In other words, what makes you think this process played out over 1 week, rather than this being the most recent of a long succession of events?
I am personally saddened by RMS’ departure, and also saddened that this “final straw” seems likely to be caused by Richard attempting to defend the memory of a long-time, now deceased friend. That said, I also know people who interact with him far more often than I, and they almost unanimously say it was past time. It makes me sad, but it doesn’t make me think it was hasty.
There hasn't been enough time to work out what the actual community thinks about the current drama because it takes a month or two for word to percolate around a community; stable opinions over large groups don't form in a week. Even if it is a straw that broke the camels back there needs to be a few weeks of settling to work out if there is straw and where it landed.
People like to think they can make snap decisions about what is good and what is bad. It just happens that that instinct is wrong and what fuels mob violence and other destructive actions; there are strong links between good decisions, long timeframes and moderate attitudes. This isn't so urgent that it couldn't wait a month to let everyone breath and take stock. Then Stallman can resign if enough people still think it is appropriate.
This recent event seems to have been what finally pushed this to the mainstream, but I can assure you people have been complaining to get rid of him for over a decade.
Unless I’ve misinterpreted the situation, it seems like he was forced to resign due to the former rather than the latter. And if the official reason is unrelated to the actual reason, that’s a rather poor case of governance.
If someone has been disliked due to poor interpersonal skills for years, it’s very weak when a politically-sensitive pretext is required to actually get rid of them. Better to take the fight head-on, and accept the outcome.
I was not bothered about this controversial public statements, but several women who I trust had very bad experiences with him in person. I'm not going to name any of these people because they (very reasonably) don't want to be in the public eye.
These two issues together caused significant issues, and I felt I could no longer support a project he ran.
I'm not sure what you mean by you should "take the fight head-on". It's easy to find many people, for years and years, who have said Stallman was actively harmful to the FSF and GNU, but they were generally ignored.
I didn't want to support software which was headed by Stallman.
We know very well how they form: years of false propaganda.
People still believes he's scared of plants.
Thomas Lord, Arch creator and former FSF employee
> p.s.: In the closet-sized "office" Bushnell, McGrath, and I shared for a time we did have some spider plants as part of a running silly joke. They did not actually scare RMS away OF COURSE and he usually had helpful criticism and advice of our efforts, from my point of view.
• What Stallman did is wrong, it was the wrong place, the wrong time and regardless of him feeling that way he speaks from a place of authority (more details at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992124)
• This one incident should not be sufficient for firing a "visiting scientist" and the head of an organization he himself founded.
• In the case of a repeat problematic behaviour it should be addressed as such. Both MIT and the FSF should have expressed their concerns years ago, followed by discussions and explanations of what constitute an acceptable behaviour and clear steps, ending in a dismissal, that would have been taken if his behaviour were not corrected.
Not addressing a problematic behaviour for years or decades is wrong. A quick firing for one incident, because of past issues that have never been addresses, is wrong. Putting pressure on someone to resign rather than dismiss them is a cop out for either lack of courage or lack of arguments, or both and is wrong. Caving under mob/fashion pressure is another cop out and is wrong.
The only thing that's past time is that more people start to realize the real bullies and harassers are the ones who post medium posts saying "Remove $person"... in which they misrepresent or outright lie, which others in the press then launder, and then act like this is the height of speaking truth to power. The same way that Coraline Ada has hundreds of tweets of yelling, berating and denigrating people, even though "she's the woman bringing civility to open source" (wired) and wants to enforce a code of conduct.
It's all a joke, except it has actually weakened the community, and given power and influence to people who mainly seem to care about themselves, no matter which bodies they have to step over.
Diversity is a farce and geeks are useful idiots who believed it was ever about anything but narcissism. What is happening now is justification after the fact. If the accusers were expected to live up to the same standards of conduct they demand from others, these people wouldn't be taken seriously.
Why it always resolve to a comply or die situation?
How many times people told you what to do, you didn't and in the end you were right?
> by Richard attempting to defend the memory of a long-time, now deceased friend
He wasn't even defending him, he was just saying "don't use a word that does not represent what really happened according to the sources".
People should be outraged that a nobody working on automated vehicles for the US military (AKA drones) believes she on a higher moral ground than Stallman, that never hurt anybody.
