Free Software Advocates Seek Removal of Richard Stallman and Entire FSF Board (arstechnica.com) 495
AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: Richard Stallman's return to the Free Software Foundation's board of directors has drawn condemnation from many people in the free software community. An open letter signed by hundreds of people today called for Stallman to be removed again and for the FSF's entire board to resign. Letter signers include Neil McGovern, GNOME Foundation executive director and former Debian Project Leader; Deb Nicholson, general manager of the Open Source Initiative; Matthew Garrett, a former member of the FSF board of directors; seven of the eight members of the X.org Foundation board of directors; Elana Hashman of the Debian Technical Committee, Open Source Initiative, and Kubernetes project; Molly de Blanc of the Debian Project and GNOME Foundation; and more than 300 others. That number has been rising quickly today: the open letter contains instructions for signing it.
The letter said all members of the FSF board should be removed because they 'have enabled and empowered RMS for years. They demonstrate this again by permitting him to rejoin the FSF Board. It is time for RMS to step back from the free software, tech ethics, digital rights, and tech communities, for he cannot provide the leadership we need.' The letter also called for Stallman to be removed from his position leading the GNU Project. "We urge those in a position to do so to stop supporting the Free Software Foundation," they wrote. "Refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF and RMS. Do not speak at or attend FSF events, or events that welcome RMS and his brand of intolerance. We ask for contributors to free software projects to take a stand against bigotry and hate within their projects. While doing these things, tell these communities and the FSF why." UPDATE: For a quick summary of the controversy, long-time Slashdot reader Jogar the Barbarian recommends this article from It's Foss.
The letter said all members of the FSF board should be removed because they 'have enabled and empowered RMS for years. They demonstrate this again by permitting him to rejoin the FSF Board. It is time for RMS to step back from the free software, tech ethics, digital rights, and tech communities, for he cannot provide the leadership we need.' The letter also called for Stallman to be removed from his position leading the GNU Project. "We urge those in a position to do so to stop supporting the Free Software Foundation," they wrote. "Refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF and RMS. Do not speak at or attend FSF events, or events that welcome RMS and his brand of intolerance. We ask for contributors to free software projects to take a stand against bigotry and hate within their projects. While doing these things, tell these communities and the FSF why." UPDATE: For a quick summary of the controversy, long-time Slashdot reader Jogar the Barbarian recommends this article from It's Foss.
Umm, what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but I'm not sure what this is even on about.
I know hes an eccentric old guy, but what's so bad that caused this kind of ire.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
i am not going to state any personal judgement on what is in that section, and all of this was discussed here when it happened. Simply saying that's a brief summary of the situation.
The baggage is such that the others are exercising a kind of "vote of no confidence" - the impression is that there is no way Stallman can speak (and head of the FSF is primarily a job of advocacy, not code) without this aspect of his past coming back up and being a distraction.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not that kind of job comes with responsibilities to look out for people, as did his teaching job. He would be expected to listen to complaints about other people's behaviour and deal with them appropriately, and given his recent statements it's hard to see how anyone would have confidence in him doing that.
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He would be expected to listen to complaints about other people's behaviour and deal with them appropriately, and given his recent statements it's hard to see how anyone would have confidence in him doing that.
That's funny I think he did listen and deal with them appropriately. He asked for actual evidence for before condemning someone. That raises my confidence diminishes it. He said she said should never fly. If something is happening in most work and academic environments there is at least some third party to corroborate some details if there is really any there there. Except in the most usual situations like well we working together very late - Which is why there exist the Graham rule!
That rule by the way sho
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That's not what happened at all. After Minsky was accused, he circulated a pseudo-intellectual opinion looking at the term "Sexual Assault" and claimed that it led to the inflation of the seriousness of the accusations.
Which was poorly timed, poorly worded, in the wrong forum, and stupid. It was entirely predictable that it would end up looking like an apologia for Epstein.
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That is utterly vile and viscous behavior, and we should not reward it by letting the perpetrators get what they want.
Re: Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why was a billionaire passing around minors to individuals, good will, fun. NO, the most likely reason, the people, were victims to be targeted, the modus operandi, drugs and minors. Drugs to eliminate inhibitions and self control and minors for extortion. So very likely Marvin Minsky was a victim a target to be exploited by Epstein (extortion occurred for insider trading information, political extortion, and favours demanded).
Richard Stallman got caught up defending a friend and mentor, clumsily so, out of his depth. A correction was required, it was made, end of story. Are drugs a defence, only if you did not choose to take the drugs and instead they were slipped into your food and drink without your knowing. How likely was this, well, Jeffery Epstein had set up an extortion program using minors, pretty much fucking guaranteed that he would slip drugs into the targeted victims food and drink.
