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Here[0] is a post by someone else who (by his own account) "worked for RMS longer than any other programmer."

While he obviously has had a long relationship with Stallman, one of his key takeaways was:

"RMS’s loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior. It does not matter if they are appropriate responses to a single email thread, because they are the right thing in the total situation."

Which I think is very well said. So while Paull's assessment that people's reaction to some email quotes is out-of-proportion, this is really just the proverbial straw on the back of the camel.

[0] https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...

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And here [0] is someone else who (by his own accord) worked with both RMS and Bushnell and is saying Bushnell is bullshitting and grinding an axe:

[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/11744336549420...

> Bushnell and I overlapped in our employment at FSF. ... The general culture of inclusiveness and tolerance that RMS fostered meant that, at least when I was there alongside Bushnell, that social circle in and around the organization was feminized and all the stronger for it. This does not mean, of course, that RMS (or any of us) never gave offense or acted stupidly. But Bushnell's portrait showing a depraved sexist coddled by this or that MIT prof. is simply bullshit, and Bushnell probably knows or should know that in his heart.

> "The general culture of inclusiveness and tolerance"

That was not the Stallman I saw at CSAIL. There are many good things to be said about Stallman, but in multiple years there I never saw either tolerance or inclusivity.

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019.

For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree with the whole “free love” movement and think sex should only be done in a lifetime monogamous commitment.

I have met and have had dinner with RMS; he came off to me as a very kind person who has very strong principles. I do not see the imaginary monster that the outrage clickbait media is trying to make RMS be in him.

Yeah, from someone who was there, that's almost it. I'd add hacker punk as another key influence. But seriously, you don't say that stuff in public these days.

Edit: Even if you're joking, or just doing it to light people up. Which was, you know, quite the thing. Back in the day.

And damn, had to work at it, but I found a couple BOFH episodes that actually mention women.[0,1]

0) https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/2009/4

1) http://bofharchive.com/1998/bastard98-21.html

Yeah, I agree that you don’t say that stuff in public these days, and I have always felt that, with Romeo-and-Juliet exceptions, the age of consent should be respected.

Keep in mind that, around the time RMS posted those more controversial blog entries (which I still feel are being quoted out of context [1]), the Wikipedia was allowing out and out pedophiles to post their disgusting and repulsive pro-pedophilia advocacy [2]. And, yes, I found that advocacy repulsive back then and find it repulsive today. [3]

[1] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ No, I did not write this article, but I think it makes some legitimate points.

[2] https://archive.is/iG9KX (Trigger warning for victims of child sexual abuse)

[3] At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... (Again, trigger warning) I expressed my opinion in 2004 that what the Wikipedia was allowing w.r.t. pro-pedophile opinions back then was repulsive, an opinion I still hold today.

What’s considered toxic about the free love movement?

It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish.

[1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges.

[2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with them. Dishonest stuff includes getting a woman drunk so they will consent to sex; lying about one’s wealth or achievements (the canonical example is someone who never joined the military claiming they are a Navy SEAL); etc.

I’m pretty sure both those things existed before the sixties.

I was there, and part of it.

You may find it hard to believe, but there were lots of young women who were just extremely promiscuous. Just as promiscuous as the young men were. Free sex was a political statement. A form of rebellion against the status quo. And of course, it was enabled by the ready availability of antibiotics and hormonal birth control.

I saw a lot of that movement too, probably not as much as you.

My sense is that no one was finding any real satisfaction from having short term strictly sexual relationships, and my sense in this day and age of #MeToo (which I very strongly feel has become a witch hunt) is that some men were hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.

Right. I was an illegal immigrant from Russia. And an LSD dealer. I was also ~homeless, and living out of a VW bug.

It wasn't about having "meaningful relationships". It was about having fun. And forgetting about dying in a nuclear war. For those who weren't alive in 1962, you really have no clue.

Just wanted to say it’s fantastic to see this perspective expressed so clearly, when many have taken the puritanical aspects of feminism to heart as something that’s obvious and certain in educated society.

It’s as if certain aspects of preferences and free will are now inconceivable. Refreshing to see a more accurate historical account.

>> hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.

I can definitely say as a man that in the context of some women in my life I would be hurt if sex is the only thing they wanted from me, too.

I don't necessarily see how the whole free-love movement is supposed to be responsible for my delusions about what kind of a lover I am currently hanging out with, though.

