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RMS addresses the free software community

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Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#371
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that's not true. In that same deposition a third party testifies that Guiffre did fly with Minsky. Choose to argue semantics all you want, but it's a credible accusation.

Nobody is alleging Minsky was never approached by Guiffre as directed. But there are also no claim in evidence that Guiffre actually had sex with him. You keep claiming an accusation that you have no evidence of.

The deposition is the claim. They were discussing men Guiffre had been trafficked to. You're deliberately ignoring that.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of companies joined together and announced they didn't like Stallman. Tellingly, the left out the list of grievances, so we can just endlessly debate which 'issue' is the 'real' issue. > FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything besides virtue signal to others about how pure and ethical they are Then why do you care at all about the FSF in the first place? It sounds l…

> Then why do you care at all about the FSF in the first place? It sounds like you're here just to spread rumors and opinions in this case. I can't answer for the OP but it's clear that the FSF was a in a leadership position within the software world in the 1980s and 1990s. That position has slipped precipitously despite the increasing importance of the GNU software they developed in every aspect of modern computing.…

> and his (lack of) understanding of the modern computing environment

How can you look at the "modern web" and claim that? It looks like he understands it perfectly well, even back in the day, but what can he do other than say it's not good for user freedom when faced with user-hostile corporations with literal billions at their disposal?

> refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him

That's silly. His workflow is obviously email based, which, given that he travels a lot and stays in places with possibly less than stellar connection, is perfectly practical. Get all your work on your device when you have a connection and work through them in batches until the next good connection.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#374
post #368
post #10

Now, 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…

Modern reporting is about views. Click bait titles that state the worst get clicks. Nuanced truth bored people. As long as we haven't found a way to entertain the masses without these embellishments I have no hope for an honest media. Just remember this when they are stirring political division. This president caused this crisis, or this politician said this horrible thing. It's probably not as bad as they say it is.

One problem with click-bait titles is that people don't click; they just stop at the title and discuss and promote that message.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened in 1977, and none of the people who signed it are public figures today, certainly not in the tech sphere. Academics who study philosophy and literature are well aware of the checkered past of the influential figures throughout history. The implication that leftist thought is rooted in pedophilia is, I'm sure, intentional flamebait. I will just point out that, whether or not people are right to vilify St…

> This happened in 1977, and none of the people who signed it are public figures today, certainly not in the tech sphere. Aren't Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard still big names and influences in postmodern thought (and the whole "woke" movement)?

"Woke" is just an insult these days. And few activists sit around discussing Derrida.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#376
post #49

The 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…

>and the fact that the FSF under Stallman kinda lost to open source anyway and hasn't really done anything

What can the FSF do better, with or without RMS ? I honestly don't think there are too many good solutions. The parts that matter to FSF (i.e., free software at the hardware layer), are also the most challenging and for which there are no business incentives, political awareness, or will. Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#377
post #10

Now, 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…

Even completely factual reporting can still be biased. Even neutrality is a bias.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#378
Both MIT and Harvard have admitted to helping Jeffrey Epstein avoid prosecution on federal racketeering charges for the sex-trafficking of minors after they were exposed by whistle-blowers at both of these institutions. I'm still not sure why people consider it appropriate to exclude someone like Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while continuing to allow Mr. Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei...

Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus with just a slap on the wrist:

https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op...

Or Mr. Martin Nowak for that matter either:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio...

This hacker news thread on Nowak is worth reading again:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060

So why has nobody drafted petitions to cancel Rafael "Thank You So Much Mr. Epstein -- And Don't Forget to Show My Letter to Federal Prosecutors" Reif, Benedict "Epstein is an Ideal Donor for Harvard" Gross, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, Martin "Punishment Serves No Noble Purpose" Nowak, Steven "Using the Internet to Entice a Minor into Prostition is A-Okay" Pinker, Seth "So What If I Make Female Undergraduates at MIT Feel Uncomfortable "Lloyd, Neri "Epstein was Always a Reliable Supporter of Israel" Oxman, Frank "I Never Saw any Girls that were Underage" Wilczek, and all of the other pedophilia-tolerating two-faced phonies that attended EDGE Foundation dinners hosted by the convicted child rapist and/or visited him on "Pedophile Isle," where FBI reportedly found instruction manuals that Mr. Epstein had ordered on Amazon that describe how to create a so-called "sex slave," in addition to video tapes containing child pornography that he allegedly recorded using secret cameras that were installed throughout his various residences?

Stallman blaming his "being on the spectrum" for all of the troubling statements cataloged on the website cited below may not entirely excuse Mr. Stallman for making them since there is no evidence that someone on the spectrum is more likely than the general population to hold similar views on child rape:

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

But the most important question today that Mr. Stallman needs to address directly, because many of his critics on this issue continue to hold him in the highest regard for his role in advancing the free software movement, is a very frank one:

Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, and Leon Black, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is a professor?

I'm not entirely convinced by the naysayers on this one yet, but Stallman is most deserving of forgiveness thus far, and not because of his autism, but rather because of all of his contributions to free software in spite of it.

Some of the other dogs cited above deserve to spend time in the same jail cell where Epstein killed himself because he was too much of a coward to stand trial for all of the crimes that he knew he had committed.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#379
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He held a position at MIT until 2019.[1] [1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September...

I was at MIT from 2006-11, including as a student researcher at CSAIL from 2007 onwards, and I was on the CSAIL mailing list until I unsubscribed (coincidentally) a week or so before that post. In at least the time that I was at MIT/CSAIL, and to my knowledge thereafter, RMS was not employed by MIT nor was he a student at MIT. He had an email/UNIX account at CSAIL, and he had an office, sponsored by some very senior…

> RMS disaffiliated from MIT in the '80s ...

> sponsored by some very senior faculty members, .... It's pretty straightforward for faculty to sponsor anyone they like as an "affiliate" (though of course office space is much harder).

I think that if someone is sponsored by senior MIT faculty to the point of having an office on campus that's a pretty good claim to being MIT-affiliated.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#380
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because having opinions is not something to apologize for.

If your "opinions" hurt people then yes, that is something to apologise for.

You hurt me by this comment. I demand an apology from you.
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