RMS's conduct here is just... pretty inappropriate. Jokes about abortion, rape, race, sexual orientation, etc, etc, are not something you should be touching as the maintainer of a public project, no matter what your opinions are or how strongly you hold them. The glibc maintainers (completely reasonably) decided that the man pages weren't a good place for potentially-charged jokes like this, and removed it. RMS overruled them in a pretty childlike and insensitive fashion, and that's not appropriate when you're the public face of anything.
I don't give a shit about the politics of glibc - but I do care that someone who is a role model and a public figure acts like this.
But is he? Who considers rms as a role model generally? Barely anyone even knows his positions on anything other than software, and those are often derided. And that's on HN, where he's actually known. My colleagues wouldn't even know his name.
Why? It's fine to be offended. It's his project. Just fork and move on, if necessary.
The problem is not anything to do with glibc - it's the conduct of someone who, like it or not, is a role model for a lot of people in the community, and has taken on a very public role.
Policing humor is a trope in dystopian novels for a reason.
If someone wants to make unsightly jokes, you're free to be offended. But implying that it's not acceptable to act that way is probably a bit far.
(Not saying that happened here, just reacting to your broadening to “policing humor.” Humor is also, you know, funny. That did happen here. Stallman should stick to his day gig.)
Here's his full reply in context:
The issue is whether Stallman gets veto rights on glibc commits. The maintainers say he doesn't. Since Stallman doesn't do much glibc work, and the maintainers do, presumably Stallman is going to lose this, unless they let him save face out of affection.
(Focus, people. Stallman’s commit bit. Stay on target and let’s figure this thing out. Did we get closure on the apt-get cow, or are we tabling that?)
You’d be surprised. It bottomed out at -3 and is now oscillating around 0 and -1. That’s a surprisingly encouraging sign.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of a problem. I think the industry’s reaction to it is an even bigger one and it’s right here, in this thread. Or lack thereof.
Commenting on downvotes is discouraged in the HN guidelines. It's boring, it's trite and this isn't Reddit/Voat.
It's probably not healthy to take them seriously.
> this isn't Reddit/Voat.
But... there's also an unnecessary joke in the public documentation of an important free software project involved here, and I think it's also interesting (perhaps even important) to talk about the content of the joke, and if things like that are ok/productive/positive/offensive/bad/exclusionary in our world.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't really expect any discussion of this latter point to be particularly productive on HN. I don't say this with any amount of derision; I just feel that's the way it is.
(For the record, I say good riddance to that particularly unfunny joke, and I think it's worthwhile to remove dreck like that from our projects.)
It's a standard talking point in the pro-abortion (I am solidly pro-choice and I use pro-abortion deliberately here) crowd who feel the need not merely to negate but to invert everything the anti-abortion right argues.
In https://stallman.org/articles/children.html Stallman describes "Why it is important not to have children."
I can easily see "don't have children because it's a traumatic experience" as fitting on the list.
Among other things, btw, he says that his decision to not have children opened up time to work on GNU and free software.
You’re right, the conflict is elsewhere. However, something about Richard Stallman making that statement, which marginalizes the intense conflict women often feel over intentional abortion in their own lives, not to mention traumatic abortions brought on by rape or medical issues, really speaks to a yawning gap existing between him and empathy for other people. It seems to imply that he thinks women leveraging their right to choose are pleased or joyful that they can do so, and this distantly makes the joke worth keeping. He might be pro-choice, and keen to defend it, but the way he defends it models an entire cadre of people who look up to him. He’s speaking from a position with multiple layers of privilege, on account of his stature, race, and gender, and basically saying “abortion, no biggie, right?” How does that help us recruit women in tech?
Did my nose find it, or do we care more about who maintains a C runtime?
Immediate future prediction: -4 on this comment, a disengaging reply from you, a barrage of comments below me lining up to defend Stallman (likely calling him Dr. Stallman) or tell me I’m misinterpreting a direct quote and/or its context, and I sign out again and return to dormancy and lament this community’s symptomatic demonstration of this industry’s faults: it’s about who runs glibc! That matters! Ignore everything else, it’s a tizzy! Just look at the top thread. Not an abortion joke, an abortion law joke. That makes it all better.
Edit: Oh good, we are on to the apt-get cow.