How clumsy and poorly thought out was Richards defence, pretty much as bad as it gets, as long as he retracts and apologises, who cares. Though you can expect that proprietary closed source software corporations will ruthlessly attack Richard Stallman because they hate him and FOSS (this is what is really going on).
Re: Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I understand the 'you have become a distraction argument' however in the age twitter just about anyone can become a distraction for just about any reason. Its a sword of Damocles that dangles above the head of literally anyone doing any kind of professional work. We are now at the point where one cannot with their name attached state their opinions on anything - even safe widely held opinions are subject to scrutiny 20 years on.
We have a choice now - we can all live in a society of fear - or we can tell the those intersection-thinking victim-hood culture types to FUCK OFF. If enough of us stick to together and refuse to enable witch hunts like this one - we can still prevail.
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Of course we do, we always did.
Fighting for freedom has always meant fighting for the rights of the people you most strongly disagree with. Choosing edge cases and people you don't like to make poster child examples is always how the enemies of freedom try to get you to voluntarily erode your own rights.
Do you want to be canceled from your job of being a plumber for something that has nothing to do with the work? In one example maybe you are kicked out of the union because of some comments you made about wo
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Anyone who is old enough to have an orgasm (reproductively mature) is literally not a child. It isn't up to you and me, it is up to biology.
Age at which orgasm can occur: 10 to 13
Age at which brain is fully matured: 23 to 26 .
cancel culture (Score:4, Insightful)
His friend was an Epstein patron, RMS didn't immediately cut ties with this guy. This makes RMS just as bad as Hitler. And it makes the rest of the board just as bad as Hitler for not cutting ties with RMS. Apparently.
These loons are like a cult (see "disconnection") to enforce their dogma. They need to shut the fuck up -- there is one certified genius in this news article and it is RMS. He's done a lot more for the free software cause than anyone else in the world with the possible exception of Linus Torvalds and who he befriends is nobody's business.
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This makes RMS just as bad as Hitler.
Not immediately cutting ties with someone is a far cry from actively engaging in genocide.
Re: cancel culture (Score:2)
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His friend was an Epstein patron, RMS didn't immediately cut ties with this guy. This makes RMS just as bad as Hitler.
Not even close to what happened.
Minsky got accused, and Stallman, unprompted, decided to send an email to a large mailing list. That was not at all related to this particular subject at all. In the email, he declared that statutory rape isn't rape, and that the minor lying about their age absolves the adult.
Neither are true. Both are actually quite bad. And neither needed to be said if his goal was to defend Minsky. He could have said "I don't believe Minsky did anything wrong", and that would have act
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing”
We not stupid enough to be confused by your misquoting.
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Informative)
Your misleading quoting is mendacious, wrong, and sickening from someone on Slashdot who ought to know better. Here is the RMS quote, as quoted by the MIT cancellor (I've bolded the parts that you tried to hide):
RMS:
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. ... Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd put the emphasis on different places, like "the term is so vague and slippery it facilitates accusation inflation", "we can imagine many scenarios", and his final concluding statement which you left out, "Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism."
I'd also call out that he wrote: Let's presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
Having read the entire 8 paragraph statement, which you can find here among many other places [github.io], I see little problem with it. He wanted people to use more specific words because there was little public information, and unless the victim actually called it an assault he cautioned against using the word assault.
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The issue with the highlighted words is that at the time of the incident Epstein's reputation was already well known, and Minsky must surely have been aware of it. Minsky organized a symposium on Epstein's private island, after he had already been convicted of sex offences. The institution Minsky was working for had also banned him from donating due to his conviction and reputation.
So the notion that Minsky could have flown to a convicted sex offender's already notorious island, and met a 17 year old girl w
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This seems to be a rather glaring hole in your argument given Giuffre says she was assaulted by these people.
Did she really say that she had been assaulted by Minsky?
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Insightful)
This really frightens me. Moridineas, you have provided the precise quote, and it is absolutely clear that you are right. Stallman did not speak in vague metaphors or with sloppy grammar. What was written is clear as crystal, and easily objectively verified by absolutely anyone who bothers to read the quote.
The objective truth here is Stallman DID NOT say that these girls were entirely willing. If he had said that, we would all be having a very different conversation here. But he did not, and that is that. He speculated that they presented as entirely willing. This is a completely different statement, and it is not the moral sin that Stallman is being accused of committing.
And yet, there is an army of angry people adamantly insisting that he said they were entirely willing. People who seem to be otherwise intelligent and capable of understanding English. Every one of these people can read the quote just like you did, and see that he did not say what they insist he said.
So what is motivating this? How can so many otherwise-normal people insist on an obvious lie to the point of insisting that so many people resign? What is wrong with these people? Don't they care about the truth? Doesn't that matter?
