GNU's Former Kernel Maintainer Shares 'A Reflection on the Departure of Richard Stallman' (medium.com) 435
Thomas Bushnell, BSG, founded GNU's official kernel project, GNU Hurd, and maintained it from 1990 through 2003. This week on Medium he posted "a reflection on the departure of RMS."
There has been some bad reporting, and that's a problem. While I have not waded through the entire email thread Selam G. has posted, my reaction was that RMS did not defend Epstein, and did not say that the victim in this case was acting voluntarily. But it's not the most important problem. It's not remotely close to being the most important problem.
This was an own-goal for RMS. He has had plenty of opportunities to learn how to stfu when that's necessary. He's responsible for relying too much on people's careful reading of his note, but even that's not the problem.
He thought that Marvin Minsky was being unfairly accused. Minsky was his friend for many many years, and I think he carries a lot of affection and loyalty for his memory. But Minsky is also dead, and there's plenty of time to discuss at leisure whatever questions there may be about his culpability. RMS treated the problem as being "let's make sure we don't criticize Minsky unfairly", when the problem was actually, "how can we come to terms with a history of MIT's institutional neglect of its responsibilities toward women and its apparent complicity with Epstein's crimes". While it is true we should not treat Minsky unfairly, it was not -- and is not -- a pressing concern, and by making it his concern, RMS signaled clearly that it was much more important to him than the question of the institution's patterns of problematic coddling of bad behavior. And, I think, some of those focusing themselves on careful parsing of RMS's words are falling into the same pitfall as he....
Minsky was RMS's protector for a long long time. He created the AI Lab, where I think RMS found the only happy home he ever knew. He kept the rest of the Institute at bay and insulated RMS from attack (as did other faculty that also had befriended RMS). I was around for most of the 90s, and I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS's behavior was a concern at the time, and that this protection was itself part of the problem...
Bushnell also calls Stallman "a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I've met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it's still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life's work is a failure..."
But Bushnell concludes that "It is time for the free software community to leave adolescence and move to adulthood, and this requires leaving childish tantrums, abusive language, and toxic environments behind."
This was an own-goal for RMS. He has had plenty of opportunities to learn how to stfu when that's necessary. He's responsible for relying too much on people's careful reading of his note, but even that's not the problem.
He thought that Marvin Minsky was being unfairly accused. Minsky was his friend for many many years, and I think he carries a lot of affection and loyalty for his memory. But Minsky is also dead, and there's plenty of time to discuss at leisure whatever questions there may be about his culpability. RMS treated the problem as being "let's make sure we don't criticize Minsky unfairly", when the problem was actually, "how can we come to terms with a history of MIT's institutional neglect of its responsibilities toward women and its apparent complicity with Epstein's crimes". While it is true we should not treat Minsky unfairly, it was not -- and is not -- a pressing concern, and by making it his concern, RMS signaled clearly that it was much more important to him than the question of the institution's patterns of problematic coddling of bad behavior. And, I think, some of those focusing themselves on careful parsing of RMS's words are falling into the same pitfall as he....
Minsky was RMS's protector for a long long time. He created the AI Lab, where I think RMS found the only happy home he ever knew. He kept the rest of the Institute at bay and insulated RMS from attack (as did other faculty that also had befriended RMS). I was around for most of the 90s, and I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS's behavior was a concern at the time, and that this protection was itself part of the problem...
Bushnell also calls Stallman "a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I've met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it's still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life's work is a failure..."
But Bushnell concludes that "It is time for the free software community to leave adolescence and move to adulthood, and this requires leaving childish tantrums, abusive language, and toxic environments behind."
I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is selling. Richard stallman is one of the few people who care about the truth and not social graces despite his faults. We live in a lawless out of control oligarchy that gets whatever it wants from a deeply corrupt congress and MIT is little more then corporate bootlickers of the establishment these days. The reality is, the human species is deeply childish and corrupt, and is so concerned about appearances and hurt feelings when ANY real issues of substance are never really addressed.
Our entire species lives half-asleep at the wheel.
George carlin
https://youtu.be/-14SllPPLxY?t... [youtu.be]
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no fan of Stallman's. I think he's exactly the asshole described. BUT... in Computer Science, priority on peoples' sensibilities is the wrong priority. The computer doesn't care. It only knows true and false. For a good computer scientist, that basic world view is ingrained in their soul. Asking them to be something they're not is unreasonable.
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
You needn't accept me. You need to tolerate me so I can do my job.
I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to get shit done.
However, when it gets to the point that others can’t do their job then you are a problem. Either you fix it or I fix it, but it must be fixed. I’ve dealt with that in the past, and we were better off without them in the long run.
I've fired my best employee (Score:3)
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Brilliant programmers are hard to find these days, so it's understandable.
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:3)
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can get way more done with a B+ level coder who gets along with everyone in a team environment than someone who is an A+ coder but fails at being a semi-decent human being.
Also, given the highly social nature of software engineering work, once projects grow beyond the size where one person can do it all, those who can't get along can never be A+ coders. At best they might achieve A- level. The really outstandingly productive people can write large amounts of great code and work with others.
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the most important issue here is that "Donna" means "woman",
"Prima donna" in English refers to someone who is talented but overbearingly arrogant about it - it can refer to male athletes as much as femal opera performers, or for that matter female athletes, or male opera performers.
