“I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#81

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #34

ip34162 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FOSS doesn't depend on the FSF Board. There are many in the FOSS community that want RMS removed. https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/23/outreachy-fsf/ https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ . . Also the FSF members weren't made aware of RMS's comeback. That's shitty behaviour. https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128 . . Partial reasons as to…

I don't believe those are the actual underlying reasons. This kind of smear campaign is just a means to an end. RMS is anti-corporate and pro end-user. Free software has turned out to be immensely useful for big corporations, but mostly because it's free, not because it empowers the end-user. You would expect leftists to be in favour of empowering the end-user, but evidently not. I think it's because RMS is an old-st…

Contra:

> The idea that someone who does enough "good work" earns a pass for inappropriate behaviour is pervasive, and fosters environments where abusers can prosper. People who hold this belief shouldn't be involved in running organisations.

* https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1374093150101200896

Other folks who did a lot of philanthropy: Jeffrey Epstein, David Koch, the Sackler family (of opioid epidemic noterietay), Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Michael Pearson, Raj Rajaratnam, Bernard Madoff, Ken Lay (of Enron).

* https://www.worth.com/the-10-most-toxic-philanthropists/

* https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/harvey-weinstei...

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#82

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #24

cehrlich wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS's role in the FSF was president, and now Member of the Board of Directors. Sure this requires some technical skills, but the main factor is leadership and the ability to bring people together. If anyone believes that RMS is fit for that role, that says a lot about the state of FOSS.

Disagreeable people have done amazing things for the Free Software movement. It is, at heart, a highly intolerant movement. It does not care about compromise, it cares about principles. It does not tolerate half-hearted attempts and lip service. Compromise and bringing people together is the slow track to becoming subservient to corporate interests. Mozilla works with people and we end up with an OK browser that is s…

> Disagreeable people have done amazing things for the Free Software movement. It is, at heart, a highly intolerant movement.

There's a difference in not compromising one's principles and not compromising in acting like boar towards other human beings.

One can be both highly principled and considerate to others. Human-to-human actions can be civil while one pursues one goals.

We're not in some ancient field of combat where no quarter is asked for, or given, by either side in battle.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#83

Post by bondarchuk » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #81

bondarchuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe those are the actual underlying reasons. This kind of smear campaign is just a means to an end. RMS is anti-corporate and pro end-user. Free software has turned out to be immensely useful for big corporations, but mostly because it's free, not because it empowers the end-user. You would expect leftists to be in favour of empowering the end-user, but evidently not. I think it's because RMS is an old-st…

Contra: > The idea that someone who does enough "good work" earns a pass for inappropriate behaviour is pervasive, and fosters environments where abusers can prosper. People who hold this belief shouldn't be involved in running organisations. * https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1374093150101200896 Other folks who did a lot of philanthropy: Jeffrey Epstein, David Koch, the Sackler family (of opioid epidemic noterietay)…

I don't know why you are saying this to me, it is not related to anything I've said in this discussion.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#84

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #60

threatofrain wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave has been around since 2015. When the iPhone came out it exploded like wildfire, and the year after came the iPhone 3G, followed by the iPhone 3GS. And if any of the major browser vendors did the same thing Brave did, it would be a scandal. In that way, Brave's innovation must be that they can fly under the radar.

> Steve Jobs said that when you hold up the iPhone, it's value should be obvious, and people will say they want it right away. And the ordinary customers on the ground saw the iPhone and it exploded instantly like wildfire, and then it redefined a new category of "smartphone", framing all other phones as "dumb". Yeah, that is what I was pointing to. All that happened without the iPhone being all that different from w…

[deleted]

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#85

Post by rich_sasha » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #80

rich_sasha wrote: post #31

I don’t know much more than superficial things about either FSF or RMS. I read the things he said, they sound reasonable, but very prone to misinterpretation. I won’t jump to his defence, I think not offending people even through their misunderstandings is a key skill in public speech. I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper. I don’t…

> I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper. What he said in 2019 was basically the last straw for many people of behaviour that stretches back a decade or three: * https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He hasn't admitted to doing anything wrong, or feeling regret for any words/actions, and so the thinking is i…

Again, I’m not defending or endorsing him. My issue is with the form.

Apart from his unsavoury and mean things he says, most of the accusations seem to be centred around his MIT presence, and also sound like firable offences. I think a better place to start would be to enforce that, if the accusations are true (very possible, I just don’t know).