What good is speaking precisely when people will just change what you say and then crucify you for it?
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Insightful)
When there aren't enough sinners that are bad enough it becomes necessary to inflate arbitrary deeds or beliefs into something "worse". If this is not done group cohesion fails for lack of purpose. If that IS done the group belief in what is immoral moves a little bit toward the extreme.
Now protecting and providing for women has been a human instinct for millennia. If it wasn't we wouldn't have survived as a species. But our society's recent wealth has allowed a group of people to prosper who base their morality on female supremacism. Women good, men bad. Any perceived disinterest in putting women first is the moral ill this group seeks to put an end to. Our innate instinct to care for women makes this movement much harder to reject, especially given the recent improvements in safety and general well-being. But this movement is deep into the moral superiority spiral. It will only end when enough WOMEN (because no one values men's opinions on these matters) stand up and say "enough" and reject the lies.
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The objective truth here is Stallman DID NOT say that these girls were entirely willing. If he had said that, we would all be having a very different conversation here. But he did not, and that is that. He speculated that they presented as entirely willing.
And therefore Minsky was in the clear for having a crack.
And that's the problem, Minsky would have had to been wildly, ridiculously stupid to believe that everything was totally above board on pedo island and that suddenly teenagers were hurling themselv
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The only difference is they see those people as advancing their agenda so they get a pass; where as RMS gets crucifixion because it makes them feel like they are 'doing something'.
RMS actively tried to defend an indefensible position: it was a deeply sketchy and apparently RMS is fine with Minsky ignoring a sea of red flags worthy of a Chinese military parade and ploughing on because the coerced teenager in question appeared "willing".
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Because when it comes to the likes Bill Clinton or their other favorite politicians, etc who either took pile of Epstein money or went to pedo island with him get a pass.
No, Bill Clinton does not get a pass. Your partisanship is ridiculous. His misdeeds have been thoroughly covered in the so called "main stream media". See also https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
I will happily criticize Bill Clinton all day long. I will also take responsibility for thinking at the time (1998) that his abuse of Monica Lewinski should have been kept out of the media -- because it was presented as a consensual affair at the time. That was wrong.
RMS was my hero for years, but his statements about
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In addition, Minsky later complained about Epstein sending Giuffre. He wouldn't have complained if he had sex with her.
All the available evidence is Minsky didn't sleep with her, making Stallman's defense even more idiotic. A simple "I don't think Minsky did anything wrong" would have been sufficient, and even better would have matched the available evidence.
By attacking the concept of statutory rape Stallman created a shitshow that he did not need to create. When your primary job is communication, as hi
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He didn't assert anything. He was asked to write a summary and he exercised free thinking. His private letter was publicly paraded around by politicking brigands to make their case stronger and Damore was sacrificed to placate the witches.
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When you flip 50M coins, 50.000% of them will come up heads.
On Slashdot, this statement is inexcusable. One standard deviation is about 7,000, or about 0.014%, so 50.000% is quite unlikely. More than 50,030% or less than 49.970% is unlikely, but nowhere near impossible.
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He is simply raising the question, if a third party coerced the girl and got her to hide her age, and his friend didn’t know it, and his friend didn’t do the coercing either, then who really committed the assault? That doesn’t mean RMS thinks there wasn’t an assault committed, he just doesn’t sound convinced that his friend was aware of it at the time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He is simply raising the question,
No, he didn't simply "raise the question". He raised the question with the ulterior motive that he wanted to defend his long time friend or at lease provide an avenue for defence. You and half the posters here are acting like somehow he's a disinterested third party at a debating contest and being excoriated for using a tactic allowed by the rulebooks.
This is not it. Minsky was very nice to RMS and protected him when a lot of people were incredibly shitty to him. RMS doesn
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Informative)
I am not sure if you are suffering from a lack of reading comprehension or you are being deliberately obtuse.
I will take what you said on good faith. Linked below are 89 pages of Giuffre's deposition. Other information is available on Wikipedia. Giuffre was born August 1983. According to Wikipedia she was "associated" with Epstein and Maxwell starting in the summer of 2000-2002. Giuffre has not, that I have seen, made claims to being underage when having sex with Minsky or other specific people. She does specifically say she does not remember where or when she allegedly had sex with Minsky. She also says that Maxwell told her to go have sex with men (and implies that she did).
Minsky is known to have been on Epstein's island in 2002. This would have made Giuffre 18-19.
So, playing out the hypothetical that Stallman laid out very clearly, if you are approached -- solicited even -- by a woman, with no indication she was coerced, and you have sex, are you guilty of sexual assault?
https://assets.documentcloud.o... [documentcloud.org]
Q: Where did you go to have sex with Marvin Minsky?