Hmm, I think those are pre-existing pathologies in society that free-love folks have worked really hard both to prevent—by empowering women, by frowning upon non-lesbian couplings, by talking extensively about informed and enthusiastic consent, and by fostering cross-gender friendships the monogs were suspicious of—and to reduce the harm from, for example, with birth control, condoms (and strong norms against not using them), and by socially supporting single motherhood. Sex parties in free-love circles very frequently have strict rules against alcohol, while many serial monogamists can only copulate when intoxicated. So I think you're probably mistaken.

The “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as I understand it, did not really have people widely using condoms. It was assumed that women were on the pill or used a diaphragm.

Condoms only really became a thing in the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic hit the world.

Your post gives me a lot of hope; I really hope that we can reverse the trend of people, particularly young people in their 20s, having sex less and less. [1]

I personally would not partake in such a free love movement, but I really want to see, post-#MeToo, a world where it’s OK for a man to sexually desire a woman, as long as he also sees her as a person with feelings, is not being manipulative to get sex, and fully respects consent.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/well/family/millennials-l...

> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html

> I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...

Damn, he actually wrote that under his real name? That was unwise. I wouldn't even say that as Mirimir. Except about prostitution and adultery, of course.

There was also one that I can't be bothered to find that goes something along the lines of "teens sext each other, therefore child pornography should be legal".

Well, there was that recent case about the tween girl who got convicted of distributing child pornography for sexting another tween.

So it's obvious to me that underage sexting itself shouldn't be prosecuted as child porn. Because if they're old enough to prosecute as adults, they're also old enough to legally share naked pictures of themselves.

But of course, it's arguable that third parties -- especially adult third parties -- who distribute such images should be prosecuted.

Look, this conversation right here that you're making is exactly why people beiing willing to take a stance against these sorts of "thou shalt be dumped upon for even mentioning" things is necessary.

He's not a fool in that regard. He understands that as long as you can attach paedophilia to something, this type of outrage phenomena can completely sink any attempt at civil discourse, and can be weaponized in order to force through liberty/civic rights destructive measures. Think about it.

We could frame an Act to implement Panopticon for the sake of catching Paedophiles, and then poof! Resistance disappears because if you dissent, you're now pro-paedophile! Yet every last civic minded person who values personal freedom/liberty should be able to tell that the inevitable result of such a system being implemented is inevitable abuse.

Now replace that with LGBT rights, or women's rights, or sexual assault, or any other controversial theme under the sun.

You cannot have the Nazi exception. In any form, or on any topic. Freedom is Freedom. And you can't even dismiss it with a handwave to the freedom to experience consequences either, because you're just perpetuating the sin you're willing to punish Stallman for by tolerating the outright lies of the reporter which fueled the whole thing in the first place.

https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-t...

People need to put the pitchforks down, and go about your day. You should advise the people who started the entire hubbub that the proper place to deal with that disagreement was with Stallman himself in private, maybe with an administrator.

If we resort to mob justice to get our way, we end up throwing out any semblance of Order to our country, instead we just end up with a reflexive gaggle of inflammable passions waiting for the next match to be struck.

I hate to say it, but you really can't fault Stallman on this one. You can be annoyed. You can find it distasteful; but in the end he is exactly right. It is important that the more heinous the accusation, the greater the pains needed to be taken to ensure that we specifically and only read into what is actually there, and adhere to what is actually actionable by law.

Otherwise you see exactly what has erupted here. An outburst of rage against someone completely uninvolved, combined with the burning down of the metaphorical village for what?

A Five Minute Rage?

Christ, how Orwellian! 1984 isn't even being misused as a manual. It's here and now. God help us.

This is incredibly dramatic. Orwell warned us of governmental censorship. Huxley warned us of government and citizen complacency. What we are experiencing here is something else, and it's NOT in the form of a law, or a punishment, or anything else. The government is not enforcing these actions on anyone. People are free to mob around an idea and attempt to actuate results. You can still speak your mind. It has nothing to do with 'Our Country'. Your equating of the two is worrisome

>People are free to mob around an idea and attempt to actuate results. You can still speak your mind. It has nothing to do with 'Our Country'. Your equating of the two is worrisome

You are free to "mob" around an idea. Yes. You are free to actuate to generate results. I do not contest that.

>Equating of Our Country

I'm merely referencing a collective investment and faith in a system of Law and Order as set forth in the Constitution.

Everyone is free to believe as they want, but reality demands it's toll when your "belief" begins to extract cost in the form of pursuits of extrajudicial justice. When you start seeing the lynch mobs gather (which make no mistake, this type of escalation isn't that far off from; reputational violence is still violence), I put my foot down.

It darn well should be concerning. There are clearly battle lines being drawn. There is a growing corpus of individuals that see fit to utilize internetworking and information warfare through disinformation to cause harm; without due process, or respect to any authority or attempts at officially mediated redress.

