'Open Source Initiative' Stops Collaboration With FSF Over Richard Stallman's Return (opensource.org) 350
The Open Source Initiative's board of directors recently issued the following statement:
Richard M. Stallman recently announced that he will be returning to the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a statement that the FSF has not denied. We believe it is inappropriate for Stallman to hold any leadership position in the free and open source software community. If we do not speak out against this, our silence may be misinterpreted as support.
The Open Source Initiative calls upon the Free Software Foundation to hold Stallman responsible for past behavior, remove him from the organization's leadership and work to address the harm he caused to all those he has excluded: those he considers less worthy, and those he has hurt with his words and actions. We will not participate in any events that include Richard M. Stallman and we cannot collaborate with the Free Software Foundation until Stallman is removed from the organization's leadership.
Free and open source software will not be accessible to all until it is safe for everyone to participate, and we therefore call upon our peers in the broader software community to join us in making these commitments.
Another perspective turns up in the "This Week in Programming" column: YouTuber Brodie Roberston offers his take on the return of RMS, saying "Like it or not, Richard Stallman is the face of free software. When you think about the free software movement, he is the one person that comes to mind." He then goes on to argue that the FSF is essentially the "ideological arm" of Stallman himself and that he is essentially irreplaceable not only because of his thoughts around free software but his passion for it, before going on to list the things that are "part of his charm."
The Open Source Initiative calls upon the Free Software Foundation to hold Stallman responsible for past behavior, remove him from the organization's leadership and work to address the harm he caused to all those he has excluded: those he considers less worthy, and those he has hurt with his words and actions. We will not participate in any events that include Richard M. Stallman and we cannot collaborate with the Free Software Foundation until Stallman is removed from the organization's leadership.
Free and open source software will not be accessible to all until it is safe for everyone to participate, and we therefore call upon our peers in the broader software community to join us in making these commitments.
Another perspective turns up in the "This Week in Programming" column: YouTuber Brodie Roberston offers his take on the return of RMS, saying "Like it or not, Richard Stallman is the face of free software. When you think about the free software movement, he is the one person that comes to mind." He then goes on to argue that the FSF is essentially the "ideological arm" of Stallman himself and that he is essentially irreplaceable not only because of his thoughts around free software but his passion for it, before going on to list the things that are "part of his charm."
Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
Who has he harmed?
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Interesting)
Who has he harmed?
The people playing political games to undermine open source software on behalf of large corporations who stand to gain from the lack of competition.
Re: Please name names (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
There's just a large segment of the OSS community that would rather not deal with assholes.
And I'm sure that, as you're not a bunch of hypocrites, you and the other members of that large segment will immediately stop using any code based on RMS's work, or licensed under any licenses created by RMS. You don't want asshole code or asshole licenses on your computer, do you?
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Strange as it may seem, a person can be a genius at one thing and an AH in aother without the AH nature of the latter affecting the genius or the genius balancing the AH.
I care that RMS has some really poor quality friends. I have no objection to him being censured over failing to do much about it. But that changes nothing in the software or the licenses.
I care that Eric Raymond is a gun totting libertarian loon, but he's still right about overly centralized thinking. His politics and addiction to destructi
Re: Please name names (Score:4, Interesting)
Without RMS, we would be paying $19.95 an hour, using a 2400 baud modem to have our posts approved on a Compuserve-like service, perhaps if lucky getting onto the CB chat, and paying $1000 for the OS on our computer, and if you dare think of a compiler, better shell out $2500. Don't mention the DRM. The web wouldn't have happened, and the only advance would be set top boxes on top of TVs.
Yes, he is an ass, but he is the reason why a lot of websites even exist.
Now that Big Tech wants to reverse everything GNU and the FSF stands for, turning everything into a subscription cloud service, they want him un-existed.
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Stallman sticks in the craw of people who gain most by subverting FSF and other open source advocacy groups not to interfere with their business plans.
This is bullshit literally out of the FBI's playbook in the 60s and 70s when Black Panthers were a thing - if you publicly discredit the leaders of a movement one by one, it will eventually fall to the ground headless.
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Those small-town groups of fundy "christians" are often completely infiltrated by actual satanic cultists. I strongly suspect the OSI group is not different in this regard now. Misinformation spoken directly as well as implied is disguised as belligerently being too incompetent to notice they're being too belligerent to notice they're being incompetent. It might just be a random-chance-defying cluster of terminal incompetence, sure, but an alarmingly large amount of the times it's literally cult behavior
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Go into any random community of theres and Its nonstop backbiting negativity and scheming and toxicity. The more they virtue signal about fighting toxicity the more behind the scenes toxic it is.
Maybe the places you frequent. I'm a long time poster on various electronics and audio forums and they're all quite civilized and nice to deal with.
