You don't have to trust the media. RMS himself confirms that he was wrong in the past, at least regarding child abuse.
"I hosted rms many years ago in the 90’s, what was supposed to be hosting your hero for a ~3 day thing became a ~2 month nightmare."
Did Miguel ask him to leave? Or did he just sit around passive-aggressively for 3 whole months? Also, rms called Miguel "a traitor to the Free Software community" at some point, and now with the whole MIT business, he gets in with the twitter defamation league spouting off his grievances. That's pretty much beyond cowardly and into despicable territory.
Jillian's story is pretty much the entire problem in a nutshell:
"an older female colleague recommended at a whisper that I lock myself in my office."
"She later told me it was because he gets touchy"
"Over the years, I heard all sorts of things of this nature, and warned women who might not be in the know"
Maybe this older female colleague was told the same things at some point? Why is every single allegation hearsay from twitter?
"instructing them on how to properly make tea"
Yes, rms can be very particular about minor things. If you did not know even this, why are you writing about "things about rms others should know"?
Also, again EFF connections. Do they even want to pretend to be useful anymore, outside of cluelessly abusing people on twitter for kicks?
People are literally celebrating a "long overdue" injustice because they don't like the man, so "he had it coming". I don't know how can anyone not find this unsetting.
I never said otherwise. If you look at my comment history you will see that I am against the injustice against RMS.
I certainly agree with you.
This type of rumor mongering is hurtful and should be opposed.
Exactly, he's innocent until proven guilty, like everybody else.
You're implying that "I heard from someone that heard it from someone else, that heard it from their dad, that read it on a mailing list, 20 years ago, that he did, therefore ho did"
seems does not qualify as evidence
> circles that interacted with RMS
Like Thomas Lord?
I think there is only mud, not based on any real issue with what Stallman said or did.
> does not automatically follow that it was the wrong thing to do.
It does.
FSF main goal was freedom and protecting fundamental liberties of each individual
Stallman main contribution to FSF was the GPL, a legal framework, FSF main contribution was pro bono legal support defending free software in court.
So, yeah, if FSF cannot defend its founder, most popular and most honorable member, it becomes basically useless, it follows it was the wrong thing to do.
Their reputation was based on trust, trust has been broken.