Civilization depends on mutual restraint, and unity in the agreed upon means to the redress of grievance. If individuals cannot come to the table to resolve their issues in a private manner, or do something novel, like calling each other out on something without outright lying in a public forum, or maliciously smearing each other in a manner unable to withstand basic scrutiny, but leading to a widespread disruption of the peace, then battle lines are well on their way to being drawn. Voicing the truth is one thing. Sometimes, it is unpleasant, but needs to be spoken. ; but to spread lies and slander maliciously to the end of tormenting hatred is another.

I have no qualms with any of these people's causes. My beef is with their means. Given the increasing frequency with which people seem to be taking rather cavalier positions with the truth, and asserting that others should be deprived of their station without due process of any kind (the nigh inevitable result of a malicious false media campaign), a boiling point is clearly coming.

I hate it. I don't know what to do about it, but it is written on the wall clear as day. There is very serious change on the horizon. This digital age has brought forth the new lynch mob. A veritable army of people can rebroadcast the worst types of untruth about you with little or no redress. I can't even say I can endorse their behavior from an ends justifies the means point of view. If everyone got these types of posses together and went after everyone else all the time, I don't see a reachable equilibrium. The sides just get larger, and wider until you either have the very quintessential example of the oppressed minority (thereby the minority deserves legal protection), or both sides get large, polarized, and energized enough where should violence break out, it's a threat to the entire system.

I'm afraid our civilization is in the fits of a social anaphylaxis; and I have no idea what the anti-histamine would be. The adrenaline analog, however, is something we all know, and history has demonstrated time and again.

Violence.

I don't want it to come to that. If we can't stop making war against each other with words, there is nothing to keep us from falling upon each other with fists when the time comes that patience wears thin.

Stallman, for all everyone is enraged at his gall and supposed insensitivity, said what absolutely needed to be said.

I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't care for everyone involved. I understand. I may not agree, but damnit, I understand. I wish the entire thing never happened. That Epstein and his shenanigans would have been dealt with years ago instead of being allowed to fester. That none of those girls had to go through what they did. That two men of great intelligence weren't caught in the middle of it.

But letting things devolve to this level of incivility is unacceptable. I cannot, and Will not on any last scrap of good conscience stand by and let this travesty play out without being heard.

If all it means, is that everyone reads this, and waves me off as a crank so be it. I can accept failure. I tried. It is my hope that maybe, just maybe; even if it isn't in this issue in particular, mywords can act as a seed.

A seed from which others may find that within the fertile landscape of their minds will burst forth a renewed commitment to treat each other with decency, respect, civility, and forgiveness.

I don't care who you believe in, but if you can muster at least those four qualities,and maintain them to any degree, there is naught to be feared.

Good night, and may whom you worship (if any) bless.

> There was also one that I can't be bothered to find

Then please don't post it. Lazy citation of original material is how we got here.

There are lots of them, and they're easy to find. They're all on his website. Here are a few.

RMS has made a few comments saying that images of child sexual abuse should not be illegal.

https://stallman.org/archives/2012-jul-oct.html#15_September...

> Rick Falkvinge joins me in demanding an end to the censorship of "child pornography", and points out that if in the US you observe the rape of a child, making a video or photo to use as evidence would subject you to a greater penalty than the rapist.

> The article does not mention that it's common practice for teenagers to exchange nude photos with their lovers, and they all potentially could be imprisoned for this. A substantial fraction of them are actually prosecuted.

https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html

> The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

> Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.

https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...

> Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization. [Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the old link was broken.]

https://stallman.org/archives/2017-mar-jun.html

> In the US, people convicted for having copies of child pornography tend to get longer prison sentences than those convicted of having sex with children.

> Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights.

https://stallman.org/archives/2011-may-aug.html

> "Child" pornography is being used as an excuse to threaten all American internet users' privacy.

> The term "child pornography" is dishonest. The censorship of it puts young lovers in direct danger of prosecution.

> Many published works are disgusting, but censorship is more so. In the Internet, enforcement of censorship puts other rights in danger.

> Please support demandprogress.org's campaign against this bill.

There are loads of these. Stallman takes a hardline anti-Censorship view, and he sees any prohibition on possession or distribution of images of child sexual abuse as censorship.

His argument about criminalising children who share images of themselves with other children has a simple fix: stop prosecuting children for doing stupid shit.

> His argument about criminalising children who share images of themselves with other children has a simple fix: stop prosecuting children for doing stupid shit.