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Maybe the places you frequent. I'm a long time poster on various electronics and audio forums and they're all quite civilized and nice to deal with.
Several factors make an online group more polite:
1. The size of the group. Groups small enough so that everyone knows everyone else, tend to be well behaved.
2. Level of expertise. Clueless newbies politely commiserate with each other. Knowledgeable people can be more terse and impatient with dumb questions.
3. Female participation. Males can be verbally rough with each other.
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Re: Please name names (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
The OSI originally formed to advocate open source in the corporate environment. They were largely successful at their goal (and the browser I am using now is open source as a direct result of their actions). Now that open source is largely accepted by corporations, I'm not sure the OSI has a clear objective. They used to vet open source licenses, but apparently they're not even doing a good job of that anymore.
In the beginning, the OSI disagreed with Stallman philosophically (he was anti-corporation, that's a simplified description), but in practice they both wanted open source so the philosophical differences didn't matter.
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Both organisations still want open source. The differences in personal opinions totally unrelated to software of members of either organisation is even less relevant than philosophical differences.
You are never going to get total agreement among a large number of individuals. You can only get a large number of individuals to agree on specific issues of limited scope - in the case of the FSF, open source software is that scope.
Take it another way, you may attend a football game because you support one of the
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More precisely, what does the OSI do? If I pay them money, what will they do with it?
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Who convinced Netscape to open source it in the first place?
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> people playing political games to undermine open source software
Their efforts seem to be misguided. Richard Stallman has nothing to do with Open Source (and he prefers it that way).
He's rather passionate about Free Software though.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
Supposedly Marvin Minsky had sex with a 17 year that Epstein introduced to him ( 1 witness said he refused to have sex with her). Stallman had the audacity to defend his friend in the current cancel culture (Minsky is conveniently dead so he can't defend him self). So now he must go away. We all know Stallman is eccentric, but this cancel culture things is complete bs. I don't know who these 'Open Source Initiative' people are, but they need to climb down off that stick in their ass and say hello to the real world. BTW I've been a software developer for 30+ years. I know who Stallman is, I don't know who these other clowns are!
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
He wasn't even really hard-line defending the guy, he was just playing devil's advocate. Over a girl who was legal in most states anyway. Meanwhile nobody is up in arms about the 5-year-olds.
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Meanwhile nobody is up in arms about the 5-year-olds.
What 5-year-olds?
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Funny)
Meanwhile nobody is up in arms about the 5-year-olds.
What 5-year-olds?
See? No-one cares about them.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
"Playing devil's advocate for someone having sex with young, trafficked girls provided by a sex offender who offered them up isn't really the smartest move for someone wanting to be taken seriously about anything is it?"
So.. you don't seem to understand - you're assuming it's a true statement. You're already playing into the prosecution of someone who can't even defend themselves. You're part of the problem.
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Oh I see, if someone is accused of something, immediately condemn them and anybody that may offer any defense for them. That's a way to have a proper discussion. /sarcasm
They're a witch, burn them at the stake.
No they aren't
Witch supporter burn them too.
Re:Please name names (Score:4, Informative)
Supposedly Marvin Minsky had sex with a 17 year
Not even that is being claimed by anyone involved, apparently.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
There is so much vitriol against RMS that turns out to not be based upon credible facts, that it looks like there's a deliberate misinformation campaign to make him look bad -- that's why I'm discounting all the claims about RMS being a toxic, "abusive", or "misogynistic" character. It seems clear they're obviously likely to have come from the same fabrication campaign and be part of the bad faith arguments from unknown sources attempting to poison the well about RMS and just generally attack and make him look like a bad person in the public eye.... And then extend that nonsense to FSF itself, as if one member of a corporate board equaled the organization.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
There are a few off facts here. Minsky is known to have visited Epstein's island in 2002, when Epstein sponsored Minsky to host a symposium. At the time Giuffre (the alleged victim) was ~19, not 17. In 2002, nothing was publicly known about Epstein being a criminal pedo scumbag.
Stallman had the audacity to say that Minsky, even if he DID have sex with Giuffre, should not be accused of "sexual assault" because the most plausible scenario was that if Giuffre approached Minsky, should have presented as willing. That is, Minsky would not have done any coercing, but it was Epstein/Maxwell who did the coercing.
Minsky's wife and others deny any sex occurred. In her deposition Giuffre says she was "told" to have sex with Minsky, she does not say it happened. She does not know where or when that occurred (understandable, it was many year ago).
This is an outrageous example of cancel culture being used by the powerful to silence enemies.
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In her deposition Giuffre says she was "told" to have sex with Minsky, she does not say it happened.