So that's not even an issue, much less "the most important issue"
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, but even weird people can make an effort and get better over time, even if they can't be "normal." I was pretty hopeless at socializing when I was a kid and never had any idea why people hated me so much. By the time I was in my 30's I finally understood many of the things other people learn in their early teens. I've still got a long way to go, but at least I'm aware of my oddities and have made a conscience effort to control them. People still think I'm odd, but at least they don't hate me anymo
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to get shit done.
A toxic personality that results in you doing your job poorly as people sidestep you because they don't want to deal with some arsehat. Sorry but if you think you can work in a bubble you're delusional, and you can see the negative effects of people who are "not liked" on the performance of entire departments which need to interact with them. When people side step you you're not getting shit done, you're getting done shit.
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It would be a lot more efficient if people just did their job instead of trying to tapdance around everyone's feelings. Deliver what I ask for, ask for what you need delivered. I'm not here for chit-chat, I'm here to work. If I want to hear people talk bullshit and blow sugar up each other's ass, I schedule a meeting with marketing.
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:3)
"A toxic personality"
People who describe their fellow humans as "toxic" almost always create or contribute to creating a hostile work environment.
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"Then you're not welcome where I work"
That probably explains why the quality of all Big Brother Google's major products has been steadily declining for several years.
No tolerance for jerks has always been a core principle at Google. The pattern was set mostly by Jeff Dean, I think, who is an incredibly-talented software engineer and also one of the nicest people you could ever meet. I met him on my first day at Google, though I didn't know who he was at the time. He has long made a habit of eating lunch with the new employees each week. I don't know if he still does this... it would no longer be practical for him to actually talk with all of them, since there are no
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Don't know Stallman, so I can't comment on his personality.
But I'm reminded of an anecdote somebody told me the other day, which summarized as "I hired XX because I knew he would do brilliant work, but he works so badly with others that I gave him strict instructions that he was to work remotely and never come on the lab, not even to visit."
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"I hired XX because I knew he would do brilliant work, but he works so badly with others that I gave him strict instructions that he was to work remotely and never come on the lab, not even to visit."
Now that's an effective manager. Figures out how to take someone who is not an effective team player and turns him in to an asset for the team.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the No True Scotsman fallacy.
No. Definitively, no.
I was born in 1975. By 1979 I knew I was going to be a hacker. No kidding: I was sitting on Mrs. Walters' kitchen floor discovering recursion by drawing geometric shapes. I remember looking at this Easter egg I'd decorated in a recursive pattern and being in awe, and thinking I wanted to draw recursive patterns on eggs forever.
I was there for Flag Day in 1983 when ARPANET became the Internet. I was eight years old and the local college computer science department viewed me as their mascot, I guess. I'm grateful to them for the time I got to spend on LISP Machines.
Today I'm 44. I hold a Master's degree in computer science and am a thesis away from a Ph.D. I've worked for the United States government's official voting research group (the now-defunct ACCURATE) and private industry. I've spoken at Black Hat, DEF CON, CodeCon, OSCON, and more. I think that I meet your, or anyone's, definition of a good computer scientist with a long career.
And I am telling you, brother, you are wrong.
In the late '80s and early '90s there was a USENIX T-shirt given to attendees. "Networks Connect People, Not Computers." It was a neat shirt and I wore mine until it was shreds, not because I liked wearing a ratty T-shirt but because there are so many of us who need to learn this lesson.
Logic is the tool we use to serve humanity. But if you let logic blind you to the fact other people are human beings with human feelings who need to be treated like human beings, then you just stopped being a hacker and you started becoming a tool.
Hackers serve humanity. We don't rule it. And we're not excused from the rules of human behavior.
I really wish RMS had learned this. It's too late for him. It's not too late for you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I really wish RMS had learned this. It's too late for him. It's not too late for you.
And how exactly telling a blind person "I wish they learned to see" is "not being a tool"?
Why are you assuming Stallman was able to learn that precise trait, while it's fairly obvious it was a fault in his human nature, just like yours is not seeing it.
Connecting people means accepting other's fault, helping them when they need help and accepting their help when you need it, not blaming them after the fact.
That's just being shitty humans.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've known quite a few assholes and I've certainly known people who confuse being an some with competence.
I have also may extremely talented people who frankly just don't seem to get hu-mons at all. They're not necessarily or even usually assholes. I think the two are somewhat disconnected. What a lot of people do did is try to make excuses for talented jerks because there's often a cult of the individual going on. People ascribe the talented jerk's results to said jerk, but the 5 equally talented people who left for greener pastures due to a bad work environment get ascribed to the ether.
I've known far too many people who lean on the"no socials skills" thing to be jerks, though of course that's a lie because to do that you need a decent understanding of how people work to know how to play that.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Interesting)
'what I do know is that there are are a significant amount of highly skilled and ultra-talented people in their respected fields that are the best at what they do. An immense percentage of those people lack people skills. Not because they don't make an attempt, not because they don't care, but because that is how they are.
My experience working with a number of people in that category is they are quite decent people with good social skills. The stereotype of the anti-social genius is, IMHO, overused to excuse bad behavior. Quite frankly, I ‘be found most jerks aren’t in the highly skilled or ultra talented category but are just jerks who think they are and expect a pass as a result.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:4, Insightful)
The computational ability of the human mind is finite. The more of it you use on phrasing your words, the less of it you use on understanding the code.
