Earlier quoted context omitted.
He or she, depending what the person looks like. I'm not going to use they/them, the same way I'm not going to force someone else to refer to me as "my lord".
Comically I was registering for an event and they required a prefix with choices “Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, My lord” and like a hundred other prefixes for fancy people. I was surprised that there wasn’t a non-gendered prefix to call someone by unless they have some prefix due to training or station. “Honorable” and “Dr” have requirements before use.
Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
191–200 of 253 posts
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#192"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?
If you're introduced to one William Gates and he says "call me Bill", would you respect that? I get that using "they/them" requires a bit more mental gymnastics, at least in languages with gendered pronouns. However it is still a grammatically correct use of the language, just one we're not used to. I approach this from a perspective of compassion. If someone has made the (potentially difficult) decision to live with…
The difference is, if I choose to call him; Mr. Gates, Billy, Will or Willy, I will not be ostracized, have people calling my work to get me fired and have newspapers write smear columns about me. At most, William Gates will think that I am an asshole.
For some reason there is a group of people in the tech community who rather than try and develop tech and promote new and cool things think that it is better to try and police what others say and do. This is not helpful to the tech community because it makes people hesitant and reluctant to participate because they are worried they will cause offense and become ostracized.
To see this occurring in the tech community is particular sad as many of the people who work in the industry come from outlier social groups, people who were shunned and bullied because they were different. There is a particular irony in the push to make the space safe for everyone that the original people because they were excluded from other spaces must be pushed out. It is made even more ironic because often the same voices that say that tech needs to change to be more inclusive have negative things to say about colonization...
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, replace the word "child" with "minor" or whatever, I'm not a lawyer here, it's clear what I mean from context. The point is that once the rules are set, you follow them because to do otherwise means either you are an abuser, or you are willing to do things that are indistinguishable from an abuser, giving them cover and breaking the rules that are designed to protect minors. Either way, you are endangering mino…
As a leader you indeed need to protect people, and when someone is accused of "assault", I think it's OK to put things in perspective. He gave a clear objective description of the situation, and nobody can claim his observations were wrong. Remember that the accusation was "assault", and I agree with Stallman that this was too harsh given the circumstances. I want my leaders to stand up for reality. If you prefer you…
You can absolutely claim he was wrong, we are talking about a case where it was assault. A minor can't consent under the law. Claiming it was consensual is an excuse that the laws specifically says does not hold because it abusers will always say that, and the responsibility is on adults not to have sex with them. It doesn't matter if there was consent given or not, the person committed assault because the society chooses to have a rule where that is the crime when the other person is a minor. Either way, minors were harmed because it allows abusers opportunity.
Refusing to enforce that rule is absolutely wrong, and it is disqualifying for a leadership position. You are now using "Think of the children" as a thought terminating cliche in reverse, where any attempt to protect minors is unreasonable.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#194From the linked article: > Our opponents wish to destroy Free Software > Our opponent’s true target is not Richard Stallman; their real aim is to destroy the FSF by thoroughly infiltrating it (like they already have with organisations like the OSI and Linux Foundation). These people even started an online petition calling for RMS’s forceful removal and for the entire board of directors at the FSF to resign from their…
If you think Stallman stands for open source you don't understand free software, open source, nor Stallman.
Please, elaborate. What do all of those actually mean?
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
They plainly state their irrational opinion that the resignation was the result of a smear campaign by anti-open-source entities and even list them. That's just hysterical garbage. RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole and failing to curb his autistic tendencies. As a major thought leader, he ought to know better.
> RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole So what? Steve Jobs was celebrated while he shat on people left and right and even denied his own daughter's claims that he's her father for years. Elon Musk publicly called someone else a pedophile and hired specialists(which turned out to be scammers) to dig up dirt against that person. Linus Torvalds is known for being rather unfriendly to a lot of people, yet…
Linus faced the fallout of his communication style recently.
Musk is far from universally admired, many-many people think he is a piece of shit for how he handles his employees, how he overworked the Tesla factory staff to meet idiotic production quotas, how he throw a hissy fit when CA mandated closing non-essential workplaces (so Tesla factories) due to COVID, etc., etc.