People should be outraged that said nobody wrote "Remove Stallman and all the other toxic people in tech" like if "removing" people is ok, like she knows who they are, 'cause she's the ultimate judge, and as if building weapons is not toxic...
BTW
RMS has been much more brave and clear than that.
He wrote
"if someone in csail says in this discussion group that Minsky was accused of sexual assault, a very serious accusation, and someone else in csail thinks that he was not, should the latter person refrain from saying so in this same discussion group out of concern that the conversation will leak and be misconstrued by the press?"
The in stands for "science". The job of scientists is to evaluate evidence and seek truth. We have a social responsibility to do that as well. I hope that we scientists will never evade our social responsibility to seek and defend the truth out of fear that the press will misconstrue our search. That would not be a reputation I would like attached to my affiliation.
I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone.
He was doing it to protect the movement and the protest from
a - leaks to the press
b - bad PR, if they used sexual assault people could spin it as "but he didn't assault her, it was consensual sex" like they usually do: they shoot the messenger or the form of the message to not address the real issue and divert the attention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts)
c - he was UNDOUBTEDLY right! nobody is talking about the protest against Epstein-MIT involvement.
good job Selam, good job everybody
Somehow I missed this, so a person literally working on helping the government kill people was the one asking to remove RMS? Interestingly enough, such hypocrisy came up in all the deplatforming cases too, where they removed some relatively innocent stuff claiming it had bad impact on people, but ignored and keep ignoring all the weapons promoting content, war propaganda, etc. that literally causes death and destruction.
Yep
Regardless of whether these allegations are true or false, there is a lesson to be learned here. The lesson here is that [some] men have a severe weakness related to their sexuality. I'd assume US HUMINT knows about this lesson, very well.
DJB too, see https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160607-dueprocess.html and https://eindhoven.cr.yp.to/false-statements-by-henry-de-vale...
There's a huge difference though.
Assange after he was accused of rape escaped from the process and started rambling about a “radical feminist conspiracy”
Stallman is not accused of anything, never escaped and if you write to him (he still answer to everybody) will ask you to support the FSF because it's important
And this is the man women and students should be afraid of...
Rape implies... rape. He is just accused of removing a condom.
> escaped from the process
Wasn't that due to the (rightful imo) fear of being sent to the US?
1) That's rape and 2) he's accused of more than that.
Here's the case: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
This sounds pretty rapey to me.
> As regards offence 1, AA said in her statement that she had offered the use of her apartment to Mr Assange from 11-14 August 2010 when she was away. She had returned on 13 August 2010 earlier than planned and then met him for the first time. They went out to dinner and returned to her apartment. As they drank tea, he started to fondle her leg which she welcomed. Everything happened fast. Mr Assange ripped off her clothes and at the same time broke her necklace. She tried to put her clothes on again, but Mr Assange had immediately removed them again. She had thought that she did not really want to continue, but it was too late to tell Mr Assange to stop as she had consented so far. Accordingly she let Mr Assange take off all her clothes. Thereafter they laid down on the bed naked with AA on her back and Mr Assange on top. Mr Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina, but she did not want him to do that as he was not using a condom. She therefore squeezed her legs together in order to avoid him penetrating her. She tried to reach several times for a condom which Mr Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without a condom. Mr Assange must have known it was a condom AA was reaching for and he had held her arms to stop her. After a while Mr Assange had asked AA what she was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together; AA told him she wanted him to put on a condom before he entered her. Mr Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found for him. AA felt a strong sense of unexpressed resistance on Mr Assange' s part against using a condom.
Legally in Sweden? Sure, but in everyday speech rape implies a lot of things which did not happen in the Assange case. I would say that Stallman's argument about sexual assault would apply perfectly here.
Was Stallman right (again!) when he wrote
"I think it is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17,"
Of course he was!
According to Swedish law, that's rape.
Welcome to the rest of the world, where the US laws do not apply.
> Wasn't that due to the (rightful imo) fear of being sent to the US?
Still escaped and blamed "feminists"
Would Epstein be right to escape because US wanted to prosecute him on the account of trafficking young girls?
I think I’d argue that yes, from his perspective, in hindsight, that would probably have been a good idea.
You're arguing that defending a statutory rapist isn't supporting pedophilia BUT working on the guidance systems for an autonomous ground vehicle is "help the government kill people"?
