RMS addresses the free software community • Hacker News Board

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#441

Post by craigsmansion » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #427

craigsmansion wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> start listening to the people who are actually there. I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets. > Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws. Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connectio…

> and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don'…

No, actually I would prefer facts instead of this incessant and tiring framing with laden and erroneous terms.

> I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences

And I think it's weird that most with personal grievances against rms can't be bothered to write anything but the shortest of anecdotal tweets and most with pleasant or neutral experiences take the time write long form articles including names, dates, locations, etc.

If one sets out to ruin someone's life one could at least put in some effort to convince those that are not automatically on your side.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#442

Post by stusmall » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

pmarin wrote: post #312

stusmall wrote: post #39

"Later in life, I discovered that some people had negative reactions to my behavior, which I did not even know about. Tending to be direct and honest with my thoughts, I sometimes made others uncomfortable or even offended them -- especially women. This was not a choice: I didn't understand the problem enough to know which choices there were. Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid…

So people without social skills can't not be in leadership positions?

Same reason we keep people without technical skills out of technical roles. Being able to understand, working with, organize, inspire and influence people is at the core of being a leader.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#443

Post by a9h74j » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #286

tablespoon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah thank you, quite interesting. Allow me to clarify: when I was riding those words I had an article on a webpage in my mind. Because articles are so online now, it’s easy to change things and call them clarifications, and people miss the slight of hand that it might have been actually a retraction of statements. For better or worse, online news articles are living documents now. Especially in breaking stories, I'v…

> revision history > nice-to-have I think that explicit changelogs for a journalistic document are actually necessary in order to verify the trustworthiness of the publisher - how else are you going to notice when they start silently "updating" articles that were pushing an extreme (and factually incorrect) narrative at publishing time?

Just as "television will eventually be a window in a window manager"...

"A newspaper edition will eventually be a repository with good comments on commits"???

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#444

Post by seoaeu » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #192

solosoyokaze wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS made these comments on work communication channels. You don't need to separate his ideas from his work because he himself put his ideas into his work environment and is now, correctly, paying the price for that.

I don't think CSAIL mailing list qualifies as "work" for rms, if "work" is FSF. Maybe "professional", but it's a university, so that sort of inquiry is 100% appropriate and should be protected.

For a lot of people on that list it was work. And as for whether it was an appropriate for that discussion, the university in question has since unambiguously communicated that it wasn't.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#445

Post by d_tr » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #157

ziml77 wrote: post #26

Short and to the point. I like an apology that doesn't read like an essay. The more they ramble on the less genuine they feel. (I still don't believe this apology should have been considered necessary though)

It reads as a non-apology. It reads as "I'm sorry my own ways made you feel offended". The right thing to do would be to say "I'm sorry my actions offended you and I will not do that anymore". It'd have been that easy, really. He just doesn't seem to understand that on any level.

No, it reads as:

> Sometimes I lost my temper because I didn't have the social skills to avoid it. Some people could cope with this; others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.

This: > Some people could cope with this;

means: "some people could take my shit and were not hurt"

This: > others were hurt. I apologize to each of them.

means: "others could not take my shit and were actually hurt. I apologize to each of them."

You won't let the poor bastard find peace, right?

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#446

Post by africanboy » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

solosoyokaze wrote: post #359

africanboy wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It claims the allegations against Minsky are false. I don't think he did.

From the post: "False accusations -- real or imaginary, against me or against others -- especially anger me. I knew Minsky only distantly, but seeing him unjustly accused made me spring to his defense. I would have done it for anyone. Police brutality makes me angry, but when the cops lie about their victims afterwards, that false accusation is the ultimate outrage for me."

yes, exactly.

He was arguing that he was wrongfully accused of rape, because according to the testimony the sex never happened and nobody has been able to prove otherwise (an eyewitness swears that Minsky refused her).

He then added that even if the sex happened, and he had no doubt that it could be possible, the victim was sent to him to act as willing, so that would make it statutory rape, due to the age of the girl (unknown to Minsky at the time).

He was contesting the legal semantics, not the fact per se.

More importantly, he was talking about it on the mailing list of MIT in response to this

“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims)”

In his own words Stallam said

The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.

[...]

Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.

Hardly a defense, he was calling for better and more precise terms to describe what happened.

Something I would expect from someone of his age talking with young students, fueled by passion and rage

I’m writing this because I’m too angry to work. says Selam G. on her blog post.

Angry people that let their anger win never made the World a better place IMO.

Whatever is the truth, I think it takes courage to defend someone you know "only distantly" when you think he's been wrongfully accused (in your opinion) and to do it publicly even though that could cost you your career and you have nothing to gain.

Anyway Minsky's long been dead.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#447

Post by xupybd » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #414

xupybd wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To forgive someone's social incompetence could be considered appropriate in this context.

For someone in a leadership role, it could be considered an inability to perform basic job responsibilities.

I agree. Forgiveness does not mean that he should retain his role. However I think his comments have been distorted and I'm not sure this is any worse than him eating the skin off his foot.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#448

Post by a9h74j » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

generalizations wrote: post #404

b215826 wrote: 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…

I wonder if it's feasible to create some kind of database of reporters and their reliability - 'John doe has written n articles that turned out to be fundamentally wrong', Jane doe has written m articles that were fundamentally wrong'.

I haven't followed this in much detail yet, but https://thefactual.com/how-it-works mentions ranking reporters for their expertise in particular subjects.

Saw site mentioned in an HN comment a few weeks ago. So far appears to be an "objective" aggregator.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#449

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #426

pseudalopex wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All submissions compete for attention. Voting and commenting influence what submissions other people see too.

I know but from my observations all the up-votes and comments can't undo a few flags. Maybe there should be a way so if same number of people contest the flags then it undoes it? At least I think is not fair to use flag on an item I think it should get less attention, then I should flag all posts about the frameworks or languages that I think are getting too much attention (I do not flag and very rare downvote )

How did you observe the number of flags?

dang seemed to endorse flagging repetition and flame war. I don't know what to tell you if you interpret that as just too much attention.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#450

Post by d_tr » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #189

rbanffy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads as a non-apology. It reads as "I'm sorry my own ways made you feel offended". The right thing to do would be to say "I'm sorry my actions offended you and I will not do that anymore". It'd have been that easy, really. He just doesn't seem to understand that on any level.

He certainly doesn't sound like he intends to change or work to change.

He is kind of saying exactly and literally this. I mean that this is exactly what is written in the text. Literally.