Nice rationalization. You appear to have entirely missed the point.
Which takes less time to read? Which takes less effort to write? Which one can't be misinterpreted?
Of course, the type of asshole under discussion is more likely to say, "Line 143 is memory leaking crap, you moron," than either of the alternatives you give.
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Sometimes, we look like assholes because the people around us are so incompetent...
In reality, almost every time you look like an asshole, it's because you're acting like one.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not what happened here at all. Please stop perpetuating this myth.
Stallman said in his email that if Minsky had sex with that girl it should not be considered sexual assault because as far as Minsky knew she consented. The specific criticism of that, which RMS has not addressed so far, is that it's extremely hard to believe that Minsky didn't at least suspect something was amiss.
In fact we have some people claiming that Minsky did actually turn her down, perhaps because he did realize what was happening.
RMS has stuck to his position, which seems to be defending what amounts to wilful ignorance perpetuating sexual assault.
The press has misreported this as defending Epstien, but let's at least not misreport it here and have a discussion of the facts. You can go read his email yourself if you want to confirm this is what he said.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Informative)
Stallman said in his email that if Minsky had sex with that girl it should not be considered sexual assault because as far as Minsky knew she consented.
Not even that. Stallman said that "the most plausible scenario [was that the girl] presented herself as entirely willing". He never said that what happened should not be considered sexual assault, but that it is plausible that it should not considered sexual assault. He did not impose his view like this mob tries to do.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not even that. Stallman said that "the most plausible scenario [was that the girl] presented herself as entirely willing". He never said that what happened should not be considered sexual assault, but that it is plausible that it should not considered sexual assault. He did not impose his view like this mob tries to do.
RMS specifically said "the most plausible", not just "a plausible". Having read his email argument, I think it rests on this weak word "most" -- in my head I replaced "most plausible" with "possibly but not very likely", and re-read the email string. His conclusion would then read: "An injustice was done to Minskey by accusing him of assault; it's unjust because he had sex with someone who was coerced into it, and he probably knew this at the time but maybe didn't, and it's unjust to call it assault because of that 'maybe'".
That would be a ridiculous post to make! His angle on it is justified solely by his assumption "most". RMS wrote in the same email thread that the "s" in CSAIL stands for "science", and the job of scientists is to evaluate evidence and seek truth. I think he was falling short. The only reason he provided to support his "most" is that he thinks Epstein "would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates."
I think RMS' evaluation of the situation is way off. I think it's more likely that Epstein didn't work too hard to conceal it, and at the time it was enough part of the general culture and Minsky likely sort of guessed what the situation was but didn't care to question too deeply and saw everyone else doing it and was happy to put it out of his head. Like RMS, my take on the situation is self-consistent but lacks further evidence.
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I think RMS' evaluation of the situation is way off.
That's not a crime.
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(1) does RMS have a flawed understanding of something?
Then teach him. If we fired everyone with a flawed understanding, we'd all be fired.
Re: I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:3)
The specific criticism of that, which RMS has not addressed so far, is that it's extremely hard to believe that Minsky didn't at least suspect something was amiss.
That's not a criticism; it's an appeal to personal incredulity which wouldn't change RMS' point even if it didn't happen to be a logical fallacy.
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The specific criticism of that, which RMS has not addressed so far, is that it's extremely hard to believe that Minsky didn't at least suspect something was amiss.
The sparsity of facts in the case is so great that none of us has any idea what happened.
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no fan of Stallman's. I think he's exactly the asshole described.
Too many people are getting hung up on distancing themselves from an arsehole and not stopping to consider whether - arsehole or not - he's actually right.
It's virtue signally and it's idiotic.
(I'm not saying that's what you're doing - you aren't in your post)
I was that guy. Both matter. Don't care how much (Score:3)
Watch out, there is a hole there. I already fell in. I don't want you to fall in too. I'm not telling you you're wrong - you're right as far as it goes, just warning you of a danger that already got me.
I've been where you are. Things are either right or wrong. True or false. X is true *even if you don't like it*, right?
You aren't wrong about that. The thing is, it -also- matters how he feels. The boss is going to talk to that co-worker before promoting you. I recently got fired from my dream job. I r
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You aren't wrong about that. The thing is, it -also- matters how he feels.
Yeah, that's true. One of the essential skills in this life is figuring out what hidden metric people use to judge.
One weird one I found for programmers, if you type quickly people will judge you as a good programmer, if you type slowly, people will judge you as a bad programmer (especially bursts of quick key movement). I've seen even otherwise good programmers incorrectly judge people based on this programming metric. So I started typing quickly and it was like magic.
I recently got fired from my dream job. I really enjoyed my job and made great money.
You're highly skilled, you should h
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OK, I agree that RMS is most likely wrong. As have been most people, at least once in their lives. Are you saying the calls to "remove" him are justified by any stretch of imagination ? If these removal callers discuss computer science with him for an hour, very likely they will be wrong. Would they call to to remove themselves then?
So I don't actually know if RMS is right or wrong here. If he's wrong about it once and accepts correction, that doesn't warrant removing. If it's ambiguous whether he's right or wrong but he's consistently failed to recognize that ambiguity over many years, well, whether or not that warrants removal depends... If he's in leadership position and the ambiguity is one that has potential for people under his leadership to be treated unfairly, then yes it does warrant removal (because recognizing such situation
Re:I just don't buy the shit MIT... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is selling. Richard stallman is one of the few people who care about the truth and not social graces despite his faults.