Wrong.
I'm saying that Stallman never defended a statutory rapist.
He tried to defend the protest from the backlash of using the wrong terms and a dead person from an accusation that is hard to prove anyway now that he's dead.
Statutory rape is just a safer option given the circumstances.
BTW defending a statutory rapist is not supporting pedophilia or any attorney who defended an alleged (there is no official accusation yet) statutory rapist was also supporting pedophilia?
> for an autonomous ground vehicle is "help the government kill people"?
That's what drones are for...
And I've never said that either.
I've only said that she works there.
> Your comment reminds me of the people who come out in defense of the Catholic Church whenever someone claims they were sexually abused by a Priest.
Isn't this ironic?
You're using the same language of the weapon's builder to try to accuse me of defending child molesters.
Why are people like you constantly at war with the world?
It's not my fault if she is a nobody (she really is) that builds weapons for the US military (she really does) and if she distorted RMS emails to make it look he was defending a rapist (he wasn't). It's not even my fault if RMS never molested anybody (he really didn't), never raped anybody (he really didn't), never hurt anybody (he really didn't) and never committed a crime (he really didn't).
Looks like I'm defending the reputation of a good man after all.
I'm really sorry you have a problem with reality, I swear.
What would you think if someone leaked this post[1] you wrote with the title "TOXIC WHITE PRIVILEGED MAN SAYS KIDS ARE TERRORISTS"?
Drawing parallels between the way you attack the character of someone rather than the merits of their argument is accusing you of defending child molesters? Are you implying Stallman himself is a child molester? I'm thoroughly confused.
It was my understanding that Stallman was imploring people to use a more accurate term in describing his friend's actions because he felt the other term invoked harsher connotations. How does that make him a child molester?
> It's not my fault if she is a nobody (she really is) that builds weapons for the US military (she really does)
What does any of that have to do with what she said? You're not arguing the merits of what she said but rather that we shouldn't listen to her because of her notoriety and career choice.
> What does any of that have to do with what she said?
Person with questionable morals [1] making moral judgement claims suggests that the whole thing was manufactured. I wouldn't even exclude a possibility that she received some money to publish the things that she did.
[1] as her career choice clearly shows she has no problem with wars, which are known to cause death, including death of children, actual rape of young girls, organ harvesting and pretty much anything awful you can think of in this world wars have
We're equating that to war monger?
You were hired to develop things that will eventually be used to kill people. That's the end goal of the job. Whether you make anything usable or not is somewhat beside the point, the intention is still there.
war mongers become war mongers one drone at the time.
You are indeed.
> Drawing parallels between the way you attack the character
I didn't attack the character, I only portayed the character for who she is.
No judgment attached, just the crude reality: she builds weapons for US military and uses a very aggressive and dehumanizing vocabulary.
I would never use "remove" when referring to another human being, alive or dead.
> It was my understanding that Stallman was imploring people to use a more accurate term in describing his friend's actions because he felt the other term invoked harsher connotations
He was concerned that the term "sexual assault" would be disputable by critics.
because legally and in layman's terms has a completely different connotations (people associate assault with physical violence, the law doesn't)
> What does any of that have to do with what she said?
I think it's interesting that a person who would like to "remove" other people ends up building weapons instead of schools for refugee kids.
Certainly seems to me to be far preferable to working for Facebook or Google or something like that.
Whether she is a nobody or not, it should not come as a surprise that for 99.(9)% of humanity, all of us here, as well as RMS are just as much nobodies.
Not having committed a crime is your bar for "a good man"? Working for you must be pretty chill. Yeah, people can be unfit for their job even without having committed crimes (caught and found guilty, to be more precise). Especially in leadership roles.
Usually, yes.
> people can be unfit for their job even without having committed crimes
But this is not the case.
> caught and found guilty, to be more precise
We're all innocent until proven guilty.
It applies to me, to you and to everybody else.
> Especially in leadership roles.
Take this as an unwanted advice: a leader is someone who would never fuck you in the arse to save theirs.
Stallman would never fuck you in the arse.
Proof is he's been fucked by those wanting to silence him, but has no bad feelings against who did it.
This is being fit for leadership roles in my book.
