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Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by tekla on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:20AM (#36390218)
What does advocacy of free software have ANYTHING to do with

1) Age

2) Race

3) Gender

Why is it ok to be ageist, sexist, AND racist in this context?

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by yawpitch on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:37AM (#36390364)
No one was, in the remotest sense, being ageist, sexist, or racist above… seeking to widen the appeal of something beyond an old white male audience isn’t, in any way, to anyone but an absolute dimwit, seeking to discriminate against that old white male audience.

Or, in other words that might make sense to a programmer:

   assert (old && white && male) + (!old || !white || !male) >= (old && white && male)
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by johngladtj on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:58AM (#36390554)
Why is it not?
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by asoneth on Monday June 19, 2023 @10:00AM (#36391177)
Advocacy of any sort typically involves 1) understanding your target audience and 2) making an appeal to them.

If the composition of your organization does not reflect the composition of your target audience then both of those tasks become a little harder. This is not specific to the FSF and is why many organizations hire at least a few people who match their target demographics to do things like research, marketing, messaging, and outreach.

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by esarbe on Monday June 19, 2023 @12:51PM (#36393300)
That's what the FSF does.

It's target audience are human being. The organizations composition reflects this; all of the FSF coworkers are human beings.

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by mberning on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:23AM (#36390249)
Terrible, racist, ageist attitude. Hiring people for some superficial attribute is just as bad as not hiring them. It’s dumb.
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by c4mpute on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:21AM (#36390229)
Free Software already speaks to everyone. There is no limitation around the use by anyone. This isn't womens' clothing, this is software.
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by dublinben on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:34AM (#36390343)
Clearly not, if you take a look at the demographics of the free software community and how it compares to tech more broadly.
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by c4mpute on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:37AM (#36390377)
Ah, so a white female cannot represent free software to a yellow male or a red trans? How incredibly racist, sexist and bigoted.

The composition of a group does not limit what it can do or stand for. Anything else would imply that some humans are more valuable than others.

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by shrimp_emoji on Monday June 19, 2023 @10:58AM (#36391810)
Those are the demographics of "the software community", not "the free software community". Why did you think all those white guys got into the "free" one to begin with?

> and how it compares to tech more broadly

Big citation needed

Attempting to socially engineer your way out of that is a potentially impossible road, lined with injustices.

Fwiw, though, the creator of Bash is black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox_(computer_programmer...

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by bart_spoon on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:21AM (#36390228)
Can you first explain how free software currently fails to speak to anyone but old white men?
Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by harry8 on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:21AM (#36390233)
I can see how you'd think this if you thought that the FSF's role was to "speak."

I think of the FSF as doing something entirely different and the work that it does is valuable in and of itself and also, in addition, enables benefiting humans regardless of anything including what they think or what they say.

That said, Emacs is still rubbish, vim all the way.

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by esarbe on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:23AM (#36390252)
You confuse the messenger with the message.

Accept that you'll never find the perfect messenger. There's always someone more alienated, someone more disfavored and someone more ignored, someone even less privileged. You can keep finding "better" messengers, but that's just a distraction.

Focus on the message.

Re:We need more of Richard Stallman, not less by RobotToaster on Monday June 19, 2023 @09:49AM (#36391063)
Free software generally has pretty good internationalisation support.