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Comment by c256 | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any reason to believe that RMS hadn’t been the subject of several co platings, over several years, including several warning/remedial/probationary periods wherein people were working with him to try and improve the behavior that caused at least some of the multiple complaints over multiple years?

In other words, what makes you think this process played out over 1 week, rather than this being the most recent of a long succession of events?

I am personally saddened by RMS’ departure, and also saddened that this “final straw” seems likely to be caused by Richard attempting to defend the memory of a long-time, now deceased friend. That said, I also know people who interact with him far more often than I, and they almost unanimously say it was past time. It makes me sad, but it doesn’t make me think it was hasty.

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It is kind of obvious that this isn't due to multiple anythings over multiple years. The timing is far too coincidental.

There hasn't been enough time to work out what the actual community thinks about the current drama because it takes a month or two for word to percolate around a community; stable opinions over large groups don't form in a week. Even if it is a straw that broke the camels back there needs to be a few weeks of settling to work out if there is straw and where it landed.

People like to think they can make snap decisions about what is good and what is bad. It just happens that that instinct is wrong and what fuels mob violence and other destructive actions; there are strong links between good decisions, long timeframes and moderate attitudes. This isn't so urgent that it couldn't wait a month to let everyone breath and take stock. Then Stallman can resign if enough people still think it is appropriate.

I think that he does not talk about community as people who are around the world, but rather people working with him having to deal with him day to day. Those had their general opinions made long ago, whether pro-Stallman or anti-Stallman.

> stable opinions over large groups don't form in a week

We know very well how they form: years of false propaganda.

People still believes he's scared of plants.

This is hilarious, do you have a reference?

I do!

Thomas Lord, Arch creator and former FSF employee

> p.s.: In the closet-sized "office" Bushnell, McGrath, and I shared for a time we did have some spider plants as part of a running silly joke. They did not actually scare RMS away OF COURSE and he usually had helpful criticism and advice of our efforts, from my point of view.

https://archive.is/7qepC#selection-1591.1-1591.277

Ha!

I, and many other people, have disconnected from the FSF and GNU projects for years because of Stallman. Go look at GCC, you will find a bunch of PRs from me, which stopped. The reason I stopped was Stallman. Most people who I personally know who are closely involved in this stuff knew about the complaints about Stallman.

This recent event seems to have been what finally pushed this to the mainstream, but I can assure you people have been complaining to get rid of him for over a decade.

What is your actual complaint? People have been complaining about taxes for years and years. That doesn't mean we should get rid of them.

Your analogy doesn’t work, because the general consensus is that there is no better alternative to taxation. It is a necessary evil - unlike Stallman, who, regardless of personal opinion, has others who are qualified to replace him.

How are the alternatives safer from the same complaints? I read on the internet that they beat up little old ladies.

That's not how I read your analogy. If the tax situation made him move countries, is that country better off without their contribution? Would resolving the tax situation make that country more desirable to contribute to?

Was it controversial statements of Stallman’s that made you stop working with him, or was it because you feel he’s difficult to work with?

Unless I’ve misinterpreted the situation, it seems like he was forced to resign due to the former rather than the latter. And if the official reason is unrelated to the actual reason, that’s a rather poor case of governance.

If someone has been disliked due to poor interpersonal skills for years, it’s very weak when a politically-sensitive pretext is required to actually get rid of them. Better to take the fight head-on, and accept the outcome.

He was difficult to work with (although I never "worked with" him directly, was just in a project which he ran).

I was not bothered about this controversial public statements, but several women who I trust had very bad experiences with him in person. I'm not going to name any of these people because they (very reasonably) don't want to be in the public eye.

These two issues together caused significant issues, and I felt I could no longer support a project he ran.

I'm not sure what you mean by you should "take the fight head-on". It's easy to find many people, for years and years, who have said Stallman was actively harmful to the FSF and GNU, but they were generally ignored.

I don't get why you'd stop contributing to a software project because of the spokesperson of a related org. Was stallman a jerk to you personally? How would contributing to gcc be different with a different spokesperson for the fsf?

Stallman is the head of GNU, which in in charge of GCC. Stallman is (or was) officially "in charge" of GCC, he could (and would) veto changes to GCC he didn't want.

I didn't want to support software which was headed by Stallman.

I too felt uneasy about this. On one hand Stallman did something wrong on the other hand it smells like judgment by mob/hashtag/fashion, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and downright repression of free speech. I have been thinking about it quite a bit, and this is my conclusion at this point:

• What Stallman did is wrong, it was the wrong place, the wrong time and regardless of him feeling that way he speaks from a place of authority (more details at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992124)

• This one incident should not be sufficient for firing a "visiting scientist" and the head of an organization he himself founded.

• In the case of a repeat problematic behaviour it should be addressed as such. Both MIT and the FSF should have expressed their concerns years ago, followed by discussions and explanations of what constitute an acceptable behaviour and clear steps, ending in a dismissal, that would have been taken if his behaviour were not corrected.