It seems to me that there are a whole lot of co-dependency issues going on at MIT, which to some extents isn't that surprising when you consider how much creativity come out of the misery of mental illness.
We live in a lawless out of control oligarchy that gets whatever it wants from a deeply corrupt congress and MIT is little more then corporate bootlickers of the establishment these days.
It seems to be that way.
The reality is, the human species is deeply childish and corrupt, and is so concerned about appearances and hurt feelings when ANY real issues of substance are never really addressed.
We are also a species that is carrying the trauma from war fragmented throughout generations that keeps us in that state. I think that trauma is being magnified by the constant state of emotional outrage generated by social media which keeps us all on edge preventing us from looking at just how widespread the effects of mental illness is in our communities. With that perspective in mind it may be easier to give ourselves enough empathy to heal the mental illness that is undermining our society in this self-perpetuating cycle.
Mental illness has no gender. If an individual hasn't dealt with their emotional issues then those emotional issues control them.
Our entire species lives half-asleep at the wheel.
George carlin
https://youtu.be/-14SllPPLxY?t... [youtu.be]
...because we've been deceived into having our own brains generate the neuro-peptides that shut down our capacity for higher reasoning by the very media that we consume so we consume.
Re: Fun fact (Score:3)
No, c'mon man, no one wants that. We have to be better than that.
Worrying... (Score:4, Insightful)
He's another victim of the SJW culture war and we're the worse for it.
I grow tired of good people being taken down by these witch hunts, they even gave it a good go with Neil DeGrasse Tyson a while ago.
Anyone remember McCarthyism? We're heading down a very dangerous road here.
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Anyone remember McCarthyism? We're heading down a very dangerous road here.
I think we are up-to-the-neck in the road already. I don't think there's a day whitout I hearing some sexual/assault/behavior accusation of powerful men.
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I think we are up-to-the-neck in the road already. I don't think there's a day whitout I hearing some sexual/assault/behavior accusation of powerful men.
Unfortunately a lot of those accusations are completely legitimate. Like racism it is a pervasive undercurrent which is not at all rare, and because so many people have experienced it first hand they don't blink an eye or bother to critically consider or wait for the facts when someone new is accused.
So our problem becomes how to separate the long overdue and necessary comeuppance of the Weinstein and Epstein (and of course Trump, who let's face it a lot of this is a proxy battle about) powerful shitbags of
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Such accusations long predate the #metoo movement. I can remember accussations about John Kennedy and Marily Monroe during his presidency. Modern media have merely expanded the ease of publishing such events around the world.
Re:Worrying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the accusation's are spot on. I am very glad the behavior of Epstein and Weinstein was exposed. I wish it happened more often. I am somewhat perplexed US president gets away with the same behavior, but I guess being one of most powerful man on the planet who is effectively above the normal laws the rest of you are bound by does confer some privileges.
This is nothing like that. Richard Stallman is not a powerful man. Erika Christakis is not a powerful women. Unlike those powerful men they did nothing wrong in the eyes of the law. In fact by all reports from people who spent time with them they are the antithesis of those powerful man - fair, generous, with a strong moral and ethical compass and unfailingly kind (in Stallman's case apparently even to beggars in the street). All they did was express an opinion that some disagreed with so vehemently they formed an internet lynch mob. Had such a lynch mob dared attack a real powerful man to the extent he cared, they would have been crushed by a law suite.
But so far *shrug* - who cares if a a mob of internet SJW have worked themselves up into a rage? There was a time I paid attention because they sometimes make to compelling arguments, but it gradually it dawned this was just extroverts do doing what their nature compels them to do - clamoring for attention, and using well constructed diatribes on the internet to get it. Like others here I'm completely over it - yawn and move on.
Except that's not what happened. Both Richard and Erika lost their jobs. I'm utterly flummoxed by this. Since when do Universities bow down to a lynch mob? Universities are supposed to be places where opinions can be expressed frankly and fearlessly. Something has gone seriously wrong.
Re:Worrying... (Score:4, Insightful)
Erika Christakis is not a powerful women.
Yeah, that's a really bad situation. She did absolutely nothing wrong, except start a dialog supporting free expression [wikipedia.org]. She was right and also extremely respectful about it.
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"I think we are up-to-the-neck in the road already. I don't think there's a day whitout I hearing some sexual/assault/behavior accusation of powerful men."
What do you imagine that proves?
If you feel fear because abusers are getting their come-uppance, what does that say about you?
It's long been well-known that a substantial number of powerful men abuse their position of power by using it to enable them to abuse women. Now some of them, a small portion really, are being held accountable. And those who enable
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I don't think there's a day whitout I hearing some sexual/assault/behavior accusation of powerful men.
Yep and I'm completely surprised that powerful men typically showing narcissistic tendencies are accused of not being decent. If you could see my completely emotionless face right now, trust me, this is my surprised face.
This has nothing to do with the angry Stallman witchhunt. The vast majority of accusations against powerful men are backed up and corroborated with multiple accounts pointing to a continued pattern of anti-social (... overly social?) behavior. That's not McCarthyism.
