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

Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

gcc.gnu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#101

Post by dragonwriter »

s_Hogg wrote: post #14

Another reminder that no-one is irreplaceable. I'm sure GCC will continue without him, one way or another.

> Another reminder that no-one is irreplaceable.

The announcement reads as if his identification as a Steering Committee member was never anything other than symbolic (emphasis, added):

---quote---

In 2012 RMS was added to the GCC Steering Committee web page based on his role in the GNU Project, though his role as a member of the Steering Committee has been ambiguous and he was not a member of the Steering Committee when EGCS became GCC. We no longer feel that this listing serves the best interests of the GCC developer and user community. Therefore, we are removing him from the page.

---end quote---

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#102

Post by temp-dude-87844 »

meowface wrote: post #98
foobar33333 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one did, they would most likely keep it quiet as to not be the next target or seen as a stallman supporter. Anyone that speaks up for RMS under their real name will be blasted all over twitter.

Yeah, this is a worthy consideration. Anyone on the steering committee expressing support for him would probably be next to be voted out (or, more likely, privately encouraged to step down or harassed until they decide to themselves). It'd be interesting to see the results of a totally anonymous vote among them. The majority would probably still vote him out, but not sure how close it'd be.

A totally anonymous vote is not possible, because at some point they must reveal the aggregate result, and this will allow the voters to reason about the way others must have voted. The minimum number of voters who must have taken a position is known. If the total pool of voters is small, they can talk among themselves, and this will reveal either impassioned people being publicly outspoken about their position, or people being deferential about their position. Irrespective of whether anyone is lying about how they voted, the deferential people will be under suspicion of having voted the way they're less likely to admit in public. This incentivizes people to seem more publicly impassioned about the position that's least likely to result in their condemnation.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#103

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #93
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and behaves in an angry and abusive manner towards anyone he deems inferior, which is most people. This statements is simply not true. I had several exchanges and communications with Stallman, private and official. It was clear to him that I am less knowledgeable than him and less competent in the areas we discussed. But he never showed any of the traits you mention, the opposite was true. He was very patient and e…

That he treated you nicely, does not mean he does this universally. For him the contempt is less about intelligence or competence and more about his extremely rigid world view. When he's surrounded by his admirers of course he doesn't do it. But when someone turns down his lascivious advances or offends one of his random moral positions he behaves entirely differently. But I mean, you can just go read the guys blog f…

> That he treated you nicely, does not mean he does this universally.

Of course not. It would make no sense to negate the experiences of other people, I was just objecting to the sentence "...behaves in an angry and abusive manner towards anyone he deems inferior" as it uses an absolute quantifier.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#104

Post by meowface »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #102
meowface wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a worthy consideration. Anyone on the steering committee expressing support for him would probably be next to be voted out (or, more likely, privately encouraged to step down or harassed until they decide to themselves). It'd be interesting to see the results of a totally anonymous vote among them. The majority would probably still vote him out, but not sure how close it'd be.

A totally anonymous vote is not possible, because at some point they must reveal the aggregate result, and this will allow the voters to reason about the way others must have voted. The minimum number of voters who must have taken a position is known. If the total pool of voters is small, they can talk among themselves, and this will reveal either impassioned people being publicly outspoken about their position, or p…

This is true, but if they're convincing enough when acting publicly impassioned, it might be hard to identify all of the dissenters, at least. Voting would still be a major risk, but slightly less so than a non-anonymous vote.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#105

Post by dang »

gallier2 wrote: post #45
bjourne wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stated reason for removing Stallman is the belief that he is "toxic". You may disagree with that but it has nothing to do with Stallman's political views.

Declaration of toxicity is purest politic rhetoric, you knob.

Swipes like that will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

I took a quick look at your account history (standard moderation practice) and was pleased to see that most of your comments are excellent, so fortunately this shouldn't be difficult to fix.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#106

Post by d_tr »

tptacek wrote: post #100
foobar33333 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one did, they would most likely keep it quiet as to not be the next target or seen as a stallman supporter. Anyone that speaks up for RMS under their real name will be blasted all over twitter.

Ok, but, respectfully, "non-falsifiable argument is non-falsifiable". At any rate, I'm mostly just here to say that contra the nerd-popular argument that Stallman's "cancellation" is perpetrated by people "outside" of free software, here it's pretty clearly the reverse: the people most vigorously advocating for Stallman's removal from the project have unimpeachable GCC credentials.

People with unimpeachable credentials are still human beings with flaws like all of us.

This is about the removal of a listing, i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not?

It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter contains several blatant lies and there is no way around the fact. Every single person or organization that signed that letter is (unintentionally or not) supporting these lies because, well, they put their signature on them. I am finding this really hard to swallow.

Sane discussion within the community to get some things straight is probably too time-consuming and fussy, so it was probably easier to just remove a listing and throw some generic reassuring copypasta at the end.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#107

Post by d_tr »

tptacek wrote: post #78
s_Hogg wrote: post #14

Another reminder that no-one is irreplaceable. I'm sure GCC will continue without him, one way or another.

A member of the steering committee described their job with respect to Stallman as "saying no to Stallman", so I imagine they'll continue better without him.

When was this? Twenty years ago? And they will "continue better without him" now?

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#108

Post by tptacek »

d_tr wrote: post #106
tptacek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but, respectfully, "non-falsifiable argument is non-falsifiable". At any rate, I'm mostly just here to say that contra the nerd-popular argument that Stallman's "cancellation" is perpetrated by people "outside" of free software, here it's pretty clearly the reverse: the people most vigorously advocating for Stallman's removal from the project have unimpeachable GCC credentials.

People with unimpeachable credentials are still human beings with flaws like all of us. This is about the removal of a listing , i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not? It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter con…

No, SC committee members spoke at length about the practical issues with Stallman's involvement with the GCC project.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#109

Post by tptacek »

d_tr wrote: post #107
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A member of the steering committee described their job with respect to Stallman as "saying no to Stallman", so I imagine they'll continue better without him.

When was this? Twenty years ago? And they will "continue better without him" now?

Days ago.

Re: Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee

#110

Post by d_tr »

tptacek wrote: post #108
d_tr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with unimpeachable credentials are still human beings with flaws like all of us. This is about the removal of a listing , i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not? It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter con…

No, SC committee members spoke at length about the practical issues with Stallman's involvement with the GCC project.

Just to make it clear, I did read the whole thread in the mailing list before writing the above comment.
Post reply on HN