A: I believe it was the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jeff's -- sorry, Jeffrey Epstein's island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Q And when was that?
A I don't know.
Q Do you have any time of year?
A No.
Q Do you know how old you were?
A No.
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Informative)
Minsky was also at "Lolita island" in 2011, which was after Epstein had been convicted of sex offences and banned from donating to Harvard. Minsky would have known all that.
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We are not really debating the law here though, nobody is prosecuting RMS. We are debating the ethics. Personally I think failure to recognized underage persons are not equipped to make choices about sex is despicable. Someone who does that knowingly ought to be locked up!
On the other hand I also think strict liability laws are reprehensible. They guy meets a girl who says she is 22 while sitting in 21 and over club she got into with a fake ID should not be up for rape because it turns out she was 17. At s
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Informative)
NO he didn't say that. He suggested that it's most plausible [that even if the young woman was being coerced] that she would have presented herself as willing to Minsky. Your claim is false.
I don't use other words, I use the real words.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
NO he didn't say that. He suggested that it's most plausible [that even if the young woman was being coerced] that she would have presented herself as willing to Minsky.
This is every bit as stupid. Minsky would almost have certainly known that :
(a) Epstein had already been convicted of sex offenses
(b) Epstein had already been banned by Harvard
(c) Teenage girls don't throw themselves at skinny yet paunchy, bespectacled, bald, 55 year old computer scientists
There is no remotely plausible set of circumstances
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Which is a straw man.
Oh yes the real situation is a "straw man".
The assertion is; she would present herself as willing.
And I contend that is irrelevant. Minsky would have known better.
But that does not change that she would present herself as willing, as she was coerced to do.
It's irrelevant how she presented herself when everyone in the room knew something sketchy was going on.
So why muddy the water by playing word games around the topic? This seems to me to be a case of "play stupid games, win stupid priz
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Informative)
RMS claimed Epstein's victims were willing participants.
This is a lie. RMS said nothing about "victims" plural, or that they were "willing." He was hypothesizing about the circumstances of one event involving one possibly coerced female and a man that was not Epstein. His instinct to imagine the best of his friend is entirely understandable. Below is the full quote. The only people that can read this and conclude that RMS is some unforgivable shit heel are wokium addicts, and we're all getting pretty sick of you fucks.
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Informative)
I am trying to figure you out, ArchieBunker. Because I have read the quote, and it simply does not say what you say it says. What you are saying is straight-up wrong. He did not say that the victims were "entirely willing." That's patently false. It didn't happen. I read the quote in which the phrase "entirely willing" exists, and if you actually read the entire sentence it is absolutely unambiguously clear that he did NOT say the victims were entirely willing, but that they presented as entirely willing.
Is this simple semantic distinction completely lost on you? If so, then you have a serious reading comprehension defecit which you really need to remedy if you are going to participate in discourse with grown-ups.
Or are you lying on purpose, just to destroy a man's reputation?
In either case, I am certainly going to be suspicious of any post of yours that I ever read in the future, because you seem to have a penchant for spreading fake news.
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"Entirely willing" is part of Stallman's attempt to redefine statutory rape. Stallman doesn't bother to think through the results of his redefinition on the woman, because he's got a very long history of not exactly viewing women as equals. He only gives a damn about the man in this situation, which is one of the big problems.
But the other big problem is there's zero evidence Minsky actually slept with her. She hasn't testified it happened, and the trial is about the order to sleep with him, not whether
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Informative)
RMS claimed Epstein's victims were willing participants. https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
So in other words RMS says having sex with children is alright if they appear to be willing.
Not exactly. From the Medium article [medium.com] referenced in the Vice article you referenced, Stallman is quoted as writing:
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
Not condoning anything, but what you quoted isn't what he wrote.
Re: cancel culture (Score:2)
Didn't he say they acted like they were willing? That without checking IDs one could not tell whether what they were offering was legal or not? Which by fundamental theories of criminality there must be mens Rea - guilty mind. For someone to commit rape it is reasonable to expect a prosecutor to prove the defendant must have known. Attractive prostitutes of legal age maybe are common at the right sort of parties?
I mean by an analogy if the appetizers were laced with cocaine does that make someone a felo
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He claimed Epstein's victims were probably forced to act like willing participants. And that some sexual crimes shouldn't be described with the word "rape", not that they aren't criminal.
Actually, two of the complaints in the open letter are being nitpicky about language: the gender neutral pronouns one and the use of the word "rape" for all sexual crimes. The other big one is not wanting to believe his associate is a rapist, just like all the family members you see on the news, saying, "But he was always s
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Insightful)
The way I read it, rms condemned the situation but said it was possible that Minsky didn't know the girls were coerced and that people shouldn't be too quick to judge without knowing the facts. But, the truth never makes a good story, and the media is worthless scum, so they lied their asses off to make a quick buck at the expense of rms' reputation.