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His mistake was opening his mouth. He'd still be there now had he just kept quiet. To sum it up from everyone's favorite xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/651/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Worrying... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an old proverb: If you plan to speak the truth, make sure you own a very fast horse.
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I don't think he's a victim of SJW's - he's a victim of himself.
My favorite personal Stallman story: I work at a university and he came to visit to talk to computer science students. One of the students on the group that invited him was recording his speech on video - this was in a room of maybe 70+ people. At the start of the lecture he went on a rant tearing the poor cameraman down on how his camera used proprietary codecs and the video better not end up on youtube - it took like 10 minutes. This was long
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Total sidebar, but I find cold war era politics fascinating and love that we are in a time where a lot of stuff from that era is being declassified and we get to see some of what was actually happening.
When I was in school, the Rosenbergs were used as a case study of how US paranoia had gotten out of control. Turns out that, yup, they were totally spies... particularily Julius.
Re:Worrying... (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason the age of prostitution is and always will be 18 is that just because a kid might want to have sex - or thinks they're old enough to decide - the reality is that a 14/15/18/17-year-old doesn't stand a fucking chance against the manipulations of a 40-50-year-old predator. Hell even an 18 year old is just prey for monsters.
How about this for a legal standard: We protect kids from monsters - that's the limit. The laws aren't there to stop kids having sex: theyre theyre because OLD FUCKING PERVERTS are hunting them.
In their playgrounds. In their online games. In their chat apps. Every fucking where.
ANYONE who thinks the law is mean cos it spoils all the fun is so completely clueless -or worse - complicity ignorant.
So lets summarize for the slow witted: She was 17 and being held as a sex slave by an extremely rich powerful man who btw was convicted for child pornography. She was passed around to rich old men as part of a sex cult. What fucking chance did she have?
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I do read, and I do comprehend. RMS defended Minsky, and Minsky is not a convicted paedophile.
Now, why were you lying?
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Read the fucking conversation you idiotic shitstain. He wrote
This is a guy basically defending the behaviour of a convicted fucking paedophile
Now fuck off and stop wasting my fucking time.
Self-inflicted injury. (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a matter of "bad reporting" but rather a case of "injecting oneself into an emotionally charged situation and blithely commenting". It doesn't matter how you feel about RMS because he made comments in which he failed to consider the ramifications thereof. You can blame anyone you want for this but the fact of the matter is he was under no obligation to comment on the matter and when he did, his comments upset people due to the nature of the situation. This is a classic case of a self-inflicted injury and honestly, he should have known better.
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RMS doesn't do self-censorship. It used to be acceptable to make mistakes or be outright wrong. Now there are topics in which you cannot make a mistake or be insensitive to a non-specific degree.
> This is a classic case of a self-inflicted injury and honestly, he should have known better.
I feel like that's a commentary on the modern world, not RMS.
Brilliance often very narrow in scope (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS doesn't do self-censorship.
Neither do the mentally ill, those suffering from degenerative brain diseases, etc. Its a useful and often necessary skill to acquire. If RMS were not sheltered and protected for so long perhaps he would have learned this. If he had such soft skills maybe he would have been more successful advocating (selling) his philosophies to the mainstream.
The GP is absolutely correct. Its self inflicted injury. It is the arrogance of a person brilliant in one area erroneously thinking they are qualified to speak in other areas. He should have been confronted about some of his comments in the 90s, told to keep his personal beliefs away from MIT and GNU, and that a leadership position at either required self censoring certain general comments on the internet as well since his leadership position *will* cause such comments to reflect back upon MIT or GNU.
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"Neither do the mentally ill, those suffering from degenerative brain diseases, etc"
From all I've heard RMS has some moderate to serious mental illness to go with his genius. At what point do we admit that just because he's famous doesn't mean he's not fucked in the head, and cut him some slack for things he can't help.
And if someone claims he's not mentally ill, well then I'm Santa the magic space donkey delivering hee-haws to asteroid farmers.
Re: Brilliance often very narrow in scope (Score:4, Insightful)
But in either case he should not have been given a leadership position.
You do realize he literally, in the dictionary sense of the word, created the organization he led? He wasn't "given a leadership position."
Re: Brilliance often very narrow in scope (Score:5, Interesting)
But in either case he should not have been given a leadership position.
You do realize he literally, in the dictionary sense of the word, created the organization he led? He wasn't "given a leadership position."
And as organizations grow founders often have to be replaced because they lack the necessary leadership skills.
And by the way, he was not a founder at MIT where the trouble originated. He was given an MIT position he was not qualified for and was not trained for in preparation.
Re:Brilliance often very narrow in scope (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of thinking and out of control intolerance it represents is detrimental to a free society. So what if someone is wrong or believes something that is offensive?
This is nothing new, it has always been this way. If you have controversial personal views you should not articulate them at work. If you are in a senior leadership position you should not articulate them in public because it *will* reflect poorly on your organization/company. It has always been this way. Your personal beliefs are for your free time unless you are the public face of the org/co then you gave up that private privilege by taking on that public face role. This is not a SJW thing. The attack on Minsky may have been SJW but the criticisms of RMS are actually mainstream leadership criticisms. He was obviously not qualified for a senior leadership role.
Re:Brilliance often very narrow in scope (Score:4, Insightful)
This is nothing new, it has always been this way. If you have controversial personal views you should not articulate them at work. If you are in a senior leadership position you should not articulate them in public because it *will* reflect poorly on your organization/company. It has always been this way.
