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A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

meribold.org

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Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#11

Post by joana035 »

yur3i__ wrote: post #4

As much as I like rms, I find it very difficult to move past his comments on child pornography[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/notes/2011-mar-jun.html#4_June_2011_(Bo...

Since the sky is blue police has been using CP as an excuse to break encryption, search electronic devices, etc.

RMS is not wrong.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#12

Post by junon »

> I think a good argument against RMS can be made, but the authors of the letter instead chose to incite as much outrage as possible at the cost of honesty and nuance.

My thoughts exactly. I'm not defending RMS but the original letter was very clearly written in the key of "outrage".

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#13

Post by johannes1234321 »

vmception wrote: post #6

Ok I’m missing a key part of this: Why should I care about this recurring drama? Is the leadership of the FSF even important? I’ve gone my whole life without needing to follow board composition of the FSF.

A reason: Lots of software is licensed under "GPL V2, or newer" or "GPL v3, or newer"

The Free Software Foundation can release a new version of that license, which will relicense all those works under those new terms.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#14

Post by why_Mr_Anderson »

yur3i__ wrote: post #4

As much as I like rms, I find it very difficult to move past his comments on child pornography[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/notes/2011-mar-jun.html#4_June_2011_(Bo...

If a 16 years old girl sends nude photo her 16 year old boyfriend in Germany, it's fine. If she does the same in US, he's pedophile. This is what RMS was talking about.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#15

Post by meribold »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #5

Aprox 10 minutes before dang sees this and deletes it

He stated at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636> that it's users and not moderators that are flagging all posts related to RMS. He even said he'd be willing to disable flagging on a somewhat neutral submission, if I'm reading his comment correctly.

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#16

Post by why_Mr_Anderson »

spoonjim wrote: post #8

You know what I think is the craziest thing about this whole saga: Stallman’s email just accepts, as fact, that Minsky had sex with an underage girl. With one accusation and a dead defendant, why would anyone make this assumption without further corroboration? Did Stallman know it was true or was he just assuming it was?

Ever heard about concept of 'friends' or even 'close friends'?

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#17

Post by [deleted] »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #9

RMS is a terrible spokesperson for free software. I wish the FSF could just fire him and move on. How do I know he's a terrible spokesperson? Because we're talking about him and not about free software. It's that simple. I want the FSF to focus on free software and I want the discourse around the FSF to be about free software. Not RMS.

[deleted]

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#18

Post by yur3i__ »

joana035 wrote: post #11
yur3i__ wrote: post #4

As much as I like rms, I find it very difficult to move past his comments on child pornography[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/notes/2011-mar-jun.html#4_June_2011_(Bo...

Since the sky is blue police has been using CP as an excuse to break encryption, search electronic devices, etc. RMS is not wrong.

That's not really the part I have an issue with, its more the assertion that child pornography "does not hurt anyone".

Re: A Critique of the Open Letter Calling for the Removal of RMS

#19

Post by secondcoming »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #9

RMS is a terrible spokesperson for free software. I wish the FSF could just fire him and move on. How do I know he's a terrible spokesperson? Because we're talking about him and not about free software. It's that simple. I want the FSF to focus on free software and I want the discourse around the FSF to be about free software. Not RMS.

I sure he'd rather that he wasn't the topic of discussion.

If some people on HN started talking about AndyMcConachie would that be justification enough for getting you kicked from HN?

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