However, as a counterpoint, do you really want to live in a world where the leadership is not determined by how skilled you are at your craft, but how well you conform to a conventional morality? RMS has done some things that don't conform to that morality, and some things that go against my own sense of morality.
He doesn't lead a religious organization. He doesn't lead a political party. He was leading technical organizations, and seemed immensely successful in doing so. I have never once heard of him doing anything that was counter to the goals of those organizations.
Why do his personal beliefs even need to be brought into the equation? Do we really intend to digress back to some kind of Puritanical morality where your ability to do anything is first judged by your piousness, and secondly by your ability to perform the job?
Personally, this has somewhat diminished my interest in both the FSF and the GNU organizations. If witch hunts based on your personal sense of morality are going to be an entrenched part of joining that community. What I look for in a technical community is just that: technology. I'll save the witch hunts for organizations that purport some form a moral compass.
It seems to me like he has enough allies to continue all of his organisations with some replacement of those who wont associate with him, so it seems to me like people are drawing lines for other people.
I have mixed feelings about his running of the organisations on a technical level, but I have more reservations about organisations after such a social coup. Similarly, I find Brendan Eich's political views distasteful, but I am more inclined to draw a line against interacting with Mozilla than Eich over people drawing lines for other people, and I would definitely shun Mozilla had they removed Eich for expressing political thoughts without making actual monetary donations.
I've worked with people far more distasteful in far more areas of their belief and behavior than those two, and I would rather the nonsense stop than empower one more moron on the web to bring someone to "justice". How is this mob going to sleep at night in a few months?
More realistically, he was hounded by a loud minority with most people shruging and waiting. Given that his situation with MIT is somewhat more complicated and he has a limited amount of resources for handling simultaneous emergencies..
We already live in that world. Within the boundaries of the law, any behavior which interferes with an organization's business, creates an intolerable work environment, or might invite a lawsuit or negative publicity can be grounds for dismissal regardless of a person's competence. Morality, politics and optics have always mattered, and matter more for leaders than others, because leaders are expected to embody an organization.
Stallman is an example of someone being given far more leeway than others when it comes to the effects of his his "unconventional morality."
I'm in the same boat. I've been eyeballing things I've been seeing about him on HN as of late.
> However, as a counterpoint, do you really want to live in a world where the leadership is not determined by how skilled you are at your craft, but how well you conform to a conventional morality? RMS has done some things that don't conform to that morality, and some things that go against my own sense of morality.
I won't look at this in a binary way. True, I'd choose to live in a cave, rather than in a community where all leaders are selected solely on their social conformance. However, work or any other activity where it is done with a group, people bring merely more than their skills. They do bring their culture, their personal touch as well, and under circumstances where this social side is extremely irritating, it could override a decision on whether to include this person into the group. That being said, how much we should care about one's persona is a complex problem and I am refraining presenting an opinion about it. From the looks of it, in this particular instance, people think it was significant enough.
His resignations are going to be a net loss for everyone, but I refuse to believe this damage has been inflicted by the community. He is the sole responsible of his mouth. If you want to bring change, then the burden of being accepted lies with the individual, him, not the community.
I appreciate RMS for all that he has done. But unless he committed a crime, which he didn't, I don't think we should police his thoughts and opinions. The thresholds for decency may be different for you and me. And RMS is not a politician whose opinions could potentially affect all of us. If you don't link what he says, you can just ignore him.
That's what this is about. Sarah Mei is coming from a place of, "Because RMS said this Very Bad Thing, no one should associate with him at all." Carrying with it an implied threat: if you continue to associate with a Bad Person, then you are a Bad Person and maybe whoever signs your checks should know just what a Bad Person you are.
Sure, but others are entitled to tell him he should step down, and he's entitled to do so if he feels like it.
I have no horse in this race, this is too much of a hot topic to take a stance about personally, but I can't say I'm enjoying the modern viral Twitter shit-storm phenomenon very much.
The loudest campaign, wrong or right, wins by deafening everybody and amplifying their moral stance through that platform.
I have nothing against Mei personally, but I _loathe_ the modern Twitter driven moralism. Does everything have to be a crusade?
Political changes tend to follow behind cultural changes here. If this cultural change has legs, then I have to wonder how long it will be before the Government does start acting more directly against anyone who has views outside of the mainstream. Social Credit score, anyone?
Government Social Credit Scores are bad. It does not follow that people don't have reputations.
Now I don't personally like Richard Stallman, but the "one tactless comment and you're dead _and_ people who want to associate with you are dead, too" approach to modern Internet justice seems wrong.
When you run a public organization, personal skills do matter.
If the contributors to the GNU project stop contributing since they do not like what he says, Stallman becomes a liability. Resignation is likely the only viable option.
It is also worth noting that there are reasons to stop contributing to an organizations for reasons other than policing the thoughts and opinions of its leadership. Sometimes people don't want to be associated with those thoughts and opinions, even if they are a strong proponent of the freedom of speech. Other people will want to limit their exposure to thoughts and ideas that they find revolting, which is difficult to do when the leadership sanctions them. While it is possible to argue that ending contributions results in the policing of a threshold for decency regardless of the motivation, the motivations are meaningfully different.
Yes, we should be grateful to Stallman for his contributions to Free Software. We should also be grateful for his resignations. Some of his viewpoints are truly harmful to both individuals and society, while his leadership role lent those ideas more credence than they deserve. If he recognizes the undue influence that leadership roles provide, we should offer him an opportunity to rebuild his reputation. Otherwise, he brought his own downfall.
If you put it to Twitter or a message board whether he's a "decent human being", you're going to get answers like "he's among the very best human beings because free software" and "he's among the very worst human beings because pedophilia".
I think it's worth interrogating whether "is Stallman a decent human being" is a question worth asking. The operative question is "is Stallman the right person to be leading the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project".
And yes, Stallman wrote twice in the past that he thought consensual pedophilia was not particularly harmful - about three lines worth among many thousands of entries in his inane "political blog" that approximately nobody reads or cares about (and on which of course nobody commented or cared about at the time they were made). These lines were lovingly collected and placed, with some other examples of his wrongthink, e.g. on the geek feminism wiki years ago. They did not play a significant role in creating the moral panic - the initial Medium article with the lie about him saying Epstein's victims were entirely willing didn't have them. The articles in the media with headlines like "Star MIT Scientist Calls Epstein Victim Virginia Giuffre "Entirely Willing"" mostly didn't include them, though a few did when the journalists went to dig for more fodder.
Thomas, I've never met you, but admired your writings over the years. Seeing you defend the mob against Stallman with well-worn platitudes like "He is welcome to his thoughts and opinions, and everyone else is entitled to their freedom not to associate with him as a result" is particularly saddening.
while there are those who believe 'stallman did nothing wrong,' i suspect many in the community who object to his forced resignation feel the same way - that it was done in bad faith.
The US President relies highly on evangelical voters. Surely this is because those voters have made a calculation on the balance of values, and despite honorable sexual conduct being an evangelical value... it didn't win in the sum of things.