RMS consistently pushed himself on vulnerable women on campus.
Are these comparable? Sure, on some level.
Is the FSF better off without him? Well, who knows, but many people seem to think that the answer is a clear yes.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#196So one thing I'm noting here is that this letter has a heavy translation/international bent. Additionally, an extremely large portion of signers have Russian-language names, for example. Anecdotally, nearly everyone I have ever talked to or worked with in FOSS software has signed the "opposes RMS" letter, and I can't find anyone I recall or have even heard of on this one. But of course, I mostly have worked with peop…
Slavic languages, and correspondingly their names, are common in dozens of countries besides Russia. You probably have a sizable minority of them in your own country.
The support letter is indeed more international and representative of the larger development community. I'd say this reflects well on rms, since he obviously has a wider support base. His opponents seem to represent a specific subculture that only exists in the West. If you're only surrounded by these types, then you might be the one in a bubble.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What ? The Linux Foundation ? It opposes Free Software ? Did I misunderstand this sentence ? Please show me any announcement from The Linux Foundation where they push for free software. They call it "open source" instead, which misses the point: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... .
It is the FSF's opinion that "open source" misses the point, and it's pretty self-serving for them to have that opinion, because they don't control the term . The OSI has in recent years been an ardent defender of free software principles, holding fast to the Debian Free Software Guidelines despite corporate pressure to approve various licenses where the source is technically open but fundamental freedoms are gone. A…
> but the corporate interests don't want people to think about fundamental freedoms anyway, so they wouldn't mind. It's therefore very important that someone is out there saying that you can't be "open source" either without the fundamental freedoms, and the OSI has been doing exactly that.
The community should force the companies to do what we want, not what the companies prefer. We want that free software be called "free", because it makes people think about freedom. The OSI decided that what companies want is more important and most people now do not know about their freedoms.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#198Very strange how many posts from certain users here, like they’ve devoted a lot of themselves to the crusade against RMS. How could it be so important to these people? It seems like there’s some ulterior motive, just based on how many anti-rms posts from specific users.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a leader you indeed need to protect people, and when someone is accused of "assault", I think it's OK to put things in perspective. He gave a clear objective description of the situation, and nobody can claim his observations were wrong. Remember that the accusation was "assault", and I agree with Stallman that this was too harsh given the circumstances. I want my leaders to stand up for reality. If you prefer you…
You can absolutely claim he was wrong, we are talking about a case where it was assault. A minor can't consent under the law. Claiming it was consensual is an excuse that the laws specifically says does not hold because it abusers will always say that, and the responsibility is on adults not to have sex with them. It doesn't matter if there was consent given or not, the person committed assault because the society ch…
The world you are looking for is "abuse". Abusers (your wording) abuse, they do not assault (when they do, then they become an assaulter).
What Marvin Minsky did in that situation was to abuse this 17 year old girl. What he did was morally (and most likely also legally, I do not know the full details) wrong but as far as we know, he was not violent or forcing.
That is the important difference Richard Stallman tried to make.
What Marvin Minsky did was wrong but we should not accuse him in something he did not commit.
The same goes with manslaughter and murder.
Re: Libreboot – Defend Richard Stallman
#200So one thing I'm noting here is that this letter has a heavy translation/international bent. Additionally, an extremely large portion of signers have Russian-language names, for example. Anecdotally, nearly everyone I have ever talked to or worked with in FOSS software has signed the "opposes RMS" letter, and I can't find anyone I recall or have even heard of on this one. But of course, I mostly have worked with peop…
Slavic languages, and correspondingly their names, are common in dozens of countries besides Russia. You probably have a sizable minority of them in your own country. The support letter is indeed more international and representative of the larger development community. I'd say this reflects well on rms, since he obviously has a wider support base. His opponents seem to represent a specific subculture that only exist…
"Slavic" was the word I was looking for, thank you. I am definitely aware such names are common in a wide geographic area.
I do think there may be an untested theory on whether the support letter's wider base is because of a wider support for RMS, or because by internationalizing the letter in many languages, it did a better job reaching RMS supporters than the open letter did reaching RMS opposers who don't speak English.