Not addressing a problematic behaviour for years or decades is wrong. A quick firing for one incident, because of past issues that have never been addresses, is wrong. Putting pressure on someone to resign rather than dismiss them is a cop out for either lack of courage or lack of arguments, or both and is wrong. Caving under mob/fashion pressure is another cop out and is wrong.

"Past time"

The only thing that's past time is that more people start to realize the real bullies and harassers are the ones who post medium posts saying "Remove $person"... in which they misrepresent or outright lie, which others in the press then launder, and then act like this is the height of speaking truth to power. The same way that Coraline Ada has hundreds of tweets of yelling, berating and denigrating people, even though "she's the woman bringing civility to open source" (wired) and wants to enforce a code of conduct.

It's all a joke, except it has actually weakened the community, and given power and influence to people who mainly seem to care about themselves, no matter which bodies they have to step over.

Diversity is a farce and geeks are useful idiots who believed it was ever about anything but narcissism. What is happening now is justification after the fact. If the accusers were expected to live up to the same standards of conduct they demand from others, these people wouldn't be taken seriously.

This is a very interesting read https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of...

> Do you have any reason to believe that RMS hadn’t been the subject of several co platings

Why it always resolve to a comply or die situation?

How many times people told you what to do, you didn't and in the end you were right?

> by Richard attempting to defend the memory of a long-time, now deceased friend

He wasn't even defending him, he was just saying "don't use a word that does not represent what really happened according to the sources".

That last sentence is what caused the outrage in the wider public. It was amplified by the manipulative post of Selam Jie Gano and the media that parroted it, but his original claim did hit the nerve (that it shouldn't be called sexual assault if no physical force was used in the sexual act).

That was not his claim.

> Selam Jie Gano

People should be outraged that a nobody working on automated vehicles for the US military (AKA drones) believes she on a higher moral ground than Stallman, that never hurt anybody.

People should be outraged that said nobody wrote "Remove Stallman and all the other toxic people in tech" like if "removing" people is ok, like she knows who they are, 'cause she's the ultimate judge, and as if building weapons is not toxic...

BTW

RMS has been much more brave and clear than that.

He wrote

    "if someone in csail says in this discussion group that Minsky was accused of sexual assault, a very serious accusation, and someone else in csail thinks that he was not, should the latter person refrain from saying so in this same discussion group out of concern that the conversation will leak and be misconstrued by the press?"

    The in stands for "science". The job of scientists is to evaluate evidence and seek truth. We have a social responsibility to do that as well. I hope that we scientists will never evade our social responsibility to seek and defend the truth out of fear that the press will misconstrue our search. That would not be a reputation I would like attached to my affiliation.

   I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone.

He did what he believed was the right thing to do.

He was doing it to protect the movement and the protest from

a - leaks to the press

b - bad PR, if they used sexual assault people could spin it as "but he didn't assault her, it was consensual sex" like they usually do: they shoot the messenger or the form of the message to not address the real issue and divert the attention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts)

c - he was UNDOUBTEDLY right! nobody is talking about the protest against Epstein-MIT involvement.

good job Selam, good job everybody

> working on automated vehicles for the US military

Somehow I missed this, so a person literally working on helping the government kill people was the one asking to remove RMS? Interestingly enough, such hypocrisy came up in all the deplatforming cases too, where they removed some relatively innocent stuff claiming it had bad impact on people, but ignored and keep ignoring all the weapons promoting content, war propaganda, etc. that literally causes death and destruction.

> Somehow I missed this, so a person literally working on helping the government kill people was the one asking to remove RMS?

Yep

https://www.linkedin.com/in/selam-gano-089895ba/

"Mission accomplished." Reminds me of the women who accused Assange. Then there is the witchhunt against Jacob Appelbaum. Sense a pattern?

Regardless of whether these allegations are true or false, there is a lesson to be learned here. The lesson here is that [some] men have a severe weakness related to their sexuality. I'd assume US HUMINT knows about this lesson, very well.

> me of the women who accused Assange

There's a huge difference though.

Assange after he was accused of rape escaped from the process and started rambling about a “radical feminist conspiracy”

Stallman is not accused of anything, never escaped and if you write to him (he still answer to everybody) will ask you to support the FSF because it's important

And this is the man women and students should be afraid of...

> after he was accused of rape

Rape implies... rape. He is just accused of removing a condom.

> escaped from the process

Wasn't that due to the (rightful imo) fear of being sent to the US?

> He is just accused of removing a condom

1) That's rape and 2) he's accused of more than that.

Here's the case: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html

This sounds pretty rapey to me.