This entire argument amounts to nothing more than an appeal to tradition and will be discarded as such.
Incorrect. Leadership roles require projecting a certain level of confidence and trust. Doing things that compromise confidence and trust is poor leadership. This is how humans beings are wired. Failure to recognize this is just denial of human behavior. Whether through ignorance or denial, RMS shows us the folly of your shallow understanding of leadership. Please learn from RMS' mistake, educate yourself.
This leadership stuff also carries over to advocacy. Without confidence and trust you have little chance of persuading others to accept your philosophy on something. Hence the problem at the FSF too.
Re: (Score:3)
"This isn't about my understanding of leadership or mistakes. It isn't even about any perceived refusals to deal with the world as it is. It's about you supporting your narrative."
A narrative which you are misrepresenting, whether deliberately or not. The point of pointing out that it's not new is NOT making an appeal to tradition. It's a statement that you have been right to be SURPRISED by tradition.
The reasons that public figures generally shouldn't hold forth on subjects outside their wheelhouse has NOT
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't matter very much at all if the woman in question was presented to Minsky as willing. Why? Because it's still his responsibility to verify consent.
That's idiotic. Not only does it make it impossible to ever be certain of consent, it also infantilizes women to the point that all men must assume that no women is capable of giving consent.
I can see why you'd say that if you don't speak english, or if you're willfully ignoring what I've actually said, but I can't see any other way.
The claim wasn't that she presented herself as being etc etc. It's that she was presented as such. Until I see otherwise, I'm going to continue to operate on that assumption, and use that language, because that's the language that was used.
Regardless of that point, this was an exceptional situation which should have tipped off a reasonable person, because Epstein ha
Re: (Score:3)
If you have controversial personal views you should not articulate them at work.
Sorry, that statement is false when you work at a university. Go read up on tenure and why it exists.
RMS was not a professor, let alone a tenured one. He was a staff member, he has no such privilege. Nor was he commenting on an academic field of study. You are offering a nonsensical strawman.
Re: (Score:3)
''If RMS were not sheltered and protected for so long perhaps he would have learned this. ''
Really? Do you doubt that a person of that intelligence level wouldn't know there might be an issue, and/or attempt to correct this deficiency?
Yes, absolutely, met many, worked with a few long term. Not all brilliant people realize brilliance is scope limited, some erroneously think it is general.
Wouldn't the inability to remedy this be considered an illness, disease or handicap?
There may not really have been any such attempt. Again, shelter and protect a person and their ability to identify and remedy a personal weakness may be inhibited.
Many just don't communicate in the popular manner and they never will. Everyone will call them assholes, but it won't stop them from calling them when they need expert input.
Only an expert opinion is the narrow scope where their brilliance lies.
Re: (Score:3)
Letting brilliant people arrogantly insist on influencing things outside their respective fields of expertise usually does not yield good results. Letting a brilliant but broadly limited person keep to their little niche is better for society.
Refusing to allow others outside a field from highlighting obvious errors within the field is how you create destructive echo chambers.
Leadership requires a skill set beyond "you are wrong, I am correct, here is my 5,000 word manifesto "proving" that."
Someone doesn't have to be a leader to be right. Someone doesn't have to be a leader to ask questions. Someone doesn't have to be a leader to challenge the narrative.
If you can't compete in the leadership arena you don't belong in the leadership arena.
What fucking nonsense is that? There is no leadership arena and there is no competition. Leadership is not a combative skill.
Re:Self-inflicted injury. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Self-inflicted injury. (Score:4, Insightful)
The witness statements suggest Minsky did not have sex with the woman, and that she can't remember what age she was, so your description of his actions as statutory rape are wrong. His actions appear to be declining to sleep with someone that he didn't even know was being coerced to approach him.
I too reject the term "sexual assault" for that.
RMS raised an interesting distinction, under the assumption that sex did happen. I'm not sure what the right answer is there; a sexual assault would certainly seem to have taken place and, were the girl under age, statutory rape. However describing the actions of someone genuinely believing their partner fully consents as an assault isn't unreasonable to question.
So yes, I do need to know why people are letting this upset them. Just why aren't they capable of exploring the issue, understanding its nuances and seeking to advance the debate instead of screaming about it?
a years-old comment of his stating that he saw no problem in sexual relations between adults and children
A comment he has since retracted, acknowledging that he was at the time unaware of the psychological impacts that such an encounter could cause.
Re: (Score:3)
RMS treated the problem as being "let's make sure we don't criticize Minsky unfairly", when the problem was actually, "how can we come to terms with a history of MIT's institutional neglect of its responsibilities toward women and its apparent complicity with Epstein's crimes". While it is true we should not treat Minsky unfairly, it was not -- and is not -- a pressing concern
A telling quote about today's "toxic environment". Fighting the crime is now more important than determining guilt or innocence, according to Bushnell. And getting that priority wrong is in itself a thoughtcrime...
Thomas Bushnell (Score:2)
Anyone else concerned about the writing quality?
Re: (Score:3)
Seems like something AI would write
Re: Thomas Bushnell (Score:2)
Don't be dumb. While I often argued with Bushnell, he's a live person.