In other words, literally no one who was there accused Minsky of having sex with her.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the link to the deposition, FWIW:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7010864/Virginia-Giuffre-Maxwell-Deposition.pdf [documentcloud.org]
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The context of all this was MIT students using the (probably false) Minsky claims to trigger a protest about the general culture towards women at MIT. Stallman conveniently made himself the scapegoat and took the heat off the real issues. And OSI, Red Hat, and MIT students that went along with the scapegoating are complicit in allowing the systemic problems at MIT to continue to go ignored.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
Stallman had the audacity to defend his friend in the current cancel culture
Not even that.
He wanted people to stick with the actual words and actual accusations, instead of inflating them. The actual 600+ page court document never had the victim mention force, or assault, or rape. Instead the victim talked about being told to give "massages" as part of her job, being given gifts, having actions that would be coercive to a 15-year-old, and having sex. Some of the lawyers and other people involved use the words force and assault, and the lawyers used the word 'statutory rape' because of the ages, but the victim didn't use those aggressive terms.
All the links still work, start here and read what RMS actual wrote, the news writeup he was referring to, and the court documents and articles he was referring to. [github.io] No need to guess about any of it. The news story used incredibly charged language. The actual court documents, accusations, and victim statements didn't.
Specifically RMS wrote: 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. ... Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
So he wasn't saying "my friends wouldn't do that", instead he basically said "words have meaning, use the victim's actual words instead of more harmful words."
I don't know who these 'Open Source Initiative' people are...
They've mostly done politics, and occasionally get themselves in the news. But they have actually done almost nothing as an organization.
Individually, the names of some people involved (Bruce Perens, Eric S Raymond, Jon Hall, etc) have made notable contributions on their own and in other contexts.
Collectively the organization has put together some mailing lists, created some lists of licenses on their web site, hired some lawyers to review a things, and tried to trademark a few items, including trying to claim ownership of the term "open source". Most of their trademarks applications fell through as the group had no background using them in trade, again because they didn't actually do anything.
Rather oddly, the "open source initiative" still keeps their governance and charter member names secret, the opposite of an open organization. They also famously kicked the founding members Bruce Perens and Eric S Raymond out of the group.
Basically these days they only create press releases, not software nor real policy.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that Richard fails at institution building, yet this current kerfluffle is about people fighting for control of an institution that Richard built.
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dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. You are nowhere as special as you think you are. You are a dime a dozen and right now 5,000 programmers in India are drooling to take over your projects to make a name for themselves. So take your cancel culture and shove it up your racist and intolerant ass. As a matter of fact we are releasing a headline to your doners as we speek that you funnel investments to closed-source businesses. Between a nobody like you and a real somebody like RMS, we will go with RMS, a person who as already contributed massively to the cause as opposed to being a poser and pretending to contribute.
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Only he won't do that, because that would be contrary to the principles of free software. And if there's one thing everyone can undoubtedly agree on, it's that RMS has been extremely consistent and dedicated in his advocacy for and support of free software.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
Who has he harmed?
This really irrelevant in cancel culture. He is guilty of thought crime - a much more heinous crime, because you don't even need a victim to commit it!
Re:Please name names (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's worse, he didn't even actually think the things he is accused of thinking! It's a completely imaginary thought crime!
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After the Soviet revolution, the Gulag reeducation camps were run by criminals. Actual criminals (murderers, rapists etc) were considered to be less culpable than wrongthinkers - people who were merely insufficiently supportive of the revolution.
If we had an education system in this country, every American watching Kenosha burn on TV last summer would have been hearing the narrator's voice in their head, quoting Solzhenitsyn talking about this.
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Slashdot does apparently.
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Re: Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, they're well known, and well respected in the open source and free software circles.
Their word still carries an awful lot of weight, and they're still part of ensuring the freedom of software in its philosophical sense.
The OSI on the other hand.. No, they don't carry much weight, and after losing Bruce Parens, I think they've lost the last of the credibility they had.
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I wonder this as well.
In the last article, yesterday, a similar question was asked. There were comments that he made in defense of a deceased friend, and that was all that came to light.
This public shame appears to be libel. Is there any evidence that Stallman has excluded or hurt anyone?
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes they need to be clear on exactly what it is they're upset about otherwise their statement is pointless. We're just going to go round in circles with some people pointing to his comments re Marvin Minsky and others defending on that basis then still others saying that isn't what it's about at all.
OSI have gone to the trouble of publishing a statement. How have they managed to miss including in it anything detailing what words or actions of his they're condemning?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For many on the Left, progressivism functions psychologically as a replacement for traditional religion, and this new religion is every bit as puritanical and intolerant as any of the old religions it has replaced.