The group involved with this letter should know better, but they are the types to put politics and image ahead of facts or quality software. If they're that informed, how do they not even get basic stuff right, such as calling him RMS [sic] instead of his preferred rms? I'm not surprised many of the signers are related to GNOME - that their heads are screwed on backwards is perfectly fitting for how much GNOME's interface looks like shit and is less useful than toilet paper.
At least the good news is that if I ever go to an FSF event, it won't be plagued by a bunch of misinformed sycophants who can't be bothered to spend even a tenth of the time polishing their code as they do spreading lies and actively trying to destroy software freedom.
Mod me down if you want to.
Re:cancel culture (Score:5, Informative)
RMS claimed Epstein's victims were willing participants.
No, RMS claimed that Epstein, whom RMS called "a serial rapist", most likely coerced his victims to present themselves as willing participants, seeing as this was in Epstein's best interest.
Re:cancel culture (Score:4, Interesting)
I see you did not accept my invitation to read what RMS ACTUALLY said (as opposed to Vice's hack job misquote).
RMS actually said he was assuming Epstein DID coerce the young lady, including coercing her to present herself as entirely willing to Minsky.
As for "children", we know she was 17 years old. Please stop making it sound like she was 10 or something. A natural next question would be did they actually do anything at all? How old did Minsky think she was? We may never know since Minsky is dead.
The young lady has not to my knowledge corroborated that Minsky actually took her up on her coerced offer.
By believing that someone should be considered innocent until proven guilty, RMS joins such infamous monsters as the founding fathers of the United States.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He had resigned a few months ago, as I recall there was some snafu where he defended some dead MIT Media Lab person who was accused of visiting Pedo Island by saying that it wasn't clear if they knew what was going on there. They're now calling him _phobic and whatnot, I'm not really sure what that's all about, but honestly I think this is just one of those power struggles where they would prefer to control this foundation but who knows.
Meanwhile, Reddit just hired (and fired) an admin who is married to an
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yawn... Reddit employs pedo-enabler Aimee Challenor... not news for nerds or shite that matters,
Reddit's on borrowed ttime, anyways, so if this expedites the downfall, so be it.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yawn... Reddit employs pedo-enabler Aimee Challenor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Wow! That is one seriously traumatised person. Diagnosed autistic and ODD, taken into care and parents charged with neglect. Father convicted of raping and torturing a 10yo, he changes to a woman, marries another dude who presents as a woman and writes about paedophile fantasies. Accuses the Green party of being trans-phobic.
I thought RMS was weird, but reading about Challenor puts a different perspective on it!
Stallman looks dull now.
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It is called coaching and it is as common as a contested divorce when the husband has money and the wife is out for blood.
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Sorry, but I'm not sure what this is even on about.
It's another purity spiral. RMS said some shit wokium addicts are upset about.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real reason ? He will oppose the corporate take over over of Linux, pure and simple.
Yes he is tone deaf on many things, but he is spot on about user's freedom.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
When people were picking up their torches and pitchforks shouting "BURN THE WITCH!", he dared to say "wait a minute, let's make sure first".
A MONSTER, I tell you!
Re:Umm, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
He basically made a really clueless face-palm of an attempt at defending Marvin Minsky (whos dead and doesnt actually need defending) from abuse allegations regarding his shady dealings with Epstein.
I don't think RMS actually meant any harm, and I believe him when he claims to be an ally of women. The problem is he just really really has a problem with putting his feet in his mouth in public and the whole Epstein/Minsky thing just about pissed everyone off. His decision to resign I think we warranted. He recognised he had fucked up and took time out to reevaluate things.
What I'm currently concerned about however is that RMS didnt follow up later on with more offensive pedo-defending stuff. Theres no indication he continues to hold those views, but it would seem the offense here is that he isn't STAYING "cancelled" (I dislike that term or its expanded version "cancel culture", its weasel word used by people who dont want an honest debate).
I think this is dangerous. If people aren't permitted to
"reform", given the option to recognize they fucked up and make the changes, what exactly is the point of it all?
This isnt a left wing thing. The disgust at Epstein and his gang are held equally by all sides of politics, nobody likes a kiddy fucker and nobody respects those who defend them. But I just wonder what is achieved by keeping RMS out of public life?
We all know RMS is somewhat socially awkward. I'd hazard a guess he's fairly heavily on the autistic spectrum, and not allowing people on the spectrum who have social integration issues to self-correct is actually somewhat abelist. My old housemate was an autistic maths PhD. He messed up constantly socially by misreading people, but everyone knew why and so we'd just gently correct him and encourage him to keep engaging. Why is RMS different?
