them on your team. As far as how to determine whether the good outweighs the bad, that's a different topic. He brings a lot to the table, and I don't think he should have his work and life "cancelled" because some people disagree with his opinions...

Cancellation isn't a binary thing either, and I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that RMS's past contributions to the FSF be dismantled or that no one should employ him, I don't think anyone seriously want's to cancel his life's work. The suggestions are that he shouldn't hold a leadership position in a community when he's shown an inability to lead a community safely.

Alas, cancellation is binary. It's akin to bullying: once started things begin to go downhill really quick.

There are always enough people willing to raise there self-esteem by kicking a dead lion.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#32

Post by DasIch »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #21
na85 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore But he's not valuable any more, that's the thing. He hasn't written code in like 30 years and to the best of my knowledge all he does is go around giving the same tired lecture over and over. This pretend apology does nothing to…

Writing code isn't that valuable. Many people contribute to coreutils (& other GNU projects) but there is only one RMS. His position is an ideological one.

What political successes did the FSF have in the last 20 years and what role did RMS play in those?

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#33

Post by danpalmer »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #24
newacct583 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is frustrating, because this really should be a circumstance where a genuinely sincere apology should be... acceptable. RMS isn't accused of trafficking here, after all. He jumped in to a heated discussion to defend Minsky (one of his heroes[1] who had been fingered as a john in the Epstein affair). And in the process he deployed a line of argument[2] that probably sounded reasonable to a spectrum personality w…

Who cares what he thinks about Minsky paying for sex? It’s hard to imagine something less relevant to his job.

I think people care more about the child sex trafficking than the paying for sex.

Also your job doesn't have to be about child safety for it to be an issue if you excuse child sex trafficking.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#34

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

DasIch wrote: post #9
underseacables wrote: post #3

That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so…

What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.

I can live without bacon.

But with bacon my life is better, fuller and more pleasant in all aspects.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#35

Post by Splendor »

azinman2 wrote: post #15
Splendor wrote: post #5

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF. This line really misses the mark for me. When you defend a man who raped a 17 year-old girl, your biggest regret shouldn't be about how it harmed your reputation.

His point was that we don’t know that Minsky raped anyone from Minsky’s perspective. Go read his actual words again.

> from Minsky’s perspective

Oh no, honey.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#36

Post by ashtonkem »

underseacables wrote: post #3

That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so…

> look we need this guy

The apocryphal Charles de Gaulle quote that applies here is "graveyards are full of indispensable men".

RMS is one man, the FSF is an organization that is supposed to have aims that are bigger and larger reaching than one single person, which is why it's an org in the first place. If the FSF cannot get by without RMS now, they will not survive RMS himself in the long run.

> This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own.

Again, RMS is really bad at this stuff. I genuinely have no idea why anyone wants to keep him. Especially having met him personally, he seems unpleasant to deal with on a constant basis.

> I think compared with the totality of the evidence, the history of FSF, The importance of knowledge, and the betterment for the group as a whole, bringing RMS was the right decision.

I'd argue that you are probably overweighting the early history of the FSF. In my professional lifetime it has been a complete non-entity, and all I've ever seen RMS do publicly is get into slap fights over "GNU/Linux" and create drama out of thin air. What has that org been doing for 20 years other than slowly lose ground to Apache and CNCF?

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#37

Post by sthomas1618 »

danpalmer wrote: post #13
semitones wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toxicity isn't a binary thing - there's levels to it. If the benefits one can bring to a team outweigh their negative attributes, then you should let them on your team. As far as how to determine whether the good outweighs the bad, that's a different topic. He brings a lot to the table, and I don't think he should have his work and life "cancelled" because some people disagree with his opinions...

Cancellation isn't a binary thing either, and I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that RMS's past contributions to the FSF be dismantled or that no one should employ him, I don't think anyone seriously want's to cancel his life's work. The suggestions are that he shouldn't hold a leadership position in a community when he's shown an inability to lead a community safely.

To add on: cancellation === accountability. Which many people seem to forget.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#38

Post by chx »

This basically refuses to acknowledge the problem.

It links RMS' statement

> Occasionally I learned something about relationships and social skills, so over the years I've found ways to get better at these situations. When people help me understand an aspect of what went wrong, and that shows me a way of treating people better, I teach myself to recognize when I should act that way. I keep making this effort, and over time, I improve.

This, alas, is not true. This has been refuted by FSF staff: he has been saying and doing sexist shit over the decades. A report was made about the sexism at MIT CSAIL in 1983. If that's not enough time to change, nothing is.

He has been defending raping of children for, I do not even know how long. https://archive.is/P0Rvb 2003? at least that's the earliest this article dug up.

The very problem is that he does not improve over more than thirty years.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#39

Post by luke2m »

newacct583 wrote: post #12
danpalmer wrote: post #4

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past peo…

Which is frustrating, because this really should be a circumstance where a genuinely sincere apology should be... acceptable. RMS isn't accused of trafficking here, after all. He jumped in to a heated discussion to defend Minsky (one of his heroes[1] who had been fingered as a john in the Epstein affair). And in the process he deployed a line of argument[2] that probably sounded reasonable to a spectrum personality w…

Exactly.

Re: Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

#40

Post by Splendor »

semitones wrote: post #14
Splendor wrote: post #5

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF. This line really misses the mark for me. When you defend a man who raped a 17 year-old girl, your biggest regret shouldn't be about how it harmed your reputation.

This is the point that RMS is trying to make. His argument (iirc) is that "rape" might be an incorrect word used to describe what happened (was it proved to be rape? The only part proved iirc were the ages), and that immediately because the person was 17 instead of 18, that word is used to describe the situation without second thought. I don't think he was saying that there should be zero repercussions, or that we sh…

What word or phrase would you used to describe sex between an old man and a 17 year-old girl?
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