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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand, I'm glad that he's at least acknowledging that this is a problem. It's disappointing to me that he talks about the problem as if people first noticed it in August, when I've heard it discussed for a decade or more. But still, baby steps.

There's also a crashing lack of self-awareness here. This bit sounds great: "The only political positions that the GNU Project endorses are (1) that users should have control of their own computing (for instance, through free software) and (2) supporting basic human rights in computing."

But a) that's a very political position, b) many people in the diversity and inclusion world see it as a direct consequence of basic human rights, and c) I don't think it's consistent with Stallman's behavior. E.g., it was only in May he declared it important to keep a stale joke about American politics in the code: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/09/gnu_glic_abort_stal...

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Yes, but under the circumstances, I'm unconvinced that hypocrisy is a bad thing. Consistency is overrated. It's good when people change their minds. Rigidly sticking with the same bad position seems like a bigger problem?

Sure, if I have to choose between hypocrisy and improvement, I'll take improvement. But I'd rather have both. And given the extent to which this is written as highfalutin moral principle, I don't think it's unreasonable to deal with it on its own terms. He could have just announced this as an improvement without taking slaps at political views he disagrees with.

Fair enough. But I don't think avoiding politics is possible when making a clear distinction between his and other approaches is important to the author.

It's a tricky communications problem to say "I think my approach is better" about a hot topic, explain why, and convince people it really is different, while not implying other ways are worse. I'm inclined to be forgiving, as long as there's an attempt at politeness.

He didn't have to say his approach is better. He could have thanked people for pointing out the problem and announced this as an important step forward for GNU. The announcement could have been half the length, which is always better from a communications perspective, while also removing a lot of the weakest parts and avoiding an unnecessarily confrontational approach.

Put differently, the adage "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt" definitely applies here. For anybody who has been working on codes of conduct, Stallman's thinking here is at best preaching to the choir. It won't convince anyone he disagrees with that he even understands their perspective, let alone has taken it seriously in formulating this policy.

There's a patch removing this joke now.

https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-10/msg00399.html

I find c) to be correct, I observe the same thing. But, given that I perceive Stallman as even less self-aware in that aspect than Linus, baby steps it is indeed.

This is not an argument.

You've merely listed things you don't like, punctuated by little insults ("crashing lack of self-awareness", "baby steps").

Yes, you have correctly detected that I wasn't making an argument. Into the "add comment" box, I put my comment.

I think that's fine given that I'm in the target audience for his post. I'm somebody who has been making occasional open-source contributions since the early 90s but who has mainly stayed out of it given that it tolerates a high level of jackassery up to and including outright abuse. This is a good step forward, but a small step done at a point I'd call very late in the game.

Is there some specific thing I'm supposed to have an argument on? As far as I can tell, Stallman has had a very "it's my bat and ball" attitude and has for decades, so even if I had some sort of argument, I don't have any impression he'd listen to it. I'm content to let him continue being very Stallmanesque until he retires. I'm much more interested what the younger generation is up to, as I think they're much more plausibly the future of open source than he is.

> E.g., it was only in May he declared it important to keep a stale joke about American politics in the code

Given Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court and the ever more massive fight of "pro lifers" and other religious hardcore bigots to ban abortions and thus invade the right of womens' bodily autonomy, that joke is everything but stale, and not even restricted to the USA!

As a matter of fact, in Germany a doctor (Kristina Hänel) right now is being prosecuted by the state for simply stating on her website that she offers abortion services. Therefore, the "joke" is actually reminding people of basic human rights, and is perfectly legit to keep in the code.

I don't think the topic is particularly stale. The joke is very stale. It was an adequate joke at the time, but if one were to make a joke today with similar intent, it would be written much differently.

And just to be clear, I agree with your politics here, and probably Stallman's to the extent I understand it. My issue is with him planting a firm flag for "neutrality", when "neutrality" actually means something more like "agreeing with my conveniently unstated political views".

Please remain civil when discussing certain groups of people who identify with certain beliefs.

The covenant of civility was already broken by those who hold those religious beliefs. They have attempted, repeatedly, to remove a woman's right to control her own body, and to use the force of government to interfere with attempts to exercise that bodily autonomy. That, to me, is the infinitely more uncivil act. That is the incivility that society should be seeking to correct, not the microscopic incivility of calling someone a mean name.

Please stop using HN primarily for ideological battle. We've discussed this before, but you've reverted with a vengeance. If that doesn't change, we're going to end up having to ban you again.

That was not ideological battle. That was responding to someone that their concern over civility was misplaced.

Obviously that comment was ideological rhetoric, regardless of that else was in there. But the point isn't one specific comment—it's your overall pattern of using HN overwhelmingly for ideological battle. That is an abuse of the site that we're constantly asking people not to do, regardless of which ideology they're battling for.

Since we've asked you many times over a long period, cut you all kinds of slack, and still you seem to have no intention of fixing this, I've banned this account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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