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Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

vote.debian.org

101–110 of 123 posts

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#101
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Do you have evidence that anonymity would have mattered? The vote totals seem in line with historical votes.

It's a politically controversial topic, and preference falsification is a well-documented sociological phenomenon in such circumstances. If you want to know what people really think without the possibile influence of preference falsification, it needs to be an anonymous poll.

How is it political? What politics are even involved? This very much is a personal issue with Stallman. His objectionable behavior isn’t tied to political beliefs, it’s tied to an individual’s moral and social failings.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#102
post #6

If you look at the results they link, the picture becomes clearer. They proposed 8 options. 2 directly called for resignations at FSF, 2 directly supported RMS, one said to stop working with FSF, one said to call for governance improvements at FSF, one was no comment, and one was discuss further. The two options in support of RMS were not majority held opinions, and were held by ~1/6-1/3 of voters. No comment beat "c…

[flagged]

Socialism has nothing to do with RMS’ disgusting behavior. The tide is turning in that people won’t accept this from the old guard anymore. It has nothing to do with political philosophy.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#103
post #12

Can someone fill me in on the RMS drama/politics? Is this because he was cancelled due to (supposedly) defending Epstein and he's now trying to uncancel himself?

He isn't perfect, he said something insensitive in the Epstein causa, now all kinds of ridiculous allegations and warranted criticism gets mixed into a toxic cocktail, which doesn't allow anyone to move forward productively. If RMS accepts his cancellation, he basically caves to wrongful accusations. If he stays, we can't move forward and get work done because of the drama and all the viable reasons why he shouldn't…

There were no “wrongful accusations”. RMS did all of the stuff people are upset about. It’s not fabricated.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see how any of this is intolerant, or transphobic. Yes. RMS argued for gender-neutral pronouns since more than twenty years ago. Just because it is a different set of neutral pronouns than is popular today, some people mark him transphobic. That is absurd.

Indeed, and it's no surprise that this attempted cancellation of RMS is being pushed by the pronoun enthusiast crowd. These tend to be the type of people who simply can't stand any dissenting opinions to their dogma. Unfortunately, the more tolerant attitude of just agreeing to disagree seems to have gone out of fashion. Now the preferred option is to destroy a person's entire career and slander their reputation with…

It’s not slander if it’s true, and you can be disgusted with RMS without bringing politics into it. He’s bad for the free software movement. It’s as simple as that.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#105

Good. RMS did nothing wrong really, and is the victim of a pile-on by people who can't tolerate others' opinions. I'm glad to see that Debian isn't caving to the ignorant masses here. The FSF under RMS's leadership has done more for computing freedom than any other organization. So what if RMS is outspoken about his beliefs? That's exactly the forthright attitude that enabled him to succeed in promoting the GPL so wi…

Why should anyone be subjected to RMS’ opinion on the age of consent? Or the Epstein case? RMS created this situation by injecting his unwanted opinions into to public sphere and now he’s rightfully paying the price for that.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a politically controversial topic, and preference falsification is a well-documented sociological phenomenon in such circumstances. If you want to know what people really think without the possibile influence of preference falsification, it needs to be an anonymous poll.

How is it political? What politics are even involved? This very much is a personal issue with Stallman. His objectionable behavior isn’t tied to political beliefs, it’s tied to an individual’s moral and social failings.

Fine, it's just a plain-old controversial topic, then. The same sociological pressures that can lead to preference falsification are in play as with any contentious issue.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#107
post #99
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read up on how they conduct votes. Every voter essentially gets a chance to rank every option against every other option. So the number of options should not impact the vote totals.

You forget human perception. If I expose someone to 10 negative statements and only 2 positive ones, you believe that this does not affect their overall perception of the issue?

I'm sure it does, but I don't believe it does materially in this case. People are going to have a perception of other terms, e.g. RMS, as well. While yes, what you describe may have influenced an emotional response, I see no evidence that would have changed the outcome.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#108
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He continues to do intolerant stuff: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

I fail to see how any of this is intolerant, or transphobic. You might not like these opinions. Or disagree that there is good reasoning behind some of this. This does not make the one you are disagreeing with intolerant.

If there wasn't a wide spectrum of opinions on this then you'd be objectively correct. As it stands, the zeitgeist is undecided.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Socialism has nothing to do with RMS’ disgusting behavior. The tide is turning in that people won’t accept this from the old guard anymore. It has nothing to do with political philosophy.

[flagged]

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#110

Good. RMS did nothing wrong really, and is the victim of a pile-on by people who can't tolerate others' opinions. I'm glad to see that Debian isn't caving to the ignorant masses here. The FSF under RMS's leadership has done more for computing freedom than any other organization. So what if RMS is outspoken about his beliefs? That's exactly the forthright attitude that enabled him to succeed in promoting the GPL so wi…

It is not enough to be "right" to promote a good idea. You need to be a charismatic leader to succeed at FSF's mission. Independently of whether RMS is an intolerant creep or a misunderstood visionary, I do not think it should be difficult to see that he would not be an efficient evangelist for FSF today.

On the contrary, what the FSF needs is precisely a leader that does not compromise his views in order to win the popularity game.
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