As I understand it, it is non judicial because there is no judiciary system involved.

This doesn't imply it's not an irrational action, i.e. you may justifiably avoid a person/thing that is linked with immoral behavior even if there is no sentence (say, avoid bitcoin because of climate issues).

I think they were asking about the punishment part.

>if your views hurt a significant amount of people

Stallman's views hurt people in the sense that some people got offended that he believed in things that they did not. None of his views could hurt people in any other way, he never posted any racist/sexist/transphobic/etc views.

Downvotes are not cancelling. Downvotes won't get you fired. Nobody will bully you for being downvoted (or even having this opinion really). They just show that people find your argument dishonest or disagree with you.

> Totally agree, but I won't make a blind person the watchout guy on a ship. There are limits to inclusion.

Generally speaking, a blind person can't do anything to improve their vision.

A person with a social disability can learn coping strategies to perform better in social situations, in spite of their disability. In the literature on ASD, this process even has a name – "masking". They may never be as good at social stuff as someone without a social disability, they may find social situations draining, etc, but they can improve.

People with ASD [0] often have poor social intuition, but they can learn to think consciously about things which other people can identify intuitively. There's no reason why Stallman couldn't do that as well. Sometimes, given enough time, what first had to be learnt consciously can become more automatic, even intuitive.

Has Stallman been taking actions to try to improve as a result of this public controversy? No idea. But it is at least possible he has. Maybe he's been seeing a therapist. Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him, but of course it wouldn't be appropriate for the FSF board to share that kind of private medical information publicly.

Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger. Even so, I don't think being 68 makes change impossible, just harder.

[0] I'm not saying Stallman has ASD, simply that he may. Quite a few years ago he publicly expressed the opinion that he doesn't have ASD/autism/Asperger's, but I don't believe that was based on a professional evaluation, simply a case of "self-undiagnosis". Also, his comments demonstrate he doesn't have a good understanding of ASD, so I don't think his "self-undiagnosis" should be given a lot of weight. He obviously has signs of broad autism phenotype (BAP), but whether it is just BAP or whether it is ASD is something which only a professional can answer. BAP is not a clinical diagnosis, it is a very common subclinical condition. I don't think the BAP-vs-ASD boundary is important for this discussion – people with BAP have many of the same issues that people with ASD do, just to a milder and less disabling degree.

"Maybe he's even shared that fact with the FSF board, and maybe they've taken that into account in their decision to reinstate him"

If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release.

"Of course, we also have to consider the fact that he is 68. Increasing cognitive rigidity is a natural consequence of ageing, and people can find it harder to change ingrained habits at 68 than if they were 20 or 30 or 40 years younger."

So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?

> If they had, it would be a good idea to have written into the press release.

If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release. (Board members aren’t technically employees but I think the principle is the same.)

> So you think someone with cognitive rigidity who can't change his habits is a good fit for a leadership role?

If the FSF board wants to give him the opportunity to demonstrate an ability to change, why shouldn’t they? Also, they are much better judges of whether he is trying to change, and whether or not he’s having success in that, than external observers such as you or I can be. They are engaged in communications with him to which the general public are not privy

> If the FSF board wants to give him the opportunity to demonstrate an ability to change, why shouldn’t they?

Because of the forseeable adverse impact on other people to whom thet are responsible?

> Also, they are much better judges of whether he is trying to change, and whether or not he’s had success in that, than external observers such as you or I can be.

The at least one FSF board member who departed, and the FSF’s management who likewise resigned over the issue, OTOH, are in at least an equally good position to the Board members who supported the move.

> Because of the forseeable adverse impact on other people to whom thet are responsible?

Some people don't want to have anything to do with an FSF in which Stallman is still involved. Other people don't want to have anything to do with an FSF in which Stallman is definitely excluded. Whatever they do is going to have an adverse impact, so they have to make a judgement call.

> The at least one FSF board member who departed, and the FSF’s management who likewise resigned over the issue, OTOH, are in at least an equally good position to the Board members who supported the move.

I don't know if we should interpret their resignation as a judgement that Stallman can't change (or isn't interested in changing), or as an expression of the view that other factors are more important in deciding whether he should be on the board than that one.

"If someone discloses to their employer that they are seeing a therapist, it would be inappropriate for their employer to put that disclosure in a press release."

In principle yes, but not if that was the reason the person could not have the leadership role in the first place.

If someone confides in you their private medical information, it is inappropriate to put that information in a press release without their permission, full stop, no exceptions. Certainly morally, and possibly even legally.

"Is it okay if I put your private medical information in our press release?"–many people would view that question as inappropriate to even ask.

"without their permission"

Yes.

But I didn't say it is appropriate, me saying this was only in your head.

My opinion is that it is inappropriate without permission, but it is also inappropriate to ask permission.

His views are not relevant. Should focus on his ability to contribute and keep personal beliefs out of the picture.