You're attacking her in much the say way the media is attacking Stallman when they attribute his appearance and proclivity for eating shit off his foot as clear evidence he's a pedophile.
I'm not attacking her, but I understand why you think that.
Where do you think you might find sexism, misogynism, unsafety, threatening situations, in the US department of defence working with military personnel or in the office of RMS at MIT?
I think the odds are all in favour of the military, but this girl is happy to build drones for the military, while supporting the idea that RMS is a toxic man that need to be removed immediately.
Isn't that amusing?
If I didn't already know, I would have wanted to know about it!
And not even badly documented, let alone well documented.
The fact Stallman doesn't understand what assault means, and then used his lack of understanding of the word assault to defend Minsky, is exactly why people are annoyed with him.
Assault does not require force or violence.
B. One could quite reasonably object to the use of a term whose legal definition is very different from the everyday meaning or connotations.
> 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. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef... records-unsealed.) 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.
Read this last paragraph.
Now read an English definition of assault. English words have several meanings. Stallman is ignoring the every day English meaning of the word assault because he doesn't understand how English works.
> Assault:
> 1) violent physical or verbal attack
> 2) any act that causes someone to feel physically threatened, which is considered reckless or intentional, and which need not necessarily involve any physical violence
> 3) rape or attempted rape
I don't understand why you'd say this...
> One could quite reasonably object to the use of a term whose legal definition is very different from the everyday meaning or connotations.
The legal definition isn't different to the everyday meaning, but even if it is Stallman needs to understand which definition is being used before he launches into his rape-apology, and he made no effort to do that, did he?
To the minds of the majority of people sure it does.
he knows very well.
He meant, and it's obvious from the emails, that the term is slippery if used to accuse someone.
It would have been better something like "statutory rape"
because it's not disputable.
I haven’t read of any evidence, just what sounds like rumor starting and spreading
https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r...
Including gems such as
"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)”
And
“I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
Plus
“There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”
He has all of the sudden backtracked on his decades long-held opinion that sex between adults and children is ok less than two weeks ago:
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
> “There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”
This is quoted out of content, here is the full quote: "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children. [with a link to https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-...]
Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That's not willing participation, it's imposed participation, a different issue."
He did not take the "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children" statement out of his butt, it was the conclusion that he formed after reading this article.
But even then, I do not see how his opinions regarding paedophilia are relevant to the topic at hand.
Personally I find the age when the brain is fully developed to carry a bit more significance, ie around age 25. Before that the brain is still being assembled and yet we expect people to make life or death decisions while driving, serving the military, have correct impulse control and follow the law just as everyone else.
What would a "spectrum of consent" even look like? 'First base' at one age, second at another, etc.?
RMS: "I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)”
Just because it's the letter of the law doesn't mean we are forbidden from discussing changing it.
Also, I can't speak for everyone, but I don't particulalry disagree with or think any of the things you list in your comment are fireable.
Not fireable, for the public role of leader of an organization? They're held to higher standards of conduct, whether we like it or not;
holding forth in public on opinions that 1) run counter to mainstream society in a way that's going to piss off a lot of people and 2) have nothing to do with the organization are a distraction, and a sign that leader's losing the thread on what their organization goals are and how to accomplish that.
In short, you can lead a software advocacy organization, or you can publish your opinions on aborting fetuses with down syndrome and your skepticism about pedophilia harming children, but you can't do both for long. (Unless you're stallman, then you can do it for decades before someone says, "hey, this guy's making the free software movement look bad".)
Isn't that what he said in the first place?
I contend that someone who thinks that an adult should not be allowed to enter into contracts regarding software / be punished for doing so "If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs." yet thinks that a 10/11 year old should be allowed to pick their sex partners is something that should be openly discussed.
Just because they build up doesn't mean they're not legitimate grievances, and I don't see rms changing one bit.
Responses always seem out of proportion because media coverage creates attention and makes people reconsider longstanding issues. That might seem like a manufactured mob, but it isn't, it's just focusing all of the discontent that piled up over the years.
We need better feedback loops, sure. But we also need people that listen, and RMS would fail there already.
The one incident that got attention now stems from rms having absolutely no filter and no sense of what's appropriate to say at what time and additionally seemingly prioritising his dead friends honor over believing victims even if you want to argue him being just about technically correct by using specific wording (there is no fucking way you are oblivious to people being coerced into sex this visiting Epsteins Island, just none).
