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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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 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!

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