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

Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 253 posts

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#141

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #132
datavirtue wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through as many specific quotes as I could find and it all looked like your typical tenured male professor running his mouth. Is Stallman kind of creepy? I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Has he DONE anything wrong? If so, someone should notify the police. That blog post ca…

> I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Uh? No, I don't think you should be allowed to advocate for the morality of statutory rape in a university mailing list on an entirely unrelated topic. I was on some csail mailing lists and I certainly wouldn't want to get that. And we wonder wh…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#142

Post by throw0101a »

datavirtue wrote: post #89
orra wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman seems to have a history of being manipulative and sexually harassing women. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He also has some troubling views that at best make him an inappropriate spokesperson. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

I read through as many specific quotes as I could find and it all looked like your typical tenured male professor running his mouth. Is Stallman kind of creepy? I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Has he DONE anything wrong? If so, someone should notify the police. That blog post ca…

> I predict that the author of that post will deeply regret their actions one day when they grow up.

The original signers of that letter are:

* Molly de Blanc (Debian Project, GNOME Foundation)

* Nathan Freitas

* Matthew Garrett (Former member of the FSF board of directors). See: https://twitter.com/mjg59

* Shauna Gordon-McKeon

* Elana Hashman (Debian Technical Committee Member, Open Source Initiative Director, Kubernetes SIG Instrumentation Chair)

* Faidon Liambotis (Open Source Initiative Director)

* Katherine Maher

* Tom Marble (Software Freedom Conservancy, Evaluation Committee Chair)

* Neil McGovern (GNOME Foundation Executive Director, Former Debian Project Leader)

* Deb Nicholson (OSI General Manager, SeaGL Co-Founder)

* Nadya Peek

* Julia Reda

* Eric Schultz

* Joan Touzet (Apache CouchDB PMC, Former Apache Software Foundation Director)

* Luis Villa (Former Director of the Open Source Initiative and the GNOME Foundation; contributor to the GPL v3 drafting process)

* Stefano Zacchiroli (Former Debian Project Leader and Former Director of the Open Source Initiative)

See:

* https://rms-open-letter.github.io

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#144

Post by yellowapple »

tubbyjr wrote: post #41

Well, there go my annual Tor donations, oh well. Let's see if they can make up for these losses by going the cancel culture/censorship route. And Mozilla has been a joke for a while with their latest CEO. He's literally trying to jump on anything currently trendy, to hold onto his seat and salary for as long as possible while he drives its projects into the bedrock.

> He's

*She's, FYI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#145

Post by salawat »

geofft wrote: post #86
wmf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice the FSF is the Stallman Foundation.

It hasn't been since at least fall 2019, when he stepped down. He hasn't been involved (at least on paper!) for over a year now, and the FSF has presumably been functioning between then and last Saturday. It hasn't been since 2004, when the FSF staff unionized to protect themselves from Stallman ( https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374532930400227328 ). It hasn't been since whenever Stallman's rider started includ…

So... You suddenly realized the value you handed off, and are annoyed because you can't take them back? I mean, personally, I don't think IP rights (if we have to suffer them to exist) should be transferrable. It should either be utilized by the person who did the work, or w waived into the public domain. Nevertheless, you never had any guarantee FSF would always be run by people, or run how, you like. You knew this. You did it anyway. What is it they say today? "There are consequences."

You can't take it back. Once it's out there, it's out there. That was the point! Nor does it at all Change that Stallman has done absolutely nothing to deserve ousting, nor does his reinstatement detract from FSF or it's mission.

Looked into the rider; good for him; he's bringing it in, he should get a choice in where it goes. Also, makes me wonder why. Given Stallman's dedication, I have to wonder what the Foundation has been up to that's got him feeling like he's got to take care of himself first, but heck, maybe he just got tired of having to rely on the charity of others? I know in his position, (particularly nowadays) I'd not feel a great degree of trust in the face of my peers.

I'm just in awe of the fact he's even gone back, and throughout the entire thing kept advocating for FSF. That's commitment.

After thumbing through the Twitter thread, came across this gem:

>I worked at the FSF from 2015-2018 & was shop steward for a while. I recall having a months (MONTHS) long conversation with ED John Sullivan about why racist & sexist 'hacker humor' from the 90s needed to be removed from http://gnu.org. rms didn't get why it was harmful.

So... Someone had a subculture clash, and totally failed to attain enlightenment? Or to even appreciate the importance of maintaining a historical record to change and develop over time?