This is not a one off thing. When RMS does his church of emacs skit and keeps pointing at a young woman in the audience whenever he says the word virgin, when RMS asks someone their name, if they work at MIT and then if they'd like to date right away, when people literally cover their offices in plants because Stallman doesn't like them... this guy should have been told to be better or get the fuck out years ago, but instead because he's adored by nerds all over people put up with his childish insistence on doing things exactly his way, using his personal redefinition of words (fuck rms for shitting on singular they) and leaving his behavior unchallenged because you know he'll throw a huge tantrum if you don't.
That seems a particular American hangup.
If people would visit the mansion of a skin-magazine tycoon on invitation, and one of the many women around there would approach them, very few would assume this was a genuine romantic interest, but there would be little reason to doubt if they were being set up for blackmail instead of straight-up prostitution.
Whether you are revolted by prostitution, or whether you would find it inappropriate for an older man to sleep with a significantly younger woman doesn't matter.
> (fuck rms for shitting on singular they) [..] you know he'll throw a huge tantrum if you don't.
Terrible thing that, people throwing tantrums when others don't see things their way.
2. I see no equivalence here. RMS will go out of his way to misgender people. He might not think that's a big deal, but that's no excuse. Watch any interview with the guy, even if he's talking to someone who does not subscribe to calling it "GNU/Linux" he will insist, every time, for it to be corrected. That's not just being insistent, that's actually - dare i say it - orwellian.
He also likes to draw the JBP "oh god no i have been misinterpreted" line. Like, when I say "Hacker news users are techbros." and someone asks me "why do you think all hacker news users are techbros", I can turn around and say I never said ALL I meant a very specific subset why are you misinterpreting my words you horrible horrible person aren't you supposed to be better this horrible tribalism. He does it in his per article twice (using the phrase "without inquiring if that's what I believe")
Most people are irrational.
> Watch any interview with the guy
Interviews he's been invited to, where calling the operating system GNU has been stipulated beforehand.
rms is involved in GNU and has no involvement in "Linux". Not in the development of the kernel, nor in the philosophy behind the various "Linux" operating systems. What would you expect him to say about "Linux"?
A pedant won't cleave to his own private definitions when they suit him ("You said drm, which I call digital restrictions management"), common language definitions when they suit him ("when someone says sexual assault, we hear assault and think violence"), and technical jargon when they suit him ("it's GNU/linux"). There's no seeking of understanding there, just someone being pushy with definitions however it suits them.
Responses are out of proportion because the media hugely distorts and misleads on every single topic in service of the goal of getting more shares. They'll always try and give a view that is as interesting/outrageous/satisfying as possible, using phrasing and selective ommissions.
Then people hear those stories and relay the insinuations rather than the actual reported facts (news media is generally very good at conveying X while only literally stating Y, Vice was unusually crude and shoddy this time).
The post I am replying to is an excellent example of the end result of this game of telephone.
> believing victims
He didn't disbelieved them in the quote.
> there is no fucking way you are oblivious to people being coerced into sex this visiting Epsteins Island, just none
On what basis are you saying this?
> When RMS does his church of emacs skit and keeps pointing at a young woman in the audience whenever he says the word virgin
This is the kind of thing where it's very easy for stories and memories to get distorted.
> when people literally cover their offices in plants because Stallman doesn't like them
Yet another one of the hugely exaggerated rumours...
Total speculation, but it makes me wonder if stallman is the geek's version of Steinbeck's "temporarily embarrassed millionaire"; that people want to see themselves not as members of a society, but just undiscovered genius misanthropes whose greatness hasn't yet been recognized.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because getting with the times and adapting to a changing world require proprietary software and the dilution of privacy?
> genius misanthropes
Yes, rms the misanthrope...
Maybe stick to "kewl stealth mode startups", or at least try to make it less obvious you're just looking for excuses to dislike the man. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It is never appropriate for these sorts of controversies to play out over 1 week. If there are years of evidence of problems, there should be a few weeks of tying them all together before people resign. The knee-jerk reaction here over a mailing list comment is genuinely concerning.
And people keep quoting him while rearranging the words. We literally have a transcript here, people should be copying from it directly. No quoting of single words in a new sentence, that is just slack. :/