That would be less rule of law, and more blind faith in the benevolence of public officials.

man, taken seriously most of it does sound awfully wrong of course, no argument here. Yet about taking it seriously - this is the quote that follows yours a bit later :

" Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. "

Ah, the old "it's just a joke" justification.

That's not a joke. He's serious.

You may be responding to the wrong comment, because that was the point of mine.

I mention this elsewhere in this sub-thread, but RMS was not completely out of line in 2003 or 2006 writing those kind of things. It was an era when it was still an open question whether the Wikipedia should have pro-pedophilia advocacy in their entries.

For the record, I have never endorsed those positions [1], but I also see that they were on the fringe of acceptable discussion at the time.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo... for how I felt about pro-pedophile advocacy back in 2004, in an era when a small outspoken fringe worked really hard to make it part of the Wikipedia.

Just because a few people where discussing this doesn't make it out of line. I remember 2003-2006 well enough. There was no discussion in society about this.

This - it may be the case that Wikipedia was discussing this, but mainstream society was just the same as now.

The episode of Brass eye lambasting the scares about it actually came out in 2001, so the assertion is nonsense.

> It was an era when it was still an open question whether the Wikipedia should have pro-pedophilia advocacy in their entries.

NAMBLA and similar will take every opportunity to push pro-paedophile[1] and pro-abuse positions. Your example just speaks to the nativity of Wikipedia (and a bunch of other US tech companies) around people who commit contact offences against children.

But we need to be clear: this was not in anyway a mainstream position. It was a smallish number of child abusers gaming a system.

The most recent example isn't just about what he said though. It's about how he said it. And it's this that people find unacceptable. The discussion was about how to manage the potentially serious image problem when a high profile member of the organisation has been accused of sexually assaulting a child.

Either he doesn't know that this is the wrong time to say those things, or he does know and doesn't care, but either way it made it harder for other people to do their job - managing the comms of having your organisation financially linked to a high profile sex offender.

[1] I guess we need to say that some people with a sexual interest in children will not commit offences against children, and so some pro-paedophile commentary is acceptable.

>I guess we need to say that some people with a sexual interest in children will not commit offences against children, and so some pro-paedophile commentary is acceptable.

this is just incredibly stupid to believe, pro-paedophile commentary is acceptable? why in the ever living fk would that be aceptable? because a pedo might not actually commit those acts? are you stupid?

We've banned this account. Posting like this will get your main account banned as well, so please don't.

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

These are obvious examples of «things you can’t say», e.g. opinions that are considered normal in some societies and times, and anathema in others.

(For reference, in case someone hasn’t read it: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

Without saying anything about my own stance on these opinions, it’s intellectualy weak to consider it a firable offense to have uttered them thirteen years ago. People should be stronger than that, and have a wider perspective.

Those words didn't disappear and resurfaced from some secret tape or whatever. They're on his own blog, first-party information quoted all over the place, and recent email scandal just proves that he never really changed.

Also, here's a quote of his about people with Down syndrome:

> If you'd like to love and care for a pet that doesn't have normal human mental capacity, don't create a handicapped human being to be your pet. Get a dog or a parrot...

https://twitter.com/popey/status/793384010718248960?lang=en

Seriously, everyone's better off with him gone, including free software as a whole. He's not worth defending. It was about damn time he actually faced some consequences for his shitty behavior.

The quoted sentence addresses the parents or potential parents who purposefully make mentally handicapped children, not the handicapped children.

It's easy to make these kind of reading/comprehension mistakes when one gets caught up in cancel culture and their outrage mobs.

He just called a human being with down syndrome the same as a pet. a human being, nobody is having problems with reading comprehension except the people that have the same mentality as him (pedos, topminds, etc.)

Can you explain why these opinions are inappropriate? What makes someone with aggressively libertarian views unsuitable to lead the Free Software Foundation?

Should a 10 year old be allowed to smoke, drink, and do harder drugs? If no then why should a 10 year old be able to pick their adult sex partner(s)?

There are plenty of anarchists in the world who would respond with an emphatic "yes".

Should we be taking steps to ensure anarchists aren't allowed to write software or work at a university?

Did I say he should not be" allowed to write software or work at a university"?

It is concerning to me that RMS would allow kids to make adult decision while at the same time saying that adults selling software to other adults under licenses he doesn't like should be punished.

I think it's reasonably sound logic from a libertarian perspective.

The more concerning thing is he's not allowed to simultaneously discuss that line of thinking while working at MIT.

Libertarians typically believe in a right of contracting something which RMS doesn't so it may not be totally correct to examine his ideas from a strict Libertarian viewpoitn.