So, FSF is now to be cancelled? (Score:2)
I guess they forgot to send a message to the social media companies.
Re: So, FSF is now to be cancelled? (Score:3)
If we use "social justice" to villify people from the older generations and subsequently "cancel" them, we will be left with new blood but zero experience.
Also, this is just a proxy for agism. If you grew up in the 80s or earlier, your youth is filled with "cancellable" behavior.
Hidden story. (Score:2)
Oookaaay. Sounds like there's a lot of backstory we are missing.
Re: Hidden story. (Score:2, Insightful)
No there isn't.
His shtick struck in the craw of some SJW at MIT and now failing to join in on the 2 minutes hate makes you a literal baby killer.
Given the way these cancel mobs have gone, I doubt the sincerity of many of the signatories if this open letter. It's equally likely to be a "don't hurt me" brigade as it is an actual mob.
Now's a good time to read up on what a "good German" was.
Re: (Score:2)
t's equally likely to be a "don't hurt me" brigade as it is an actual mob.
This is the best I have seen the justification/explanation of (mostly) online social causes articulated
Re: Hidden story. (Score:3)
This list of the enlightened (Score:2)
They are the people to be shuffled off.
membership requirements (Score:2)
Backstory (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a pretty quick summary of the controversy: https://itsfoss.com/richard-st... [itsfoss.com]
This is aways the fate (Score:5, Insightful)
of radical movements. Everything eventually loses the fire and goes mainstream, then the OG radicals who started the entire thing are deemed "unsophisticated". At least RMS is unlikely to be repudiated by the People's Software Central Committee as a counter-revolutionary and shot at dawn with an antiaircraft gun. I mean, probably not. These days there is no telling.
Re:This is aways the fate (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup. That's the fate of extremists. You naturally attract extremists as followers, and extremists are pretty extreme. Drama and backstabbing is inevitable. And if you survive that, the smooth, politically savvy types will eventually get you.
RMS took an extreme position, which did a lot of good dragging everything his direction. I'm not sure why he's hanging on. It doesn't sound like the FSF edifice is really something he would want to be involved with. Time to pull a Jerry McGuire and make an exit with your fish. Start the GNG project. GNU is not GNU.
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The people calling for resignations are the ones who run major free software projects like GNOME, Debian, X.org, Kubernetes etc. The FSF is only really looking after very mature GNU projects these days.
GCC is probably the biggest FSF project now, although they are not that deeply involved day to day anymore I think. FSF is mostly an advocacy group.
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
So I read TFA and I don't get it. If the article is indeed a true reflection of his views then whilst I don't think I agree with any of his views (apart from they - it's a plural) I can see a logical argument for them. Why shouldn't he be allowed to have his own views ?
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This is the first time you deal with SJW?
You can say whatever you wanted as long as it is what SJW liked.
SJW wanted diversity where everyone thinks like them.
This is simply the American style Cultural Revolution, happening at one organization or company at a time. Get ready to leave when it comes to where you work.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Never cave to the SJW mob. (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS should simply tell the mob to go fuck themselves, and get on with his work.
What work? RMS hasn't contributed any code in ages.
He also presided over FSF losing pretty much all influence. In early 2000-s GNU tools were essential for the whole industry, life without gcc or glibc was impossible. You could reasonably say that Linux should be referred to as GNU/Linux. These days 5 billion people are running Linux that is built without a shred of GNU tools, even the kernel is compiled using LLVM-based clang.
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glibc is still vital. So is gcc for many other software projects.
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uClibc, musl, klibc all exist and are viable for at least their target use cases -- and in those domains, often legitimately better than glibc. Google is working on an LLVM-associated libc. glibc gets less vital with each passing month.
gcc is in a similar situation, although it's always had a lot of compilers to compete against. For my use cases, gcc is usually the best C/C++ compiler, although it only caught up with clang diagnostics with gcc version 10. But it's losing criticality because so many lang
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glibc is also in the same boat. Android uses Bionic, musl libc is used in Alpine Linux and a lot of container-based deployments.
Who are these people? (Score:2)
Why do the people who signed this letter have *any* sway whatsoever in the goings-on of FSF? Are all of FSF's donations coming from intersectional nutjobs? What contributions have these individuals made to the FSF? Are they going to contribute to MSFT or Oracle instead? Please. Political affiliation, personal identity, etc. should play ZERO role in being able to advocate for free software. If these unhinged lunatics want to destroy Stallman, then he should start a new organization unassociated with the
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I mean, Mozilla, GNOME, FreeDos and X.org have made a wee bit of a contribution to OSS and the FSF, to pick names that jump out at me.