Seriously, this sounds like the kind of person who'd advocate having all old periodicals available in libraries re-written to the moral standards of today to protect the sensibilities of the youth.

The problem I have sympathizing with all of this is that if these same exact circumstances happened to any other member of the FSF, I'd be in the same uproar. You don't hang someone out to dry because people got hysterical because someone couldn't read, or because other people don't like that someone else is using their right to speak their mind.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#146

Post by anthk »

kristopolous wrote: post #61
orra wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman seems to have a history of being manipulative and sexually harassing women. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He also has some troubling views that at best make him an inappropriate spokesperson. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

> "He regularly and repeatedly makes comments about “the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as ‘rape’ even if they are willing.” I'm a gay man who is into older men. When I was in highschool I intentionally sought out men in their 20s and 30s. Cross generational relationships are a sexual preference and can be just as fulfilling and last just as long as any other. Sometimes the younger person has more mon…

That in Europe it's just "Monday". In my country, the legal age to consent is 16. And, a few years ago, it was... 13!!!

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#147

Post by datavirtue »

redis_mlc wrote: post #119

> Having a bed in his office at MIT is creepy as hell. My understanding is that he slept (ie. lived) in his office, so having a bed there would be normal, not "creepy as hell." Also, many professors have beds in their labs in case of long-running experiments. I've seen them and thought it was practical. I read all of the related links about Stallman and didn't see any actual evidence. What's odd about the US left is…

Some of this has to do with the various dystopian regimes, war criminals, and other pshycopaths throughout the world sending hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to all US universities or colleges of note.

There is an investigation ongoing that has Yale receiving $330+MM in unreported donations (illegal) from sanctioned countries and other comprising regimes. Tip of the ice berg.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#148

Post by orra »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #110
orra wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're downplaying it entirely. He has a track record of handing out sexualized 'pleasure cards' at professional conferences. Women at MIT were warned away from him, told to keep plants to ward him off. And one of the most troubling things he has done is psychological manipulation. Many jurisdictions rightly recognise as domestic abuse. In particular, he told one woman he would kill himself if she didn't date him. De…

>In particular, he told one woman he would kill himself if she didn't date him. >Depressed people should seek treatment. Being depressed doesn't excuse manipulation. I've been on the receiving end of that same situation; and yet, I don't think inciting an internet hate mob to banish that person from their life's work indefinitely is the proper "treatment" I'd recommend to give that person.

Again, mental health doesn't excuse domestic abuse.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#149

Post by threatofrain »

salawat wrote: post #126
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, you don't, you need a modest dose of pattern recognition ability to recognize the fundamental pattern behind cancel culture. It's the same thing, different day, and always worth standing in opposition of no matter where you are on the political spectrum, or where the victim stands in relation to you.

I see cancel culture as used by the political party who likely does not recognize banning abortion clinics by law through an entire state as cancellation. The stakes aren’t a matter of Twitter hates you. Your boss firing you doesn’t mean your doctor is banned from giving you an abortion.

Or when TX sought to enforce a ban on gay sex in 2003, I really doubt the GOP sees that as cancellation. It’s a kind of failure to see the forest, even while pretending to have such moral clarity. The stakes aren’t a matter of Reddit hates you.

When a Christian refuses to bake a cake, sign a marriage certificate, or when they fight for the right to fire gay people, etc., the activity is not cancellation but spiritual observation.

And does one not remember that during the Bush presidential candidacy a major get out to vote issue for Christian conservatives was a US constitutional ban on gay marriage? Of course this is not cancellation. It was a Constitutional exercise.

These are points of pride for the GOP. This is what it means to energize the base.

Re: Mozilla, Tor Join Calls to Oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation

#150

Post by lamp987 »

orra wrote: post #67
mark_l_watson wrote: post #30

As a very liberal person, I have to say that I am disgusted by cancel culture. Disgusted. This is so harmful to society, and is a dark path that the left has taken in my country. To put it plainly, my political party has turned into whinny little people. People should lose their jobs over things like sexual or any type of harassment but when I read Stallman's actual comments last year, I thought that it was very clea…

A plethora of women have come forward, with their stories of sexual harassment and manipulation by RMS. (See links in other posts; e.g. the first link in the open letter's appendix.) This isn't just about him describing a "sex trafficking victim" as "entirely willing", and hence not a victim of "sexual assault". This is wrong on so many levels.

I'd prefer if there was plethora of evidence.
Post reply on HN