Just like the old Puritanism, the new religion believes in Satan and hunts him under every bed. Instead of "Satan," the new devil goes by the name of "Bigotry." But he's still everywhere! For believers, if any aspect of our society CAN be explained in terms of bigotry, then it MUST be explained in
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the text of his "Pleasure Cards" which "beg women to fuck him"
---
sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance
tender embraces
unusual sense of humor
Richard Stallman
[blah blah contact information blah]
---
Reprehensible, right?
Check your sources.
Source:
https://twitter.com/steviedotb... [twitter.com]
Image:
https://imgur.com/ri1UezI [imgur.com]
Re: (Score:3)
So it's just a straight up proposition? That's what he means by "tender embraces", right?
Doesn't seem very appropriate to give to random women you meet, especially if they are attending professional events rather than, say, a bar.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Informative)
He also hands out the same "pleasure cards" to men. They are his business cards, but since he isn't a business man, he prefers the term "pleasure cards" and has some whimsical things across the top. We already know he is eccentric. But being outcast for being eccentric doesn't play well as an image for the OSI.
Re:Please name names (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone engaged in any form of business (FSF is a business by the way), even your own personal business, is a perfectly acceptable reason to have a business card. That inane question by the way is completely irrelevant, and pretty much a Troll.
If you find it creepy, you need never go there. I find it whimsical. As does the circle of people he meets.
And exactly who are you to tell someone what they can write on a card? Unless your tyranny instinct goes so deep that you consider yourself entitled to do that (in which case, you're stupidly entitled AND wrong).
He's eccentric. He doesn't 'get' some of social norms. There are many people who are like that, and just so oriented in particular areas that social norms don't occur to them, or register much. Those of us with the social skills to accomodate them, if they definitely have the skills so far in excess of our own, use the skills those others don't possess to interact with them successfully to obtain some of the knowledge and process they're able to provide, to the enrichment (financial and philosophical) of all.
The small and closed minded however, just enviously pick holes and attack.
Those of us who've been around since the beginning know the guy, know what he's like, where the flaws are, and where the strengths are. We don't need someone to come along who hasn't got a clue and start trying to tell us all the incorrect conclusions they've made on no evidence, which you're intent on doing.
A "passion"-ate argument. (Score:2)
He then goes on to argue that the FSF is essentially the "ideological arm" of Stallman himself and that he is essentially irreplaceable not only because of his thoughts around free software but his passion for it, before going on to list the things that are "part of his charm."
I suspect there are a great number passionate about free and open source.
Inept organization (Score:5, Funny)
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Just went to check it out. Definitely poorly designed. Just hover instead of clicking on the down arrow.
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Re:Inept organization (Score:4, Interesting)
A storm in a beer mug (Score:2)
Woke Source Software coming soon? (Score:2, Funny)
Perhaps there should be a Woke Source Software which would start by forking all OSS projects, allowing choice for people to pick their projects based on their beliefs.
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"Individualism cannot beat a good crowd riot." -- Monty Python, Life of Brian
Other aspects of that work seem applicable as well.
Actionable? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this rose to the level of libelous slander.
When Stallman left it was on his own initiative so that is past history.
but if they are now trying to blocklist him from future activities with a campaign. I don't see in their statement where they lay out what he said or did to deserve it. If they get pressed to make a statement about that and then that turns out to demonstrably false then it seems they are opened up to legal action.
Does anyone have a link to specifically what their beef with him is?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
> Does anyone have a link to specifically what their beef with him is?
https://www.mashed.com/188403/... [mashed.com]
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Why do you think there would be any false claims in their explanation for why they want him gone? His attitude towards other programmers is often just as aggressive and portland as his attitude about proprietary software. His treatment of others is far below the standards that we should expect from leaders of either free or open source software organizations.
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Because there are definitely false claims and out of context exaggerations in the justifications in the Red Hat backed statement released earlier this week. Along with vague claims like "women felt uncomfortable around him because they were warned about him" without any specific incident being identified that would justify a warning.
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Indeed! My ideology involves not mass propositioning women at conferences by handing out pleasure cards, and I find the contrary ideology to be somewhat unacceptable. You call it McCarthyism, normal people call it not being a toxic asshat.
Re:Actionable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed! My ideology involves not mass propositioning women at conferences by handing out pleasure cards, and I find the contrary ideology to be somewhat unacceptable. You call it McCarthyism, normal people call it not being a toxic asshat.
So, is being a toxic asshat a crime? I've worked with women who are toxic asshats - I don't demand they be excluded from the workplace. I've worked with men who are ( get the children out of the room) guys who are remarkably old fashioned, and believe that the women's place is in the home.
And I've worked with the woke, who are toxic asshats because no one ends of interacting with them because they can find outrage in any statement. Yes, usually by men. The men don't talk to them because all it takes is an accusation, and the other women don't talk to them because now the men are avoiding all of the women, because they want to keep their jobs, and the easiest way is to only interact with the women to do what work must be done. No getting together for happy hour with them, no parties, no lunches. Just the minimum, and work only. The #metoo workplace.