> As regards offence 1, AA said in her statement that she had offered the use of her apartment to Mr Assange from 11-14 August 2010 when she was away. She had returned on 13 August 2010 earlier than planned and then met him for the first time. They went out to dinner and returned to her apartment. As they drank tea, he started to fondle her leg which she welcomed. Everything happened fast. Mr Assange ripped off her clothes and at the same time broke her necklace. She tried to put her clothes on again, but Mr Assange had immediately removed them again. She had thought that she did not really want to continue, but it was too late to tell Mr Assange to stop as she had consented so far. Accordingly she let Mr Assange take off all her clothes. Thereafter they laid down on the bed naked with AA on her back and Mr Assange on top. Mr Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina, but she did not want him to do that as he was not using a condom. She therefore squeezed her legs together in order to avoid him penetrating her. She tried to reach several times for a condom which Mr Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without a condom. Mr Assange must have known it was a condom AA was reaching for and he had held her arms to stop her. After a while Mr Assange had asked AA what she was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together; AA told him she wanted him to put on a condom before he entered her. Mr Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found for him. AA felt a strong sense of unexpressed resistance on Mr Assange' s part against using a condom.

> That's rape

Legally in Sweden? Sure, but in everyday speech rape implies a lot of things which did not happen in the Assange case. I would say that Stallman's argument about sexual assault would apply perfectly here.

Legally in the UK. If Assange wants to use the "it's not rape in Sweden" defence the place to do that is in the courts, which he has spent considerable effort avoiding for the past decade.

> Rape implies... rape. He is just accused of removing a condom

Was Stallman right (again!) when he wrote

    "I think it is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17,"

Of course he was!

According to Swedish law, that's rape.

Welcome to the rest of the world, where the US laws do not apply.

> Wasn't that due to the (rightful imo) fear of being sent to the US?

Still escaped and blamed "feminists"

Would Epstein be right to escape because US wanted to prosecute him on the account of trafficking young girls?

> Would Epstein be right to escape because US wanted to prosecute him on the account of trafficking young girls?

I think I’d argue that yes, from his perspective, in hindsight, that would probably have been a good idea.

> Then there is the witchhunt against Jacob Appelbaum. Sense a pattern?

DJB too, see https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160607-dueprocess.html and https://eindhoven.cr.yp.to/false-statements-by-henry-de-vale...

Ok just so we're clear...

You're arguing that defending a statutory rapist isn't supporting pedophilia BUT working on the guidance systems for an autonomous ground vehicle is "help the government kill people"?

> You're arguing that defending a statutory rapist isn't supporting pedophilia

Wrong.

I'm saying that Stallman never defended a statutory rapist.

He tried to defend the protest from the backlash of using the wrong terms and a dead person from an accusation that is hard to prove anyway now that he's dead.

Statutory rape is just a safer option given the circumstances.

BTW defending a statutory rapist is not supporting pedophilia or any attorney who defended an alleged (there is no official accusation yet) statutory rapist was also supporting pedophilia?

> for an autonomous ground vehicle is "help the government kill people"?

That's what drones are for...

And I've never said that either.

I've only said that she works there.

"Passionate about using engineering for a positive impact on the world." - well most of us think we are not the bad guy but the cognitive dissonance is strong here.

Not all force is physical.

> that it shouldn't be called sexual assault if no physical force was used in the sexual act

The fact Stallman doesn't understand what assault means, and then used his lack of understanding of the word assault to defend Minsky, is exactly why people are annoyed with him.

Assault does not require force or violence.

> The fact Stallman doesn't understand what assault means

he knows very well.

He meant, and it's obvious from the emails, that the term is slippery if used to accuse someone.

It would have been better something like "statutory rape"

because it's not disputable.

But assault in law and English does not require use of force, and if Stallman meant to say "let's call Minsky a statutory rapist" he could have said that. He didn't, he went on to say that we shouldn't define rape by age -- clearly trying to prevent people calling Minsky a rapist.

A. That was not what he argued.

B. One could quite reasonably object to the use of a term whose legal definition is very different from the everyday meaning or connotations.

Yes, it was waht he argued. Here's what he said.

> The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.

> The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef... records-unsealed.) Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).

> The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.

Read this last paragraph.

Now read an English definition of assault. English words have several meanings. Stallman is ignoring the every day English meaning of the word assault because he doesn't understand how English works.

> Assault:

> 1) violent physical or verbal attack

> 2) any act that causes someone to feel physically threatened, which is considered reckless or intentional, and which need not necessarily involve any physical violence

> 3) rape or attempted rape

I don't understand why you'd say this...

> One could quite reasonably object to the use of a term whose legal definition is very different from the everyday meaning or connotations.

The legal definition isn't different to the everyday meaning, but even if it is Stallman needs to understand which definition is being used before he launches into his rape-apology, and he made no effort to do that, did he?

> Assault does not require force or violence.

To the minds of the majority of people sure it does.

Actually, his claim was that it shouldn’t be called assault if no force or coercion was used by the older man, and the older man couldn’t be expected to know that his partner was being coerced by someone else.

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