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Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

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Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#141

Post by Latty »

jstanley wrote: post #65
Latty wrote: post #25

Any article that just dismisses the issues with Stallman as a smear and tells you not to listen to them without showing why they are wrong instantly seems to have little intent to engage on the facts. This reads like an absurd conspiracy theory. Stallman had some good ideas about software, it doesn't mean he doesn't have bad ideas about other things (like consent), and if so we should continue to pursue the good idea…

> it doesn't mean he doesn't have bad ideas about other things (like consent) But does he have bad ideas about things like consent?

Well, my point was that this article actively avoids answering that question.

From what I can see, yes, he does. He seems to take the position that children should be able consent to sex with adults, which fundamentally makes contributors less safe, and in my opinion is worthy of removing him from positions of leadership.

His comments (from https://web.archive.org/web/20210325013844/https://stallman.... ):

> Due to the vagueness of the term "sexual assault" together with the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as "rape" even if they are willing, we cannot tell from this article what sort of acts Maraj was found to have committed. So we can't begin to judge whether those acts were wrong.

> I see at least three possibilities. Perhaps those acts really constituted rape — it is a possibility. Or perhaps the two had sex willingly, but her parents freaked out and demanded prosecution. Or, intermediate between those two, perhaps he pressured her into having sex, or got her drunk.

It is fundamentally dangerous to offer abusers the opportunity to claim it was all willing, which is why the law makes it always rape. If you choose to break that law, that's on you and you deserve to be treated as an abuser.

This position of regarding the ability to sleep with under-aged people as more important than defending under-aged people from abusers is one incompatible with keeping a community safe, in my opinion.

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#142

Post by lelanthran »

yxhuvud wrote: post #131
lelanthran wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...just because it's a minority doesn't mean it's inherently wrong. At the risk of the ghost of Godwin's, black people were a minority in the 1960s, yet still had a good point about their aims. Another good point: if the cancel-culture we are currently suffering under now was practiced in the 60s, black people, women, minorities, etc would never had gotten equal rights. It's because everyone was allowed to speak th…

> It's because everyone was allowed to speak that the message came across and won minds. Eh, you need to revisit your history lessons. There was plenty of cancel culture against blacks and there was also A LOT of violence used against them when the black protested against it and against their treatment.

> Eh, you need to revisit your history lessons. There was plenty of cancel culture against blacks and there was also A LOT of violence used against them when the black protested against it and against their treatment.

Certainly, but supporters of the movement were not cancelled simply by association.

This movement is literally trying to silence anyone who even associates with their target.

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#143

Post by DetroitThrow »

caslon wrote: post #123
geofft wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, the OSI is filled with people who work for proprietary companies So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.) Also, if we're going to claim that working for a proprietary-software company means you're not a member of the free s…

> So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.) Red Hat releases most things under free licenses and as far as I know everyone on the GCC steering committee from Red Hat was there pre-acquisition. That said, I don't love the GCC steering…

"though it kind of does"

It absolutely does not, and this has been understood throughout my entire time contributing to free software and participating in the movement. You can't just create purity tests for free software as a convenient way to demonize people when there's literally decades of core contributors and champions who'd then fall in this brand new exclusion zone.

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#144

Post by ttt0 »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #122

You want to know what will cause Free Software to die? It isn't RMS. The other day I told someone I thought this whole reaction to RMS was stupid. I was instantly labeled as "one of them", and "enabling harmful behavior" and blocked. This is nothing more than a witch hunt, guilt by association, McCarthyism. Ideological conformity -- march in lockstep with me, or you're the enemy. That is what will kill free software.

Pretty much what happened to the left with the Occupy Wallstreet movement and all, isn't it?

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#145

Post by caslon »

geofft wrote: post #140
caslon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.) Red Hat releases most things under free licenses and as far as I know everyone on the GCC steering committee from Red Hat was there pre-acquisition. That said, I don't love the GCC steering…

Pre-acquisition Red Hat was awfully excited about supporting proprietary software whose intended purpose is to kill people: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article213676919.... My point here is that you can always pick a partitioning and then backsolve ethical principles that support that partitioning. "If you work for a company that sells proprietary software, you're ineligible to be a leading voice in th…

Thanks for pointing this out, I had forgotten this! Yeah, Red Hat has been rotten for a long time. I don't like it; I think it's been a terrible company for many years; but I do think it's never released non-free software, which was the bit I am mostly concerned about on this particular topic.

I do agree that they have no real moral ground to stand on. Forgive me for pointing this out, but given they're one of the organizations that signed the letter... (Though they sort of have more casus belli to than most that signed the letter.)

