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Comment by psb | Hacker News Reader

My feeling about Stallman is that he is that rare creature, a fundamentalist lefty. Its a pretty lonely island and I'm actually a little surprised he has lasted this long

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> My feeling about Stallman is that he is that rare creature, a fundamentalist lefty.

Fundamentalist lefties aren't uncommon, but Stallman isn't really typical for that group, as he's a fundamentalist of a particularly niche ideology that, while on the left in a broad sense, isn't typical of leftism (fundamentalist or otherwise.)

Just FYI,

I saw an old interview where RMS goes bananas when the interviewer calls him a communist.

Almost like he is a person that thinks about principles and morals a lot and doesn't have a position that can accurately be summarised with a ready made label...

[edit] if you follow any of RMS's thinking he is generally quite precise and careful in his writing, choosing words carefully, eschewing ready made labels and coining his own with more precise definitions.

So it would not surprise that referring to Stallman as say a "lefty", "communist", "libertarian" or a whatever would annoy him, since there is no good consensus on what those terms actually mean.

I would posit that the use of over-broad popularly contentious labels is generally counter-productive to actual thinking and one of the major problems in modern political discourse - it promotes tribalism over thinking about issues.

Labelling is a poor substitute for reasoning.

So what does "freedom" mean, he uses so much? Is there a clear consensus on that? I believe allmost everyone says he or she is for "freedom". Slavers and Nazis used the term freedom as well as the actual slaves, workers, whatever.

So yeah, he also defined his version of "freedom", but labelling sounds very RMS to me. Also the strict wording of "ethical" software, meaning only the licence he favors is ethical and good and everything else, not.

A good place to start would be this essay: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html - which he wrote because the term "free software" (as you correctly observe) would be too fuzzy.

RMS has his faults but ambiguity is not one of them. He really bends over backwards to be careful about explaining what he means.

Was it Revolution OS by any chance?

He's not a lefty. He's a fundamentalist libertarian.

I'd say he's more communist, since he seems to believe that private property just shouldn't exist. Libertarians by contrast would tend more on the scale of "you should be able to do whatever you want with your private property."

> since he seems to believe that private property just shouldn't exist

Although I'm sympathetic to that idea myself, that just isn't true in Stallman's case. He's a Bernie/Stein voter and he's read something by Emma Goldman, but I think that's the extent of his "lefty" gland.

The latter is what he wants. He is happy for people to charge for software, but he advocates that the owner must have full control.

Some argue that copyright undermines private property: https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-2

not even close:)) he is a fundamentalist statist.

A libertarian who says Americans should vote for Bernie Sanders and Australians should vote for the Greens?

He is the opposite of a libertarian. Copyleft requires, supports, validates, the state.

An actual libertarian would be pro: "there's no copyright nor copyleft; my computer -> my rules, I do whatever I want with whatever files I empirically have. And the only way to decisively stop me from doing that is to actually kill me."

Libertarians don't oppose the state, they just want its function constrained far, far below what any modern government offers; contract law and intellectual property often fall under roles libertarians consider suitable for government.

Stallman's politics cannot be easily captured with a label. Here he is endorsing the most leftist well-known candidates for US president and British prime minister: To put an end to this oppression of workers, vote for Sanders and Corbyn.

Link to that last: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#4_September_...

Here's what he thinks of "libertarians":

https://stallman.org/glossary.html#anti

But what does that have to do with him needing to step down? Was he mis-handling the GNU project? Did he abuse people? Did he force anyone to accept his social views (communist/libertarian/whatever) outside the extent to which those are manifested in the GNU project per se?

I am saddened by this occurrence, and am worried about the ability to pressure people like Stallman like this.

Keep in mind that it's pretty likely this is just vandalism. That said: if a critical mass of the people you need to work with at your project refuse to do so, it doesn't so much matter how you're "handling" the project; you won't be able to lead it effectively. If Stallman hasn't stepped down from GNU now, he may yet do so in the near future, as it dawns on him that his resignation is in the best interests of the project itself.

"if a critical mass of the people you need to work with at your project refuse to do so, it doesn't so much matter how you're "handling" the project"

If a critical mass of people refuse to work with you, that is itself a mishandling of the project. Getting people to work with you is one of the most important responsibilities of a leader.

Maybe they refuse to work with you because - for example - it's a religiously-conservative society and you have been outed as a homosexual?

Also - you're right that this is an important characteristic, but if there is active outside pressure to get people to _not_ work with you, that should not be ignored when evaluating someone's ability to lead.

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