Women most affected. It's true. How would you like to be treated as a hand grenade with the pin pulled? The women I work with hate this with a passion. But they aren't directing that towards the men.
You use the word toxic - it's a good word. But while you are worried that a man might give a woman a card, you just might be willing to agree with a person who rules the workplace by taking affront at almost anything, and demands that their constant umbrages must be sated.
The issue isn't - or shouldn't be that Stallman must be cancelled. If he's being an annoyance, then HR should be able to handle it.
But who handles the person who destroys the group by making every man the enemy, and ostracizes the other women because of their toxicity.
Because demanding the castigation and rejection of jerks goes both ways. Except that it isn't, and I'me sure you would enter a spittle flecked rage if say a woman was fired for wrecking a workplace, wouldn't you?
It's how Google firing a woman who violates several workplace policies (perhaps even laws) and engages in unethical tracking of employee emails to hunt for those who are in her eyes wrong and (probably need punished) but she must have been planning to do something with the unacceptable thoughts and opinions she was digging up. Yet others rally to her cause, because she apparently is above reproach. Some wanting whistleblower status for her.
That's like stealing company items, getting fired, and demanding to be treated specially.
So here's the problem. Given your response, you do not want all toxic asshats fired. Only the ones who fit a description you have as a target.
I have no expectations of changing your opinion, and don't even care if I do. Only to issue something to think about. If Stallman must be cancelled because he's your toxic asshat, don't be too surprised when after having some success, the aggrieved will have a new list of thoughtcrime that must be addressed? I'll be here eating popcorn and doing Tequila shots, just watching the fun that ensues.
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Weird, mine doesn't exclude that at all. If I thought that the people around me would take it in the context meant, then i'd be fine.
I take it you don't like Richard Feynman either? A great guy, very well liked and respected, and a great mind.
Completely loyal to his wife when she was alive, devoted to her while she died.
When she was gone, he'd just proposition people he was sexually interested in, and present to them exactly what the arrangement was, no misleading them or anything. If they were up for it
Re: Actionable? (Score:4, Informative)
Okay serious question, if you were RS and hetero how would you get a date?
I have no idea what you mean by "RS", sorry. Stallman? Almost always RMS.
Handing out a card is unorthodox but I don't see how it's anymore inherently invasive than straightup asking.
And there we have it. Allow me to quote another post I wrote on the topic:
Maybe he's just too shy to talk to women about this stuff.
Well, tough shit. Being shy isn't an excuse. If you can't even manage to talk to women at a tech conference about tech, then you seriously need help. Go get therapy, a coach, pills, whatever it takes, but understand this: your problems are yours and yours alone and it is not on womankind to help you fix them.
The core beef seems to actually be that he is propositioning at all.
At conferences, yes.
So do you expect him to be an incel because some women might be offended by a written request for a date?
I expecting not to use tech conferences as his personal hunting ground, and doubly so as his method seems to ask everyone with a pair of boobs more or less directly if they want to screw. What he does on his own time and dime is not my concern. If he's decided that the only women he can have sex with are female tech conference speakers, then that's a "him" problem not a "me" problem and he needs to fix it.
How else is he going to get sex with prostitution outlawed?
Not my problem, and as long as he doesn't act like an asshole while trying to get it, then I don't really care. Go to Vegas, South America or most of Europe. Go to singles events. Meet lots of people and see if there's chemistry and mutual interest before making a move (no, politeness is not mutual interest). Get coaching. Go on a cruise (I gather these are the meat markets for people in his current age bracket). Lots of options.
He's a fat greasy nerd that doesn't exactly have babes beating down the door.
I guess he could try putting some effort into personal hygiene then. I mean you asked what he could do.
What it sounds like you're saying it's fine for him to be a dick because he has a right to plentiful sex without having to do anything but ask for it. That's not how this works. That's not how ANYTHING works.
Got to cast a net
He doesn't "got to cast a net" at tech conferences or other professional setting.
The hilarious thing is you're talking to me as if I'm some sort of Chad Thundercock uberjock who couldn't possibly understand the trials and hardships that the poor nerds go through. Except we're on slashdot, one of the nerdiest sites on the internet, and you can tell from my ID that I've had an account for nearly 20 years. I was a "computer geek" and a nerd back when those were actual real insults, and I still am. I can and will argue indefinitely about why C++ is better than C, why BASIC is underrated,everything I hate about python, why Linux r00ls and micro$oft dr00lz, PIC versus AVR, the de/merits of cheap Chinese import tools, why the C series soldering iron tip is the best all-rounder, vi vs emacs and why electron editors can go jump and so on and so forth. So, stop acting like I'm hating on an out group. I'm part of that group and I still think he's being a dick.