Can't say that makes much sense to me. Stallman's contribution is inextricable from his views. He's not on the FSF board as a programmer hacking on Emacs - surely it is to advocate and advance the cause of free software. His views on software, copyright, etc are obviously pretty relevant. His views on other matters are relevant at least insofar as they affect his ability to advocate effectively.

Except he didn’t keep his views to himself. He shared it with a ton of others, in writing.

As a coder? Yes. As a manager and conference organizer? No.

Stallman is just as free to contribute as you are I are. And he's been contributing over the last few years to the GNU Project.

The question at hand is whether he's an appropriate person to place in a leadership position of an activism organization. And frankly, there's no "should" there - there's only the blunt question of whether he's helping the organization achieve its activism goals or not. If his personal beliefs or actions are making the targets of the activism not be interested in listening, then he's undermining the work of his fellow activists, whether or not he intends to. If his affiliation with the organization threatens funding, then he's putting the organization at risk, whether or not we think that ought to be a relevant factor for donors. (And it goes the other way too, of course.)

The goal of the free software movement is to convince people that software freedom is important and to produce free software. It is a hard enough task. Changing the goals to be to convince people that, first, they should stop caring about Richard Stallman's views, and then after that, that they should care about software freedom, just makes the task even harder.

How are his views not important when the entire mission of the FSF is to spread a very particular point of view?

When RMS is advocating for zoophilia and necrophilia (he's finally relented on pedophilia, though, after many years of also defending "consensual" pedophilia), it hurts the advocacy for his other causes. You can't effectively simultaneously champion two such disparate causes without one cause seeping into the other.

Edit: Sigh, here it is, let's trot it out again, 2006 is when he was defending pedophilia:

> 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

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...

Please refrain from libelous statements. I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia, rather objections on the extremal formal definitions the US judiciary has for the status of “child”

> I’ve never read anything from Stallman that defends any behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia

Stallman defended legalization of pedophilia by name (and in the context of an overt political effort to eliminate age of consent entirely) and only recanted that support after the controversy over Minsky erupted in 2019 (which, given the somewhat related subject matter, also brought heightened, though not the first, attention to that advocacy.)

So, now you've read what I quoted about Stallman defending pedophilia, right? He calls it pedophilia, he says he's skeptical it's harmful. That's a defense.

Now you have read something you had not read before. I am glad to have shown you something you didn't know.

> He directly addressed child pornography by saying that “making such photos should be a crime, and is a crime, but that is no reason to prohibit possessing copies of the photos.”

https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

Did you read what you quoted?

The point Stallman made, in the most deliberately urticant and confrontational possible way, is:

Are you willing to incarcerate people for drawings? However disturbing the subject?

> 26 October 2014 (Prison for cartoon) A man in the UK has been sentenced for prison for having a cartoon depicting a fictional child in some sort of sexual situation.

The advocates of this kind of censorship started by saying they were trying to protect real children from being abused in order to take their photos. Making such photos should be a crime, and is a crime, but that is no reason to prohibit possessing copies of the photos.

However, they have already gone far beyond that. No child was harmed in drawing the cartoon.

To criminalize possession of copies of anything published — no matter what it is — is oppressive, and leads to many other forms of tyranny.

The part I quoted is clearly about photos, not drawings. I think arguing that possessing child pornography should be legal is “defending behavior a reasonable person would identify as Paedophilia.” Your reference to the formal definition of “child” made me think that you were unaware that Stallman had argued for this, and were attributing his cancellation solely to his remarks about statutory rape.

This is a subtle ad hominem. There are many reasonable people who would describe Stallman's particular pedantry around the definitions of "child" to be pedophilia-apology. Describing anyone who disagrees with you, including the person you're replying to, as "not a reasonable person" is unbecoming of hacker news.

It's also absolutely not libel, and it's rather silly to throw such terms around.

> How is a "You can't lead an organisation and be a role model if your views hurt a significant amount of people in the organisation" a non-judicial punishment? If you can't read or write you would also probably not lead a large organization, and it's not punishment.

Is it a decision? Yes.

Is it a decision made in the name of public interest? Yes.

Is it a decision that relates to some kind of transgression? Yes.

Is it a decision that seriously affects a person's liberty and pursuit of happiness? Yes.

Is it a decision made out of a fair trial? No.

Just because the labels "justice, diversity, inclusivity, equity" are displayed on a mob that harasses and assaults people doesn't make it less of a mob.

Also Stallman didn't "hurt" anyone. This is ridiculous.

if you were leading an organization, and had grown it from nothing to being important, then if you are removed from that organization for things you have said that is obviously a punishment, if it is done without a court taking part it is non-judicial punishment. Of course non-judicial punishments exist all over the place and that's just the way the world works, although really for some of the things he's done I think he might open up to judicial (civil court) punishment as well.

Now imagine that the org has fought corporate-enforced "norms" for decades and suddenly you've been ousted because of corporate-enforced norms. That's edging closer to what happened to RMS.

different norms than they have been dedicated to fighting, and probably the corporate enforced norms here are not ones that the corporations actually care about enforcing but only do so because they feel threatened by other, non-corporate enforced norms.