I took him out to dinner once, my wife and I, and had a lovely evening talking mostly about his childhood experiences.
He was extremely respectful to the staff at the restaurant I recall. Going out of his way to compliment them on the food.
That at some point he said: "women who have not been introduced to emacs...sacred duty of all members of the church of emacs" is entirely possible. We all have said stupid things. Out of context especially, had these things been recorded, we would be ashamed.
To use that quote to define RMS is a gross insult, intellectually fraudulent, it is a political attack.
I do think it is important to play nice in politics. So if you have criticisms of RMS' stand on software, make them.
This sort of thing is insulting to all of us who do our best to imperfectly maintain standards of debate
Before I commented I tried to find the source, interesting digressions ensued, but nothing that suggests this is typical.
Also I mentioned I have been following him for a long time (nearly three decades, golly). I have never heard those sorts of words pass his lips.
So I accuse you of telling a lie here. It is not uncommon to make up stories and exaggerate faults of those you politically oppose. Still lies
>I have never heard those sorts of words pass his lips. >So I accuse you of telling a lie here. It is not uncommon to make up stories and exaggerate faults of those you politically oppose. Still lies
You must not be listening very hard. Making comments like these is even part of his wikipedia page as he had to set down from the FSF and MIT for a while for similar comments
That's the issue. Stallman's technical contributions and early political contributions were both foundational and heroic. That does not negate the fact that for the better part of two decades he's been a constant embarrassment that continuously degrades the movement in the eyes of anyone who hasn't developed a tolerance for him. Evangelizing free software was comparatively easy in the days when peoples' reaction to his name was "Haha, that guy who ate stuff off his foot on stage? Wild." It's gotten considerably harder now that the reaction is "wait, the guy who wrote those pedophile emails and harasses women at conferences?"
I'm tired of trying to advocate for free software when just the name "Free Software Foundation" is a conversational liability.
https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/EMACS_virgins_joke
There are references too.
That is just plain not true. If it were, that would be fantastic. Unfortunately that's only part of Stallman's message, and a good portion of the rest of it is either simply unworkable or batshit insane.
To quote David Schlesinger after RMS got up on stage and talked about how "women who have not been introduced to emacs are emacs virgins and 'relieving them of their virginity is a sacred duty of all members of the church of emacs'", Stallman continues to embarrass us all