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Re: by jcranmer on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @09:34AM (#41848441)
If you look at the history of the NAACP trying to fight legal discrimination, one of the things they were quite focused on was ensuring that the cases involved people who are as clean as possible. The messenger matters as much as the message does; the more imperfect the messenger it is, the more it allows those against the message to turn the conversation from the message to the messenger.

Stallman, even without the stuff mentioned here, was already a pretty poor choice for messenger. His tendency to focus on semantic nitpicking gave his arguments a kind of tedious quality to them (GNU/Linux, anyone?). The outspoken political views can turn off people who are not politically aligned. And he's always given off this sort of skeevy vibe to me personally--and that sentiment has seemed to be shared by lots of other people. Long before any of the stuff being complained about here happened!

The negative influence of Stallman isn't purely theoretical anymore. We now have a couple of stories of people saying that he made them personally uncomfortable with unwanted seemingly sexual advances. Apparently, these have continued after being explicitly told by several people to knock it off. Several organizations have suspended their funding and involvement with the FSF over his reinstatement. Whatever you think of the accuracy of the accusations against him, the general perception of him is clearly negative, and to be frank, it doesn't seem like he brings any positive qualities that would make letting him go be a tough call (consider Elon Musk, who is obviously a pretty effective salesman for the future and props up Tesla's share price even as his outspoken political views are causing real problems for his companies).

Re: by fsflover on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @10:35AM (#41849065)
> Whatever you think of the accuracy of the accusations against him, the general perception of him is clearly negative

Which is why we should support him even more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156

Re: by shadowgovt on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @11:33AM (#41849644)
What is the goal: to promote free software or to stand for people's rights to have sexual relations with fourteen-year-olds?

If the former, having the movement spearheaded by someone who has pretty controversial views on the latter isn't really doing the movement any good. If FSF clings stubbornly to a thought-leader who people can't take seriously, they're canceling themselves.

I've seen the accusation leveraged in this topic that this anonymous piece could be FUD by Microsoft or a similar big-name software giant. I'd actually suggest the opposite: if I wanted to throw sand in the gears of free software, keeping Stallman in the leadership chair so that his opponents can point to him and say "You really want to listen to the guy who wants to sleep with your teenage daughter?" is the way I'd discredit the movement.

Re: by fsflover on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @01:31PM (#41861588)
> or to stand for people's rights to have sexual relations with fourteen-year-olds?

Who are you talking about? This is completely misleading and not what Stallman was saying.

Re: by shadowgovt on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @01:46PM (#41861739)
""" The law [UK sexual offences bill] would also prohibit encouraging a (so-called) child to take part in sexual activity. I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.) It is unnatural for humans to abstain from sex past puberty, and while I wouldn't try to pressure anyone to participate, I certainly encourage everyone to do so. """

There are more charitable interpretations, but "Stallman wants to sleep with your teenage daughter" is the less-charitable one that political opponents can continue to levy against the entire movement because the FSF won't let him go.

Re: by fsflover on Thursday October 17, 2024 @03:48PM (#41873098)
It doesn't mean that discussing it must result in a cancellation of a person though.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41848998

Re: by immibis on Friday October 18, 2024 @11:35AM (#41880373)
Without knowing more context, I interpret the quote to mean that 14-year-olds should be open to having sex with their peers (other 14-year-olds, possibly 13 or 15). Which seems like a position that is not bad enough to punish. It's a very weird thing for him to say, given that everyone knows him for being the president of the Free Software Foundation and not the Sexual Openness Foundation. He should stop commenting on this topic and focus on Free Software instead.
Re: by deepl_derber on Sunday October 20, 2024 @12:05AM (#41892778)
It is absolutely what he was saying.