If there is a requirement that the head of the FSF is easily understood by ordinary people there can't be a head of the FSF. Ordinary people don't understand or care about software freedom. The acknowledgement of that was why the Open Source people split from the Free Software people back in the day. The best anyone can do is make arguments that are correct if someone takes the time to read and think through them. Stallman is that sort of person, and that is likely the sort of person who is going to be at the head of the FSF if they are effective and not just a vague cheerleader. This current 'scandal' is probably a sign that the Free Software movement will die and be subsumed into the Open Source world - anyone promoting freedom is going to be a radical.

In this case, I expect but don't have time to check that Stallman is using a very wide definition of coerced that captures most or all of whatever you are uncomfortable with and he is going to be technically correct on most if not all of his original points. That is completely in his style.

And more to the issue at hand, these are questions that are irrelevant to Stallman's position as head of the FSF or his role in MIT. He is not using his position to push pro-adultery themes. He is calling on people to think about what words mean and what the implications of those meanings are. People can't kick up a stink for something that happened 10 years ago and claim that nothing has changed. Stallman is perfectly happy to stand up and say that he's changed his mind on many points. A couple of lines on a personal website are just not that insightful into his character.

Also, whether alcohol or drugs should be available for consumption by anybody is still an open question. That is a different debate. Most of the arguments as to why a 10 year old shouldn't be drinking can actually be applied to a 40 year old. The major difference (brain development) is a big deal but there are a lot of other problems with addictive substances that are not age dependent. Why should it be acceptable for a 40 year old to drink but not a 10 year old? There are interesting aspects to consider there and to logically pin down the reasoning to a moral framework requires quite a bit of thought and probably discussion with others.

If I have the wrong opinion on the matter, will you assassinate my career for it regardless of the rationality of any argument I might make?

How do you reach that conclusion from what I posted? If punishing people for the wrong ideas is wrong is RMS wrong for saying those who release closed source software are deserving of punishment?

My guess is he means punished in the marketplace, ie, not buying proprietary software - not punish as in throw them in jail for buying/selling proprietary software.

It's a perfect example of where our society seems to be heading. Taking words and sentences out of their context and publishing the fragments over and over leads to incomplete understanding and misinterpretation.

To me, this is similar to the recent cases where some public figure said the N word 10 years ago, and so their present company fired them. Remember the phrase from childhood "Stick and stone may break my bones but words can never harm me." That's the principle of free speech. We sure don't have that anymore.

If you are a media person and use the N word in your position, and it's against your employer's policy to do that, fine - you're fired. But if you personally are a racist or hate gays or whatever, that should be your choice, and if you say the N word to your neighbor and they record it, your employer should not be able to fire you.

We have become way too sensitive IMO, and the fact that news is on 24/7 (they have to fill that time with something!) and is more about evoking feelings, spouting opinions and prophecies, and sensationalism than it is about facts, is a big part of the problem.

Those views are pretty far outside the Overton Window even for the free love movement.

Frankly, Bushnell and the response to him clearly show none of this should be decided in the court of public opinion. Even if either of these people are correct, none of what we've read or heard so far is in any way sufficient to condemn Stallmann and ruin his career and none of us is in an appropriate position to make that determination. He underwent utter character assassination in the media who went to great lengths to pretend his argument regarding that other MIT professor was about defending Epstein and pedophilia and I'm still mad that so many people fell for it. Maybe Stallmann might possibly be a terrible piece of shit, but this wasn't the way to go.

The first I heard was about how he was a guest in Denmark almost 30 years ago and fouled up his room. Nothing bad happened to him, he was lucky.

Stallman had luck with public opinion many, many times. This time his luck changed.

It's unfair to deplore the bad luck and forget about all the times he had benefited from good luck.

Fouled up his room? What do you mean, like, he couldn't figure out how to operate the hotel room door lock?

No, he stayed as a guest at the home of one of the DKUUG regulars and his girlgriend, who afterwards wrote an angry article about it in the DKUUG-nyt. I see the early-nineties issues have been scanned, http://www.dkuug.dk/wp-content/themes/dkuug/arkiv, but I haven't the time to look through them now. The main issues were matters of personal hygiene and the way he treated the girlfriend.

Much the same all been posted later, again and again, https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/richard_stallmans_disgrac... links and quotes a bit.

I still don’t understand what you mean by “fouled up his room?”

Do you mean he messed up the furniture? Spilled tomato sauce on everything? Overflowed the toilet?

There's a reason all these stories stay so vague - as soon as the details come out, it turns out to be lies, exaggerations or really really minor stuff.

By keeping the narrative at the level of "fouled up his room", "made women feel uncomfortable", "drove people out of open source" the people who attack him can make sure that no one can prove them "wrong". Of course, they also ensure that they can't prove anything themselves, but it's not really about that.