It just does not matter anymore (Score:2)
If someone wants you gone, they just make an accusation. They yell it from the rooftops. Facts do not matter. Context does not matter. It is all about getting rid of you.
Gone are the days of subtle undermining, building a case against you. That requires too much thought. Takes too long.
Gone also are the days where anyone will stand up against this.
Re: (Score:2)
I view this as a phase that society is going through. There are definitely legitimate social issues that need to be rectified, but things have long gone off the rails.
That said, I don't think it's forever. This has happened before in society, and usually it runs its course and things return back to normal. People equate this with McCarthyism and its actually a pretty good analogy from that stand point. Lots are playing along because everyone is afraid of being accused, but a significant portion of the popul
Holy shit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy shit (Score:4, Interesting)
No, kid. What he said was neither reasonable nor correct. It's not correct because it was Minsky's responsibility to establish informed consent, and because anyone familiar with Epstein who took his word that a beautiful young girl was 1) of age and 2) interested in fucking old men... Well, they're at best a spectacular dumbass, and no reasonable person would take Epstein at his word.
Defending unreasonable actions is an unreasonable action.
Also, i know this is an unpopular thing to say around here, but check this out: PEOPLE'S FEELINGS MATTER. If they didn't, it would be perfectly okay to rape people, so long as you didn't do undue tissue damage. But thankfully, that's not the world we live in. Yeah, there's a big difference between defending rape (however confusing the situation) and raping someone, that's not the argument I'm making at all - just that RMS did in fact have a responsibility to consider the impact of his statements on other people.
Regardless, RMS was plain and simply wrong, and the way in which he was wrong revealed things about his thought processes around consent that made it clear that he does not belong in a position of authority. He is confused about how consent works. That's not a good look, and it was especially stupid to stand up and be counted as a dumbass who doesn't understand his responsibilities regarding women during a period of house cleaning. It makes it look like the only reason RMS hasn't had his own incident is that the opportunity never arose. I guess there's an up side to eating your toenails.
Because we keep calling it "Linux" ... (Score:3)
... he believes his entire life's work is a failure ...
Mostly because we keep calling it "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux". Its all our fault, we should recognize our privilege, recognize using "Linux" as a microagression against RMS and recognize our failure to protect RMS' feeling.
FFS he contributed to one of the most successful projects on the planet. So he didn't get his way on various things, he still made a positive contribution to Linux userland.
Re: (Score:3)
RMS' greatest contribution is not his fostering of the GNU utilities. It's the GPL. And i think i see where he's coming from if he thinks his life is a failure. The users still overwhelmingly don't understand the difference between open source and free software, and how one of them is meaningless, thanks to the OSI deliberately conflating the two. They are not the same, but the OSI has repeatedly confused the issue, trying to convince us that open source is what we need. But free software protects the inter
It doesn't matter if RMS defended Epstein or not (Score:2)
RMS' sin wasn't defending Epstein, it was _talking_about_ Epstein at all.
Smartest man in the room (Score:2)
"He is one of the most brilliant people I've met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him."
I've never met or corresponded with rms and take no position on whether this is accurate.
For someone else, someone I worked with for years, that could have been said truthfully.
"If you're the smartest man in the room, you're in the wrong room". My former colleague spent his life in wrong ro
My own story of rms, but what about yours? (Score:2)
So I'll share my own rms story, which (I think) is closely linked to the success or otherwise of OSS and such... I would think other people must have such stories, too?
At least this is the time I remember most clearly. I had an email exchange with rms, probably around 2005. Basically I made it clear that I felt (and still feel) that better financial models are needed to support free (in the non-monetary sense) software. (See my sig for more details?) On the one hand, rms made it pretty clear that he doesn't
Why be "soft" about what you're saying? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't read the entire novel about the situation, but for the actual quotes I've seen from the original discussion, in context, I haven't seen anything RMS said that was wrong.
Furthermore, why is it that everyone must communicate in the way the SJW crowd dictates? It makes me physically ill to deal with the kind of interpersonal BS that is a common communication style where I live these days. (Yes, it's regional.) What is to say that playing soft with feelings is any more "right" than being direct and matter-of-fact about things? Why should their "feelings" take precedence over mine? Why should RMS speak in a way that the SJW crowd prefers when saying things that shouldn't actually be objectionable to say?
*There's nothing wrong with trying to make sure his friend isn't unfairly accused by the lynch mob. It would be pretty difficult to undo that damage to Minsky's reputation once done, whether it's true or not.*
Re: (Score:3)
Then you haven't looked very well [stallman.org]:
"'prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" ... All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness."
Also called RMS a "whiny child" in the same post (Score:5, Insightful)
"this is more important than the coddling of a whiny child who has never reached the emotional maturity to treat people decently."
These two statements from the author seem at odds with each other.
Re: (Score:2)
I was around for most of the 90s, and I can confirm the unfortunate reality that RMS’s behavior was a concern at the time, and that this protection was itself part of the problem. He was never held to account; he was himself coddled in his own lower-grade misbehavior and mistreatment of women. He made the place uncomfortable for a lot of people, and especially women. To my shame I didn’t recognize the dynamic myself when I was around it.
That infers to me that nobody had a problem with it then and it only became a problem 20 years later with "enlightened thinking" (aka re-education centers)
Hypocrisy and bad faith (Score:4, Insightful)
He did this without causing harm to anybody: he didn't offend anyone and he used appropriate language (unlike the persons who now accuse him of less-than-elegant behaviour - by throwing childish and vulgar insults at him).