Seriously, though, thank you for pointing this out! I really genuinely appreciate it (and also appreciate that you're civil here).

Ah, you stealth-edited; give me a second to read that one.

> otherwise IBM and Google would never have had a seat.

Google has never had a seat at anything other than OSI, and IBM only purchased one.

> "If you work for a company that makes software that can kill people, your ethics don't line up with ours" hasn't been a principle either -

Obviously didn't claim this. I pointed out Garrett worked for a proprietary software company that made proprietary software that kills people. Specifically, I noted that this was worse than normal proprietary software, because if you're going to have the lives of others in your hands, they should at least know the rulebook you're playing by.

> RMS in fact has advocated for multiple militaries to use free software

This is consistent with everything else I've said. I personally dislike militarized forces to the point of being skeptical of most veterans, but proprietary software doesn't make sense for a military any more than using American bombs would make sense for North Korea.

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#146

Post by Latty »

koonsolo wrote: post #134
Latty wrote: post #25

Any article that just dismisses the issues with Stallman as a smear and tells you not to listen to them without showing why they are wrong instantly seems to have little intent to engage on the facts. This reads like an absurd conspiracy theory. Stallman had some good ideas about software, it doesn't mean he doesn't have bad ideas about other things (like consent), and if so we should continue to pursue the good idea…

Show me the text where he has a bad idea about consent. And then show me how his statements are false. I guess you refer to this text: On MIT's internal Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) listerv, Stallman had seen the description of a protest of Marvin Minsky which said Minsky was "accused of assaulting" one of Epstein's victims. Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario" is that…

My point was that this article makes no attempt to address those issues.

However, I do happen to believe there is an issue, as I outlined in a sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26646676).

Statutory rape law is a trade-off because proving sexual assault is hard and we value protecting children from abusers more than we value letting people sleep with children. If you disagree with that, yes, I believe you are not suitable to hold a leadership position at any organisation that needs to protect it's contributors, some of whom will be children.

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#147

Post by Glavnokoman »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #115

Five years ago, Leah Rowe published a hasty declaration on libreboot.org, announcing that, as a free software developer, she's boycotting the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation after a transgender employee she personally knew was allegedly fired due to discrimination. [0] Later Rowe apologized, said it was a mistake for several reasons, mainly for accidentally revealing the identity of that employee, eventu…

I fail to see any change in her position. In both cases she openly defend the person treated unfairly in her opinion. What is inconsistent here?

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#148

Post by caslon »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #143
caslon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.) Red Hat releases most things under free licenses and as far as I know everyone on the GCC steering committee from Red Hat was there pre-acquisition. That said, I don't love the GCC steering…

"though it kind of does" It absolutely does not, and this has been understood throughout my entire time contributing to free software and participating in the movement. You can't just create purity tests for free software as a convenient way to demonize people when there's literally decades of core contributors and champions who'd then fall in this brand new exclusion zone.

It's hardly an arbitrary purity test; if you see proprietary software as immoral, and the free software movement as a moral movement, then people who release proprietary software aren't part of the free software movement. This has been the case since the ideological genesis of the movement.

You seem to be arguing in favor of the open source movement, which is a distinct one, with far different goals (rather than being a moral movement based around liberation, it's a movement based around profiteering free software).

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#149

Post by ttt0 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #44
sgt wrote: post #14

"Clearly, they/them is commonly understood and will cause the least amount of misunderstanding." While I support this campaign and I support RMS right to free speech, I find it ridiculous that everyone is now expected to use they/them pronouns for non-binaries etc. Am I the only one or has the world gone absolutely batshit insane, driven by purple haired Twitter trans-extremists?

Whether somebody is called he, she, or them may reasonably fluster some people, but it certainly doesn't seem to warrant something as hateful as, "the world gone absolutely batshit insane, driven by purple haired Twitter trans-extremists". To me, this stance and its wording is much more extreme and "insane" (to use your choice of insult - I would say something like "irrational").

Calling something crazy is more hateful than destroying someone's life over it?

Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman

#150

Post by busterarm »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #147
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #115

Five years ago, Leah Rowe published a hasty declaration on libreboot.org, announcing that, as a free software developer, she's boycotting the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation after a transgender employee she personally knew was allegedly fired due to discrimination. [0] Later Rowe apologized, said it was a mistake for several reasons, mainly for accidentally revealing the identity of that employee, eventu…

I fail to see any change in her position. In both cases she openly defend the person treated unfairly in her opinion. What is inconsistent here?

The implied tribe.
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