I guess a good criteria for criticism should at least be something that passes AirBnB editorial review.

That archive is a gem on its own! I can't find the article about RMS though, and I've scanned through about 16-17 issues so far. Do you happen to know which issue it is?

Aside from that, this is a great magazine and it's so much fun reading through old articles from the 80s and 90s about Unix. I didn't know Denmark had such a large Unix scene back then.

I've clicked a fair few myself, looking for it... I read the story in 1994 or slightly later, but it was old already. I'm running the whole archive through pdfsandwich now to be able to grep.

Grep found it: Issue 121, dated long after 1994.

Thanks. Read it now. This is a great article and I laughed out loud several times. RMS is a true eccentric.

Note the footnote:

>> Det skal iøvrigt nævnes, at RMS til daglig bor på sit kontor på Massaschusets Institute of Technology, hvor han engang har arbejdet, så det er måske ikke så mærkeligt, at hans sociale evner er begrænsede.

Nobody is talking about luck. He was the victim of an unfair and unjust attack by the media, who distorted his words in a disgusting way. There is no way to justify that by referring to his other behavior, no matter how bad it may be.

Do you think it was okay that he escaped censure so many times for no substantive/relevant reason? Do you think it's okay that he now is unfairly harshly censured, again for no substantive/relevant reason?

What I'm trying to say is that the two answers should be the same.

> Do you think it was okay that he escaped censure so many times for no substantive/relevant reason?

If that is true, then no. I don't know the details of the other issues though.

> What I'm trying to say is that the two answers should be the same.

If the situations are truly mirror images, then yes my answers are the same. I'm skeptical that they are, though.

The guy is important for one reason only. He was extremely prophetic, and started an important movement that increased our computing freedoms significantly.

He was always socially maladjusted. I remember him eating his toenails while sitting on-stage a decade ago. That kind of thing shouldn't matter for what he represents and does.

Bushnell calls himself a "social justice warrior". These exact words. And in my experience, he's lived up to the common meaning of that phrase. Does this behavior affect how you should regard Bushnell's recent article? Make up your own mind.

It’s almost as though two people can see the same situations or behaviour and come to different conclusions as to the nature and motivation behind them. What is obviously sexist to one person might be normal behaviour to another.

Bushnell* writes a very reasonable piece. It deals with a number of issues with Stallman as a leader of the FSF and MIT and suggests Stallman is unlikely to come back to either of those institutions.

But he doesn't deal with what the big problem here is - the way this was done is concerning. Stallman wasn't forced to resign by people like him - who are quite happy to say "Look, Stallman, you've dedicated your life to this, you've done good work, but we want to take the movement into a more mainstream place".

Stallman resigned in the middle of a press firestorm, based on lies, with people publicly accusing him of supporting someone he called a 'serial rapist'. He is now facing large numbers of people retroactively justifying his treatment by spreading various rumours that may or may not be true but certainly can't be enumerated and assessed for accuracy. They are unfalsifiable and undebunkable because so far there is very little substance and a lot of hearsay. I've seen the odd comments justifying all sorts of weird assumptions, in one case literally because 'he was an eccentric bloke'. This is gross pigeonholing and stereotyping.

This is not a reasonable process and the outcomes are horrible. Stallman has literally dedicated his life to trying to make the world better for other people. He was bought down by leaks by someone who now says "Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really" [0]. This is not how these things should be done and it bodes very poorly for the future of the FSF. Not only is there no particular reward for leading the FSF, there is also the risk of being publicly shamed and driven out.

There is a difference between leadership change by mob rule, and leadership change by voting and process. This isn't a sustainable way of doing things. It is really bad.

[0] https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2...

* EDIT - Thanks yakshaving_jgt for pointing out I said Paul. Moment of confusion, although fortunately not one that obscured the point.

Paull* and she*.

Stallman resigned in the face of people who had always known who he was being faced with the reality that the rest of the world also knew. The motivation wasn't the misquotes of his already abhorrent argument.

(source: former FSF board member)

Why do you consider his argument abhorrent before it was misquoted?

Because attempting to redefine "sexual assault" such that it only applies to cases that involve physical violence is an attempt to reduce the perception of the seriousness of the crime

It can be taken that way. But if "sexually" is omitted from "sexually assaulted" a statement can easily be misunderstood. If you add in the context that there was no direct accusation of sexual assault by the victim towards Minsky, I do find reasonable to talk about how these terms are used. I even understand his argument that these terms best not be used in accusations because there are better ones.