CANCEL Culture is back..... (Score:2)
Warning... if you have an opinion different than that of the mob, be prepared to be CANCELED!
The specific complaint: "He (RMS) has shown himself to be misogynist, ableist, and transphobic, among other serious accusations of impropriety. "
However for once this is not an anonymous mob, there are quite a few signatures on the petition.
How exactly did he get back on the board? (Score:2)
The previous article didn't mention it nor did this one, how does one get on the fsf board?
I assume members nominate candidates and there's an election or is there some other process?
That's GNU/Cancel (Score:4, Interesting)
I stopped supporting FSF financially a few years ago due to odious behavior, not RMS per se but at the organizational level. Some of their legal stuff is good, but some of it really is not.
I just stopped paying them anything and that was that. If they want to go off and do weird things then I don't want to associate with them, but I don't want to take over FSF any more than I want to fork Hurd.
SJW bleating is easy. Forking gcc and leading it is hard. I'll be impressed when people show some skin in the game. Oooh, you made a blog post - so brave, so strong.
Glad rms is back (Score:2)
May not agree 100% with him, but he's an invaluable voice for Free Software, and the purge against him was utterly unethical--a mob of backstabbing climbers and their narcissistic cry-bully enablers. I'm waiting a month or so to make sure the FSF doesn't cave again, then joining at the $1000 level.
Tough call, or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
DISCLAIMER: The following is only about the Epstein issue, no other bad behavior he may have been involved in.
His resignation (apparently, I read a link on the backstory) was due to defending someone who went to an Epstein party and had sex with someone.
RMS's statement was made from a factual, possibly ASD perspective, in that he used logic and reasoning on an emotive subject. He definitely could have done it better, even if his points were valid. He may also have been wrong, there is not much information to know what (the accused) knew at the time.
Similar to someone saying "If the Jews didn't lie down (resisted from the start), the Nazis would never have been able to do what they did"
Likely not accurate (or needs to be stated a different way, such as "The lack of resistance to increasingly brutal policy enabled the Nazis to become emboldened" ), needs clarification and research, but will always get an emotion fueled response.
When you say something that only MAY be true, and people are highly emotionally invested in the OPPOSITE view, this is exactly what happens.
Re:Tough call, or is it? (Score:5, Informative)
There was no reliable evidence that Marvin Minsky, one of the leaders of AI research for decades, actually had sex or even a massage with any of of Epstein's underaged masseuses. The relevant excerpt of the deposition that accused Minsky can be read at https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com] . It's not very credible testimony, the masseuse did not remember when or where it happened, or what exactly she was told to do with him. Minsky's widow, who was on the island and present with him during most of the stay, denies that anything of the kind occurred.
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Well, memory is rarely that precise, and when it is, that doesn't necessarily make it accurate.
It's neither here nor there in this case, though, because whether the accusation or true or not has nothing to do with the issue of whether RMS is a suitable leader for the free software movement. The inciting incident here was his spectacularly tone deaf response to the news of the accusation, and I would argue that the *underlying* issue is that over the years since his early work in developing GPL he hasn't d
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"Failing to build upon the goodwill" is not what he's being accused of, nor the bases of the calls for his regignation. Nor was it what he was accused the last time several times unfounded accusations were made against him. , Have you listened to any of his speeches or presentations? Because he is insightful, and has warned people of genuinely dangerous abuses, and suggested some practical though difficult approaches to deal with them. As such, it is worth paying him some attention even if you don't agree w
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Yes, I've seen him in person a number of times; the issue isn't his insight or past contributions, the issue is his history of unpleasant personal behavior. Bizarre behavior is fine, but rude, arrogant and borderline abusive behavior really means that you're not suitable for leadership.
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Or else what? (Score:2)
It's not clear to me what they're going to do to FSF if their demands aren't met. Are they going to switch to advocacy of proprietary software in order to disrupt FSF's mission? What carrots or sticks are being shown to FSF here?
We know who they are now (Score:2)
Attacking someone for their opinion and trying to have them fired and blacklisted for a comment they made in an email is much worse than the stupid comments in RMS's email. The good news is everyone who signed the letter is now known. If you have the opportunity, please give them a dose of their own bullshit and deny them employment. Let's see how they like being attacked for their opinions.
Not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stallman is super problematic, has been for years. There were constant complaints about him just being completely insensitive, rude and hostile to people. Many refused to work with him directly. He was sheltered at MIT from most of the consequences because of the work he was doing and some tenured professors giving him cover.
He was *never* a good public advocate for open source and the related issues of maintaining open computing ecosystems. Most of the moment around that worked around him because of just how bad he was in the public eye and in personal interactions.
