Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RMS addresses the free software community

fsf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 537 posts

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#471

Post by keonix »

_-david-_ wrote: post #218
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RMS is a statutory rape apologist, and a defender of a pedophile. Wasn't the entire point of his post to refute this interpretation of what happened? Does no one else notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

The person you are responding to is probably not strictly talking about the Minsky/Epstein stuff but adding in Stallman's other statements. "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

It was 18 years ago, he changed[0] his views later, but nobody mentions that for some reason...

[0] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#472

Post by africanboy »

davexunit wrote: post #433
craigsmansion wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1]. Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2] . I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the…

No it's not about that person. This isn't about RMS saying something that some of us disagree with and looking past it. It's much bigger than that. For example, RMS made the working environment at the FSF so bad that the staff unionized. The working environment is still bad (staff either burn out trying to make things better or get fired for some reason) but at least RMS can't fire people on a whim and the staff get…

So in other words at the FSF workers are free to unionize like in the rest of the civilized World, while if you work at Amazon you have to pee in a bottle and be happy about it.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#473

Post by africanboy »

goodpoint wrote: post #462
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are you comparing the rape of a minor to homosexuality?" Yes, that's exactly it. Respectable people would have felt the same way about homosexuality 100 years ago as you do about sex involving minors. Further, your characterization as "rape of a minor" is problematic. What's a minor? If one minor is involved, it automatically becomes rape? In much of Europe ages of consent are surprisingly low (14) to Americans, who…

> If one minor is involved, it automatically becomes rape? YES. This is how it works legally, because one person does not have the emotional and intellectual maturity to provide fully informed consent.

No, it doesn't.

What about Japan where age of consent is 13?

Or Switzerland were the age of consent is 16, although if the age gap between parties is three years or less – for example between a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old – no charges can be brought

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#474

Post by africanboy »

solosoyokaze wrote: post #304
teddyh wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age of consent in some European countries is generally lower than the US, some as low as 14, most about 15 with some having 16¹. If we assume that the majority of citizens of such a country agree that their country has a reasonable age, would your response then be to “never associate or work with” anyone from that country? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age...

I would not work with anyone who held those views, regardless of which country they were from. I find it abhorrent and especially so in the context of work.

In Japan age of consent is 13.

Do you find Japanese people abhorrent?

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#475

Post by krapp »

luckylion wrote: post #461
bogwog wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so that we don't look exactly like them? How about not be like them at all? People are stupid, but they can learn from their mistakes, and society can help them by accepting an apology rather than shunning them forever.

What if they don't (want to) learn, and don't apologize (like these journalists and their companies likely won't). How often, and how long, do we hope for them to see the error in their ways, repent and become forces for good? And how much harm do we tolerate while we're waiting for them to see the light?

You're right. Better to burn the witches quickly. Deus Vult.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#476

Post by stonogo »

d_tr wrote: post #278
stonogo wrote: post #263

It's disgusting that the FSF not only snuck the return of RMS into the end of LibrePlanet without notifying anyone, drove out the wrongthinking staff before creating a staff position on the board, and now to cap it off are writing articles instructing people on how to react to these things. RMS is not a good leader. The FSF should pay him for his work on GPL and leave him off the board. The FSF should also stop writi…

You have entirely missed the whole point of the situation, which has been going on for a while. Besides, this is about Stallman's own statement.

I don't know if you're trying to educate me, but you haven't. What would you say "the whole point" is here? And why bother pretending that Stallman's statement and the FSF's statement, issued thirty seconds later and containing many of the same instructions, should be considered separately, despite Stallman's statement not being issued on his own website, but that of the FSF?

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#477

Post by solosoyokaze »

africanboy wrote: post #474
solosoyokaze wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not work with anyone who held those views, regardless of which country they were from. I find it abhorrent and especially so in the context of work.

In Japan age of consent is 13. Do you find Japanese people abhorrent?

Any adult who rapes a 13 year old is abhorrent. It's not even a debate.

[Edit] Absolutely disgusting that this would be downvoted. This community really showed itself for what it is today. Thankfully, the rest of our industry has enough of a moral compass to reject this, so both FSF and Stallman are dead in the water.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#478

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

ebcode wrote: post #424
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have the megaphone of fame in your hand, you can't pretend it doesn't exist. That kind of influence is an enormous privilege, one that nearly everyone that has it has had to chase aggressively their entire careers if not lives. You cannot pretend a celebrity pontificating into a camera that is broadcasting to 100's of millions of people is the same thing as someone's personal weblog that no one ever reads. Y…

> You cannot pretend a celebrity pontificating into a camera that is broadcasting to 100's of millions of people is the same thing as someone's personal weblog that no one ever reads. I'd say it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference.

Who arises to that status is becoming more organic, which is probably a good thing in my book, but access to the top tiers of success/influence remains closely guarded by the people with the power to do so.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#479

Post by Osmose »

bubblethink wrote: post #376
Osmose wrote: 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 varie…

Some examples: https://twitter.com/luis_in_brief/status/1379813168638091271

> Otherwise, garden variety free/open source software is already fine and flourishing depending on business interests.

Open source thriving is actually a loss for free software, in the view of the free software movement, because open source software can and does still restrict user freedoms.

Re: RMS addresses the free software community

#480

Post by crocodiletears »

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…

That would require those journalists be worthy of the applause they tell society it both owes and gives to them.

The activists won their war. No reason for them to declare it unjust.

Post reply on HN