Unfortunately, both true (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately it is true that Stallman is the public face of Free Software, and he has been so for a long time - because of his constant and unwavering activism, because of his visible public persona, and because many people supported him as the Free Software ideology figurehead.
It is also true that Stallman has been, and is, sexually aggressive towards many women. He is well known around Boston (where he lives) as a hazard to women in any computing or science fiction conferences. Many women can testify per
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunately, both true (Score:4, Informative)
Wow 2 seconds of Google:
âoeWhen I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I donâ(TM)t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that heâ(TM)d kill himself if I didnâ(TM)t go out with him.
I felt bad for him and also uncomfortable and manipulated. I did not like being put in that position â" suddenly responsible for an âoeimportantâ man. What had I done to get into this situation? I decided I could not be responsible for his living or dying, and would have to accept him killing himself. I declined further contact.
He was not a man of his word or heâ(TM)d be long dead.â
â"Betsy S., Bachelorâ(TM)s in Management Science, â(TM)85
âoeHe literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reasonâ¦I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on itâ¦)â
â" Bachelorâ(TM)s in Computer Science, â99
My first interaction with RMS was at a hacker con at 19. He asked my name, I gave it, whether I went to MIT (I had an MIT shirt on), and after confirmation I did, asked me on a date.
I looked up to Stallman. As I got older I reflected it was pretty inappropriate for an old professor celebrity to hit on a 19 year old college student at a professional conference within seconds, and saw it was a pattern for him
Christine Corbett Moran
Iâ(TM)ve experienced Richard Stallman at first hand, having put him up in my own home on one occasion. I am prepared to go on record that I found his behaviour very unsettling around women. Chris Wareham
Many, many years ago, women in the AI and CS labs met to deal with the problematic atmosphere for women in the labs. We met as a group, discussed the issues, complied examples, presented them to the labs, then wrote a report. In the early 80â(TM)s, it was a pretty big deal but it would seem it did not have lasting effects.
I wish we could have done more.
I guess those 1980s social justice warriors just were too Woke back then too? Do you know how bad of an offender you had to be in the 1980s to have women to think that a college's administration might intervene?
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Another random comment by a random person.
After the talk, the person I went with (a guy my age) wanted to talk to him, so we went up after and waited in line to chat or whatever. Almost immediately, RMS started staring at me. And not in a nice way.
It was leering. It was uncomfortable. When we talked to him, he didn't look at my friend or at me in the eye, he literally stared at my chest the entire time.
It sticks with me b/c it just reinforced how out of place I felt in that space. My "friend" didn't really help. His response was something like "you're probably the only pretty girl he's ever seen at one of these things" -- which aside from being untrue, just further made me feel unwelcome in many programming spaces.
I didn't want to have to go to events where MacArthur fellows refuse to make eye contact or to even really engage in conversation (I was basically ignored, even when I tried to contribute to the discussion happening), but stare so blatantly at my chest
Christina Warren
Fired. A woman wanted to learn more about the FSF, Stallman made it clear that her opinions or perspective weren't what he was interested in.
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He hands out cards with his contact information to both women and men at trade shows. MANY people hand out such cards.
The only thing remotely questionable about that is the phrasing at the top stating "tender embraces" which is also followed immediately by "unusual sense of humor".
As he is not a businessman, he describes such cards as "pleasure cards" instead of "business cards", this is almost certainly intended as a joke, and is based on the typical "are you travelling for business or pleasure?" question
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And you have a link in your profile to a white supremacist website. So how about you sit this one out.
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Sure thing. https://i.imgur.com/hcjY8wQ.jp... [imgur.com]
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He hands these out indiscriminately at trade shows. Stop being dishonest by dropping "to women" in there.
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A thread that links to an outdated article that manages to find a handful of copy/pasted text (not links to legal, validated statement) as evidence?
There's a thing called "Burden of Proof", which says for any great claim, you must have commensurately great evidence to back it up.
What there is on the Ars Technica thread is the link to an article that has no links to legal documents, has around 10 overall copy/pasted anecdotes from fairly anonymous sources, but zero legal standing, or even illegal activity.
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"I beg your pardon. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Joseph Welch
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"I beg your pardon. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Joseph Welch
Hah! I had just compared to a far left version of McCarthyism in a post above. Good to see that I am not the only one finding that the zeal for excluding people who do not conform to the inclusive people's demands for an echo chamber where priority 1 is ideological conformity.
Funny how the far left is become the mirror image of the far right. Conform or be cast out.
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and ask if he's ok with the collateral/damage he'll experience as a result.
I mean, he may n
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How do you get from "unwanted sexual propositions" to "molests women"?