His words were criminally misrepresented by professional journalists in order to make he look like he said despicable things that he didn't say (are there laws against libel in the USA? Because if there aren't, this seems a case for there to be).
He was forced to leave his position without being given a chance for consultation.
According to the author of the article, all of this was fair and lawful, and people who see problems in it are wrong, because they fail to see that the real and only problem is... that RMS didn't know how to shut the fuck up (I'm sorry for the vulgar words, but here I'm quoting verbatim the guy who preaches appropriateness of language).
Oh, and of couse, as is usual in those environments, the accuser proceeds with character assassination by revealing private information about the feelings and the intimate weaknesses of the defendant. Because this is totally progressive, respectful, non-toxic, non-problematic.
Re:Hypocrisy and bad faith (Score:4, Interesting)
So wait dead people get a free pass on arbitrarily bad behavior because they're dead? Bollocks to that mate.
While I age that RMSs words were badly misrepresented, his actual words were bad enough. Basically decided now was the perfect time to get into a semantic argument over whether it was technically assault. Thing is if you're that day in the semantics you're not really defending someone anymore, because outside of a court of law where time been accused of assault, "not technically assault" doesn't equate worth "ok".
He's also completely wrong about the semantic definition too. Which actually matters given the senior administrative position he's in. He effectively publicly announced that he's not really qualified for his job.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you really want middle management running things?
RMS a failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try imagining for a second a world without RMS. There's no gcc. There's no GPL. How different things would have been...
Around two decades ago my employer, who was not at that time enamoured of hippy freeware compilers, bought an acc-license for around 7000 euro. That was the normal price for a professional compiler, back in the day. Today, the normal price for a compiler is... nothing. Even Visual Studio, a product that must be costing a lot of money to produce, is available for free. Thank you, RMS.
Because compilers cost nothing, lots of people get into programming, further enriching our industry with incredibly useful tools and libraries that are also spread around for free. That includes numerous other popular languages. Would we have had Perl or Python, if their respective authors had needed to pay 7K for a compiler license? Or would our language choices have been limited to a handful of "professional" languages created by companies like IBM and Microsoft? Again, thank you, RMS.
Many of those people then volunteer their skills and make incredibly useful things for the rest of humanity. They don't hoard these things, but open them up for further enhancement by other people, inspired by a license that was created by RMS.
And let's not forget Linux. Without gcc and GPL there would have been no Linux. Without Linux, Windows could have cost ten times what it would have cost today. And yes, that's just speculation of course, but it is quite probable that computers would have been much more expensive without a free alternative pushing the price down. That would have shrunk the computer industry to a tiny fraction of what it is today.
So no, I would not call RMS a failure. He democratized the computing landscape, making it available to everyone. His believe in sharing is burning brightly in the minds of many of us, and the world is a much richer place for it. If that's failure, I'd like to fail as well, please.
Re: (Score:3)
Big surprise, RMS is not (and was not) very socially adept. It doesn't mean he is a bad person or that he was a failure. I don't agree with this controversy and personally don't care. Tech news outlets can cont
Pot and kettle (Score:4, Funny)
"But it's still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life's work is a failure..."
This is from a guy who spent 13 years working on GNU/Hurd :)
"Not a pressing concern"? (Score:4, Informative)
RMS treated the problem as being "let's make sure we don't criticize Minsky unfairly" [...] While it is true we should not treat Minsky unfairly, it was not -- and is not -- a pressing concern, and by making it his concern, RMS signaled clearly that it was much more important to him than the question of the institution's patterns of problematic coddling of bad behavior.
So, to summarize: The question of an individual's innocence or guilt is "not a pressing concern", since it is more important for us to correct historical patterns of unfairness than it is for us to treat an accused individual fairly.
I'll say this for the author: he is crystal clear in expressing his beliefs. The only problem is that his beliefs are horrifying.
Blame the victim (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words: he "dared" to act normally, which is not accepted any more by a small but growing group of intolerant screechers. He was then attacked over it by said goons, and because he "should have foreseen it", it's actually his own fault.
I'm speechless.
That is basically actively advocating for the downfall of society into some sort of dystopian hell hole.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Richard had other sexual harassment issues. He was infamous for trying to chat up every women he met in quite creepy ways. The Arisia science fiction and fantasy convention kept debating whether to ban him. Given that Arisia hushed up the accusations of rape of one of their board members by their president and the accuations of rape at the convention of an underage teen, well, they weren't real strict about actually *doing* anything about abuse.
https://twitter.com/crystalvis... [twitter.com]
https://m.facebook.com/notes/ [facebook.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is like Ken Starr at Baylor universi
Re:Not the reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
but the SJWs got him.
But the ironic joke here is that IBM and Microsoft will be falling over themselves backwards to hire RMS as their "Chief Technology Officer for Open Source".
It will be interesting to see where he lands next.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think any of the large corporations will hire him in a prestigious position. For example RMS had a sign on his door, "Knight for justice (also: hot ladies) https://www.dailydot.com/irl/m... [dailydot.com] (with pic of the sign). Such behavior isn't ok in a modern corporate environment and RMS simply doesn't understand why and would be expected to argue the point causing further injury to himself and embarrassment to whomever has the task of handling him.