I know some will try to defend him and his actions as part of his autism. Firstly, he's never said he was diagnosed as such. Secondly, ASD is not an blanket excuse. Almost all people with ASD learn the skills to interact in the workspace.
He was a very talented engineer in the day, but times move on and the FSF is increasingly out of touch with the current issues in development and technology. Yes, diversity is one of those issues. But it's also just plain advances in technology.
GCC is mired with some bad decisions because Stallman keeps putting his foot in, despite a huge effort to get him out and to modernize the code base in the 90s (remember the ecgs fork, anybody). Emacs is a relic. GNU Hurd is still a zombie, occasionally rising from the grave.
Frankly, the amount of people and projects that are just willing to write the FSF off is a sign of how much influence and leadership they have lost.
Technical Postscript. As to HURD, the whole microkernel thing, especially the FSF approach, just doesn't make sense anymore. Linux can be very small and running the IO and Network stack in user space just isn't a huge advantage with zero copy optimizations. Also, MS has shown you can have user and kernel driver spaces. It's not one or the other. Now, a microkernel hypervisor is another story, especially one that is built with an eye towards verification. See the work on L4 for an example.
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Have you ever MET him? Ever seen him speak in person? Or are you basing all of this on the writings of people engaged in burning the witch?
As for the rest, I do remember egcs. A project made possible by copyleft. I also remember that when it had proved it;s point, it was accepted into the gcc mainline.
Many still swear by emacs. Microkernel vs. mono is still not a settled point. Linux itself has, in fact, welcomed a few components that can best be described as microkernel inspired. For example, FUSE, and KVM
Fucking baseless witch-hunt (Score:3)
There's a linked page in the arstechnica article outlining his supposed personal transgressions of the past at MIT. A complete load of horse-shit that felt gross to read through. The person who wrote it should be ashamed of themselves and the whole group should be censured for their actions in this.
How about you go fork yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
All of those against Stallman should feel free to go start their own free software movement and do what they like. That's what open source is, anyone can take a new direction any time... you just have to convince people to follow you...
Myself, I'll keep contributing to the FSF as long as RMS is involved, not because I support all views he holds (there is not one single person on earth for whole I could say that to be true) but instead because of a SINGLE idea that he has spent his life promoting, the notion of truly Free software.
A popular tweet I have seen in other circles goes like this [twitter.com]:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
And that very much seems to be what is going on here.
Re:How about you go fork yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
And that very much seems to be what is going on here.
Pretty much, yes. This has become an established pattern in SJW circles. These people are always destroyers, never creators. Their contribution to society is negative.
RMS is a sexual predator (Score:5, Interesting)
RMS seems to have regarded time spent travelling to a residence as wasted time that could otherwise be spent working, so he slept on a mattress in his office at MIT, which was his legal address.
According to his accuser the presence of the mattress is evidence that rms is a sexual predator.
Oh noes, the implications. Just thinking about it causes me trauma.
Or he’s a nerd with no social skills who literally lives in his office. Get fucked.
EFF says he should go (Score:4, Interesting)
The EFF published a statement [eff.org] and it baffles me that this didn't make the editorial cut for context, and instead we get an 18 month old blog post that focuses on the Epstein angle.
To me this is absolutely the least interesting thing to focus on - as with all the commentators here it's just a bunch of people taking his comments out of context, then a bunch of people being outraged that they did that and angrily replying, rinse and repeat.
I've never met rms; I greatly appreciate the work he's done on free software. He's obviously an extremist, but fortunately for many software users, one that we're lucky to have on our side in this respect. But there are many credible stories about him being extremely toxic in the workplace, and possibly a harasser of women - I wasn't there.
But rather than pick fights about the semantics of what he said about Epstein (which is what most of the comments here seem to be) and trying to defend his right to behave terribly if we get software freedom out of it, or whatever, I am choosing to outsource my opinion on this to the EFF.
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FSF Europe is also distancing itself from FSF [fsfe.org] (emphasis added):
What a shame for the "Open source community" (Score:3)
With the disclaimer that I don't know and can't know all the facts surrounding this sad affair, my personal opinion is that Professor Minsky has done more for the progress of humanity than all these people who signed that open letter combined, and that a scientist of his magnitude at least deserves fair treatment, benefit of the doubt and presumption of innocence. And as a consequence, people like RMS who raise their voice to remind the public of this should not be subjected to such a vile witch-hunting campaign. Political agendas have no place in the open source movement, yet they dominate it these days. But the writing was on the wall since the Brendan Eich scandal, I guess. How sad.
Bow! or be Destroyed! Says the Holy Inquisition (Score:3)
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the GPL is effectively a political statement, and was always intended to be. There's reasons RMS used the term "Manifesto".
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