I see a lot of inflation of claims there, and no specific women coming forward to accuse him of anything, except one incident in 1985 where his unwanted proposition is alleged to have included an element of emotional coercion. Even the woman who wrote the original blog post that blew this up admitted that there were no specific claims of actual sexual harassment against him, just a general impression of creepiness, which could probably be
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Free software* [wikipedia.org] idea predates Stallman. At best he formalized it and brought attention to it.
*Open software can be said to have started around the freeing of Netscape. They also share some ideas which causes people confusing the two.
Cruel and Inhumane (Score:5, Insightful)
This witch hunt has now turned cruel and inhumane. One of the hallmarks of liberalism is that punishment should be proportionate to the crime aka retributive justice, and that rehabilitation is more important than revenge. That's not what's happening here - this is petty spiteful destruction, an attempt to humiliate and erase a man, being led by billion dollar corporations against a person with obvious emotional disabilities.
Destroying one man's career, his livelihood, his entire life's work, ostracizing and "othering" the man rather than engaging him, are symptoms of ideological purity and mass hysteria. It is this generation's Red Scare and it is out of control.
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You're mostly spot on. But it's not petty and spiteful, nor reactionary like the Red Scare. It's a tactical move by aggressive adherents who seek to cow society and capture institutions with their ideology. It doesn't even matter to them particularly much whom they destroy, as long as people are being destroyed - they'll often enough go after their own members who show limits or moderation. Richard Stallman's chief crime is being big game. Taking him down shows that they're in charge of free software, and
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So what billion dollar corporations are behind this?
"Harm" and "safety" (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is it that so many people seem to subscribe to the idea that it is possible for me to *harm* you by telling you that your code sucks and you're not good at writing software?
Depending on the situation, that statement is either objectively true, in which case me holding my tongue won't make you into a better coder, and might just set you up for a bigger fall later. Or it's false, in which case it's false and your work stands on its own, especially in FOSS where your work is literally there for all to see.
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Why is it that so many people seem to subscribe to the idea that it is possible for me to *harm* you by telling you that your code sucks and you're not good at writing software?
Because everyone gets a trophy, and words can give booboo feelings. Trying is just as good as succeeding, and disagreement is oppression.
Go beyond Slashdot (Score:2)
Part of his charm? (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS's charm is not a good reason to allow him into a position of authority in the free software community. Stallman has always been a singularly uncharming person, whatever his perceived contribution to "free and open" software may be.
Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There were two luminaries that made up the OSI, ESR and Bruce Parens.
Bruce posts here now and then, so may give more info than I ever could and more background, but he left the group in 2020. Leaving them with nobody that actually got the movement going (well, not that sticks in my memory anyway), and really understands what it's all about.
ESR, from what I remember was reasonably fiery.. But very good at what he did. He was ejected from the group, then later banned from OSI posts because he's never been particularly politically correct, and some people really didn't like what he believed.
There's no luminary name there now, and from what I understand, it no longer has much leverage in the area (and doesn't seem to be as highly visible as the FSF).
It seems that the OSI has just declared that it wants to ruin someone's life achievements because he's supposed to be held responsible for speaking factual (if blunt) things. This is a pretty bad move on their part, as they're now effectively siding with a politically rather extreme movement (the cancel culture); that may not be the long term benefit they hope it is.
I too look at past behaviour (Score:4, Insightful)
The Open Source Initiative calls upon the Free Software Foundation to hold Stallman responsible for past behavior,
Indeed they have; that is why he is coming back to the board.
I call for the Open Source initiative to be disbanded immediately, and for all those working against Richard Stallman, the ideological force for Free software for decades now, to be drive from the community and cast out just as they would cast out Stallman. At the very least we should all strive not to work on projects with those who have spoken out against Stallman.
Hasn't been the same (Score:5, Funny)
The OSI just hasn't been the same since Steve Austin and Oscar Goldman retired.
Newly installed corporatists (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at OSI, you'll notice that literally every board member was installed in 2019. Frankly, it looks like a they were taken over by people who only envision the future for corporate interests.
Per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In January 2020, Bruce Perens left OSI over controversy regarding a license.[20]
A few months later, Perens declared on social media:
"We created a tower of babel of licenses. We did not design-in license compliance and we have a tremendous noncompliance problem that isn't getting better. We did not design a good framework for where proprietary software can go, and where it never should. Our license loopholes are exploited."
After Bruce Perens' exit, Eric Raymond, co-founder of the OSI was banned from the OSI in March 2020. [21] "Specifically, Raymond was banned from the mailing lists used to organize and communicate with the OSI. For an organization to ban their founder from communicating with the group (such as via a mailing list) is a noteworthy move."