I find your interpretation of "an attempt to reduce the perception of the seriousness of the crime" a highly incharitable reading of what he says!

Stallman's position is pretty clearly that we should use precise language always. It seems a pretty impeccable position to me. The only people I can think of who benefit from conflating coercive and non-coercive crimes under the same term are the ones who profit from the confusion.

The language used was the correct technical term. There's no imprecision in using it.

It's unfortunate that the legal definition became broader for the same reason I think the common definition shouldn't.

I imagine however that most legislatures get around the issue by having explicit paragraphs establishing harsher punishments for violent rape vs mutually-accepted statutory rape.

The definition of "sexual assault" covers what allegedly took place. Yes, if you change the words used, you end up with an inaccurate statement. Why is that something that needs to be pointed out?

Stallman's entire point is that he feels the use of the word "assault" causes people to believe the crime is more serious than he believes it is. Pointing that out isn't uncharitable.

Using the word assault causes people to believe a different thing happened. It says nothing about the gravity of each kind of crime except that they shouldn't be the same.

The only reason "sexual assault" covers what allegedly took place is because the expression was redefined in the first place to cover two separate things, which is exactly the problem. Stallman called not for redefining "sexual assault" as you put it, but for undoing a redefinition that puts it at odds with how those terms are conventionally used and causes unnecessary confusion.

And "free software" makes people believe that the software costs nothing, but Stallman's position there isn't to suggest that we should always use a different term. Why not?

I agree the expression "Free Software" has the same problem. However the alternatives also have some problems. He discusses that here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... (I'm sure you've already read it, but it's always worth a re-read)

I'm partial to the term "Libre" myself, though in this case it doesn't matter much, since it's a concept that people aren't familiar with anyway and you have to explain it no matter what word you use.

> Yes, if you change the words used, you end up with an inaccurate statement. Why is that something that needs to be pointed out?

Because he is criticizing that exactly this mingling of terms happened!

> Pointing that out isn't uncharitable.

I'm beginning to feel that you're being willfully incharitable but give you the benefit of doubt that you could be merely misinformed.

Quoting Debbie Harry from an interview published just yesterday [1]:

> She is similarly dismissive of another horrific incident. In the early 70s, when she and Stein were coming home after a gig, a man followed them and forced them at knifepoint to let him into their apartment. He was looking for drugs and equipment. He tied up Stein, then Harry. Once he had piled up the equipment he was going to take – guitars, Stein’s camera – he raped her on the bed.

> In her book, she writes: “I can’t say that I felt a lot of fear. In the end, the stolen guitars hurt me more than the rape.” Can this be true? “Yes,” she says. “I mean, I was angry and I felt victimised. I wasn’t beaten or harmed physically, it was all emotional or mental. Being raped – or fucked – by some stranger against my will at knifepoint, you know …” She pauses and sighs. “It wasn’t a happy moment in my life, but I really, seriously, empathise with women who are beaten. That would be something that [would lead to] emotional ramifications for the rest of my life. But this doesn’t.”

> She knows it may seem hard to believe. “It is ludicrous,” she says, “and it is kind of funny that I would say it, but, truly, I wasn’t physically molested. Afterwards, I was with Chris, and I was, you know …” She makes a sound to signal the horror she must have felt. “I went on with my life. But as I say, I wasn’t beaten or assaulted and I think that, coupled with being sexually violated, is truly awful. Then you are really made to feel powerless.” But she was tied up at knifepoint. Didn’t that make her feel powerless? “Yeah. Not the same. It wasn’t for me anyway.” She didn’t have counselling, and says Stein was supportive “and we moved on”.

So Debbie Harry is certainly making a distinction here between forced sex alone and forced sex with physical violence. And for her that distinction makes what she suffered less serious than if it had included physical violence. Do you want to discount her opinion too?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/01/debbie-...

source: Google employee. FTFY!

That Google, the Ad company threatening user's privacy, abusing user's rights, collecting user's data.

The company fined for 5 billion dollars in an anti trust case in EU.

The company behind YouTube, fined for 170 million dollars for collecting kids data [1]

The company behind Chrome, that recently proposed a change to stop ad blocking extensions from working (did I say they sell ads?)

AFAIK Stallman never worked for or at any company the like of Google.

Neither did Eben Moglen, who still offers pro bono legal support for free software at the Freedom law center, which he founded.

For those that do not know him, Moglen was member of Philip Zimmermann's (PGP creator) defense team.

Strangely enough, he was another target of Garret, a couple years ago he declared him "no longer a friend of the FSF".

He was already working for Google.

[1] https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/youtube-ftc-fine-170-m...