Otherwise there are some accusations hanging around, b the organisation who should first and foremost address them (apparently) doesn’t. Then a lunch mob forms.

Incidentally, I think this is the origin of the outrage society-the lack of appropriate reactions where they should be made in the first place.

Still, I prefer C+ law-based justice to a B lunch mob.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#86

Post by amanzi » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #31

I don’t know much more than superficial things about either FSF or RMS. I read the things he said, they sound reasonable, but very prone to misinterpretation. I won’t jump to his defence, I think not offending people even through their misunderstandings is a key skill in public speech. I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper. I don’t…

Most people just quote the Medium post without having done their own research. These are the best two links I've found that put all the accusations into context:

https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#87

Post by zenethian » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

adenozine wrote: post #3

Good riddance? I'm tired of social culture spokespeople flogging technologists over the head Nobody can make a case that RMS is a swell guy, he's awful. Still, he's without a sliver of a doubt the single most influential activist for FOSS that there's ever been. Getting rid of polarization happens with one instance of forgiveness+rehabilitation at a time. You cant cancel your way to better culture.

We do not have a society of forgiveness or rehabilitation. From childhood, at least in the United States, we have it ingrained in us that we are punished when we do something against society. You commit a crime and you break the law and you are punished by a forfeiture of your basic rights by being imprisoned. I don't understand why people are so surprised or against it when someone is punished for a wrongdoing, even if it's not in terms of law enforcement, because that's what we've normalized as a society to do.

You absolutely can cancel your way to a better culture. This has been happening for a century now. As a society, we have been slowly whittling down an exact definition if what we will accept as a society.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#88

Post by rich_sasha » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

amanzi wrote: post #86

rich_sasha wrote: post #31

I don’t know much more than superficial things about either FSF or RMS. I read the things he said, they sound reasonable, but very prone to misinterpretation. I won’t jump to his defence, I think not offending people even through their misunderstandings is a key skill in public speech. I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper. I don’t…

Most people just quote the Medium post without having done their own research. These are the best two links I've found that put all the accusations into context: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

I read the top link, very good.

It strikes me that RMS writes a lot about sex, rape and minors. Well, we all have interests. If the article is anything to go by, it confirms my hunch that he says a lot of things that are prone to misinterpretation.

While I would think it is his fault (we have a duty to say controversial things in a way that the audience can understand), this still doesn’t seem to be a good reason to cancel him, and of all things, from the FSF. It’s not like he is on the board of the Girl Guides.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#89

Post by verall » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

caeril wrote: post #51

bondarchuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe those are the actual underlying reasons. This kind of smear campaign is just a means to an end. RMS is anti-corporate and pro end-user. Free software has turned out to be immensely useful for big corporations, but mostly because it's free, not because it empowers the end-user. You would expect leftists to be in favour of empowering the end-user, but evidently not. I think it's because RMS is an old-st…

After seeing every single member of the Fortune 500 shill for BLM last summer, this analysis rings true. Corporate power doesn't care about black lives, as several of the most adamant BLM shills run business models predicated significantly on black lives dying in cobalt mines and/or the associated sectarian wars over resources, or on busting unions of largely African immigrant labor. Similarly, it's laughable to thin…

People act like BLM asked for the corporate shilling. They asked for police reform. Corporations saw a chance to sell a little bit of virtue signal to Middle America.

Re: “I am announcing my resignation from the FSF board”

#90

Post by throw0101a » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #83

throw0101a wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contra: > The idea that someone who does enough "good work" earns a pass for inappropriate behaviour is pervasive, and fosters environments where abusers can prosper. People who hold this belief shouldn't be involved in running organisations. * https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1374093150101200896 Other folks who did a lot of philanthropy: Jeffrey Epstein, David Koch, the Sackler family (of opioid epidemic noterietay)…

I don't know why you are saying this to me, it is not related to anything I've said in this discussion.

You wrote:

> RMS is anti-corporate and pro end-user. Free software has turned out to be immensely useful for big corporations, but mostly because it's free, not because it empowers the end-user. You would expect leftists to be in favour of empowering the end-user, but evidently not.

"Leftists" may be for empowering the end-user, but they may not be for allowing someone a pass on certain behaviours just because they happen to share values/principles.