As early as 1999, OSI co-founder Perens objected to the "schism" that was developing between supporters of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the OSI because of their disparate approaches. (Perens had hoped the OSI would merely serve as an "introduction" to FSF principles for "non-hackers."[23]) Richard Stallman of FSF has sharply criticized the OSI for its pragmatic focus and for ignoring what he considers the central "ethical imperative" and emphasis on "freedom" underlying free software as he defines it.[24] Nevertheless, Stallman has described his free software movement and the Open Source Initiative as separate camps within the same broad free-software community and acknowledged that despite philosophical differences, proponents of open source and free software "often work together on practical projects."[24]
Stallman is a jerk.... (Score:3)
I dug deeper into this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Regarding 1:
If you read the entire email thread (I found it here [vice.com]) you'll see that he was just stating that he wanted to properly use the word "assault" as something with violence. His view was that if it didn't involve violence and it's coerced and/or forced, it's r*pe. So, basically, people are mad at him in this email chain because he's calling it r*pe and not sexual assault.
Regarding 2:
Being creepy towards women is definitely true. Because he's also been creepy with men. I've never met RMS, but even I've heard of this [ycombinator.com]. And maybe this is a personal factor for me too. I often come off as creepy in public. This is why I went into programming and politics or social work. I'm a 6"4 Taiwanese that knows 3 languages and have a harsh stance on the direction of technology. I often talk too fast for most people to understand and my large lungs makes everything I saw loud. I also have a natural tendency to not let blatant falsehoods go if they're very, very obvious to me. Any or all of this comes off as creepy and overbearing to many of my friends, let alone strangers. Back to RMS, here are some excerpts:
-"Making Uncomfortable", at least to my understanding, falls more on the "whistles the Popeye theme incessantly", "smells", "shouts Eureka when he has an idea", "swears a lot", "is totally blunt about weight gains", "looks you dead in the eyes for minutes" etc, realm -- not fire-able offenses outside of a customer facing / corporate environment.
-Everyone who knows Stallman knows he's a complicated and tough guy with very radical opinions and position. I was at a conference where he was cleaning the dirt from his toes while explaining everything, imagine the scene
Regarding 3:
Some people say that his contributions to the code itself is problematic. But, as many know, he really doesn't code anymore. The only example I could find of how his code is problematic is this [lwn.net] which isn't even RMS denying the changes. It's someone else. And it's there to remind people that the US had a "don't talk about abortion because it's illegal" phase. Which, while I knew abortion was illegal for a while in the US, I didn't know there was a censorship regulation for a while in the US.
Regarding 4:
He has an uncommon view on sexuality. The original post [stallman.org] says:
-The UK is planning a censorship law that would prohibit "giving a (so-called) child anything that relates to sexual activity or contains a reference to such activity". This clearly includes most novels that you can buy in an ordinary book store.
As usual, the term "child" is used as a form of deception, since it includes teenagers of an age at which a large fraction of people are sexually active nowadays. People we would not normally call children.
The law would also prohibit "encouraging
Disturbing quote (Score:3)
This part disturbs me:
Free and open source software will not be accessible to all until it is safe for everyone to participate
As I see it, free and open source software is available to everybody without asking for your gender, race, religion, political views, social status, economy, or intended purpose.
If people feel unsafe to contribute to individual projects, or the movement itself, that is not a property of FOSS but of individual projects and organizations.
...says the OSI (Score:3)
That splinter group that was formed because the FSF wasn't "industry friendly" enough, in other words: Didn't compromise on the idea of Free Software in order to allow corporations to assert monopoly rights, drive out competition and control markets for their personal profits.
The guys who had to coin the term "Open Source" because they didn't like the "Free" in Free Software. You know, that term that even Microsoft is using because it's essentially meaningless.
Freaks, you're not the ones anyone sane listens to anyway. Maybe it's time that you just go away. Let's all rally behind the FSF and drive the OSI out of business. (because yes, for them it's a business.)
Re: Maybe that's why (Score:3)
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Javascript should be shoed much in the way W. was.
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...but maybe the effort is to associate free software's image with less of a "movement" and more of an ... operation? Organization? Business? Maybe just a more PR-friendly/savvy face?
There lies the danger, and your 6-digit user ID suggests that you should know this. Business and Free-Software-as-a-movement are fundamentally incompatible, and the former will inevitably and utterly corrupt and co-opt the latter should Free Software even start pretending to play that bullshit "PR-friendly/savvy face" game. And Stallman is the only widely recognizable "face" with the balls to fully walk his talk and tell the tards who want to compromise the Free Software vision to go get fucked.
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what real future do FSF projects have if Stallman returns?
A better future than if IBM/Apple/Google runs the projects. Maybe a worse future than if Linus ran the projects. But overall, a future aimed at making the world a better place.