What due process do you want, given that it's taken at least 7 years for such allegations to be taken seriously by some subsection of the community?
You came now after years with some people memories on what may have happened? Would you like to be accused of something that you may have said 20 years ago, that is not a crime but may have upset someone? Why not talk about the present, the last year and not dig ancient history because there is nothing recent to complain about.
Could you name at least couple of those conferences he was banned from? Preferably with surrounding circumstances?
But this HN comment does a good job of describing events at a recentish conference, although not a banning:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21186822
That sort of thing could get a person banned at a conference these days. (It would have been treated as humorous banter a few decades ago, and I find myself imagining that's when RMS learned his trade.) But usually there's some kind of escalation process, where people are told to stop doing it, and, if necessary, have it explained to them what is unacceptable and why.
Note: I am describing everyone, not just “other people”.
BTW, agreed sex jokes or talks should not have place in a technical conversation or conference. But I find misrepresenting comments to be questionable, and people criticizing others should at least spend the time to watch the video and transcribe the words correctly rather than misstate things.
If you ousted yourself as an asshole in public, people not wanting to associate with you isn't legal, it's civilized society.
No. This is equivalent to a threat to strike. RMS without the GNU project maintainers is just a dude with a blog. And this approximates a vote of no confidence.
One strike and your out isn't even how we play baseball.
Maybe I'm too trusting. I have no evidence that kind of a convo happened. But the allegations are that RMS has been a missing stair for well over 20 years. I find it very hard to believe that someone who's been causing problems in a community for 20+ years has never had a friend pull them aside and ask them to change their behaviour.
Dr Richard Stallman is a person, too. It's no longer a secret that he likely has high-functioning autism. What is he supposed to be being now being disbarred from his own project that he founded in 1985? If people think he doesn't deserve to be credited as the founder of FSF, just fork, and be done with it. Instead what they're doing is trying to actively ostracise the very hand that fed them.
They don't _have_ to do any of this. They _should_, though, as society demands it.
Folks are free to disagree, but this is very much the right move.
They're free to walk away from Stallman and the movement he created, but they won't because they can't let go of the shiny. Instead, they convince themselves they deserve free software and GNU without the nasty man who built it.
You can not be a part of a lynch mob, and still take issue with Stallman's statements / behavior.
I agree RMS is not a sociable person but I would have preferred to see some significant "crime" , now I have the feeling that you can be kicked out from your own project if you made a stupid comment or thing in the past and the social media gets enraged by mostly FUD and exagerations of your said comment.
https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...
I do not believe this. Stallman has no kind of irrational hate against vi beyond "church of emacs" memery. Stallman doesn't even take the editor war thing seriously.
>He 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.
Stallman lived in his office. This is well-known and well-documented.
It's not mentioned in this article, but there's also the claim that women kept plants around to scare Stallman off. This is also patently false; besides being obviously ridiculous, one can also find plenty of pictures of Stallman surrounded by plants.
All of these claims are so utterly ridiculous, so absurd, that I not only feel confident to dismiss them without evidence; I'm also inclined to believe that most of them were made in jest.
It becomes hard to believe any of the accusations when so many of those that are repeated in earnest are so laughable.
Reading that has been a complete waste of time. To save everyone else some effort:
1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy.
2. He used a bad pick-up line, saying he'll kill himself if X doesn't go out with him.
3. The MIT report doesn't mention Stallman by name.
3. Had a mattress in his office.
The discourse level in the US has hit rock bottom lately, all I see are online mobs running amok.
1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to
democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are
free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy.
These people are arguing for their own desires more than anything. They want an FSF they can feel good about, not this one with a flawed person producing the software they can't give up.
If he doesn't sit well on a pedestal, push him over and set someone else there.
No, they are coordinating a character assassination campaign and are pressuring everyone to disavow him. It's disappointing to see people cheering mobs on, just because they seem to attack "bad" people, while forgetting that anyone can be made to look bad.
No; rms is gross and creepy because rms is gross and creepy. Not because some conspiracy has worked to make him look like he is.
Even if he were gross and "creepy", that's no reason to oust someone from the organizations they helped create and destroy their reputation with absurd unverifiable anecdotes, like the ones about plants or vi. Or the note hanging on the door, which was likely a prank.
Creepy is also a meaningless word, best associated with ghosts and monsters, not people. Nowadays it seems to be used to criticize awkward male courtship attempts, as if trying to romance someone isn't tough enough and those that don't know how to do it have to be ridiculed too.
I did not read the rest since it probably is as fake or exaggerated as the beginning.
I read in other places about RMS pathetic way of asking for a date so I know he was and is not perfect.
You're entitled to your opinion, but other people would disagree with your opinion on the topic. And because free software is free as in freedom, they're certainly welcome to attempt to route around him (whether that fractures the community will be up to the community as a whole).
The existence of some folks who skew those things IMO isn't relevant when it comes to the things that I've seen that seem like believable accounts.
Project leadership is a social task. Sometimes, being well-suited to be a chief-of-doctrinal-purity or chief-of-technology is not being well-suited to being a chief-of-chiefs.
How have they stopped you from doing so in their signed open letter?
"all computer users" with the implication that Stallman is not representing the ones who demand to go straight to lynch mob behavior without a shadow if due process as soon as the word "sexual" is mentioned? And therefore Stallman should be thrown out of the project that is his creation and life's work?
That's got to be one of the most forced political readings ever of that point in the manifesto. Well, if that's the argument, I'm a computer user too and every one of these signatories have just demonstrated themselves unfit to represent me. Enough of the witch hunt, and hands off Richard Stallman's thoroughly earned standing in the GNU project!