Yes, the Eben Moglen who is suing another free software organisation for trademark infringement, threatened to sue them for copyright infringement under a ludicrous misreading of the relevant license, threatened to ruin the life of an FSF board member, and who was fired by the FSF for briefing against the FSF's interests while being paid by Oracle.

> suing another free software organisation for trademark infringement

Trademarks have to be enforced or you lose them.

> threatened to ruin the life of an FSF board member

Can you please backup this claim? I've found nothing to validate it.

> and who was fired by the FSF for briefing against the FSF's interests

According to every source I've found he resigned himself and voluntarily stepped down and left "on good terms" to take care of SFLC which he had recently founded.

It might be political jargon, but there is no way to prove he was fired.

> FSF's interests while being paid by Oracle.

AFAIK Moglen never worked or took money from Oracle.

Can you please clarify what you mean?

> Trademarks have to be enforced or you lose them.

His trademark is on "Software freedom law center", and he's suing the Software Freedom Conservancy. He doesn't hold a trademark on "Software Freedom".

> Can you please backup this claim? I've found nothing to validate it.

I was there when it was reported and had confirmation from a witness.

> According to every source I've found he resigned himself and voluntarily stepped down and left "on good terms" to take care of SFLC which he had recently founded.

> It might be political jargon, but there is no way to prove he was fired.

I was on the board when he was fired.

> AFAIK Moglen never worked or took money from Oracle

Why would you be in a position to know?

> He doesn't hold a trademark on "Software Freedom".

Has he ever claimed that?

> I was there when it was reported and had confirmation from a witness.

It is true because I say so it's not really an answer to the question.

> I was on the board when he was fired.

So you can confirm you fired him?

That's interesting.

Back then you wrote

> This, in conjunction with his behaviour over the ZFS issue, led to him stepping down as the FSF's general counsel.

You did not say "fired" anywhere.

Why didn't you just say "fired"?

> Why would you be in a position to know?

I'm in the position to ask why you're accusing someone of taking money, without proof.

It's just human decency, I happen to be a contributor (a tiny one, but sill one) of both FSF and FSLC and I would like to know if Moglen took money from Oracle to sue other FSF foundations.

You seem to know though, but you don't say.

And even if it was true, is taking money from Oracle a crime per se?

What about taking money from Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft? more than a few FSF folks work there.

> Has he ever claimed that?

You said that it's necessary to sue to protect trademarks. In this case, where is the necessity?

> It is true because I say so it's not really an answer to the question

You can choose to believe me or you can choose to believe I'm lying - entirely up to you.

> So you can confirm you fired him?

Eh. Asked him to resign with the understanding that he'd be fired otherwise.

> And even if it was true, is taking money from Oracle a crime per se?

It's not a crime, it's just inappropriate to take money from a company and provide legal opinions that serve their interests while serving as general counsel for an organisation that strongly and publicly holds a different opinion.

> You said that it's necessary to sue to protect trademarks. In this case, where is the necessity?

I understand you don't like questions.

Moglen founded SFLC and helped SFC come to the light.

He even registered SFC trademark, he asked for the cancellation of SFC, not the trademark of "Free Software".

Now it's sure that no one will try to register a trademark similar to FSLC or FSC dealing with free software.

With that move he protected both.

There's no need to double down on the false accusation line.

Facts are well know by now.

> You can choose to believe me or you can choose to believe I'm lying - entirely up to you.

I'm not a believer.

I prefer the sane way of doing things: reviewing evidence.

You are not providing any, just "believe me or not", which is not what I'd like to do when it's about my money.

You said something about Moglen that upset me, I've just asked for a clarification, that you refuse to provide.

> Eh. Asked him to resign with the understanding that he'd be fired otherwise

So you did fire him, but issued a different statement.

Good to know.

> It's not a crime, it's just inappropriate to take money from a company and provide legal opinions that serve their interests

When did this happen exactly?

Wasn't Moglen providing legal opinions to Debian, the FSF, Canonical, but not Oracle?

And What interests are you talking about?

Is Google any different from Oracle?

One of my favourite programmer ever, Alan Cox (who also kinda look like Stallman), worked for a long time on the Linux kernel but was also being paid by Intel for a few years. What's wrong about that?

> as general counsel for an organisation that strongly and publicly holds a different opinion

The different opinion was a minor difference though.

I remember the OpenZFS problem: the only difference was that Moglen believed that users can legally distribute copies of OpenZFS binary blobs as the result of the compilation of an openly licensed source code, while FSF said no.

They had the same opinion on everything else.

Even Linus said in the past “But one gray area in particular is something like a driver that was originally written for another operating system (ie clearly not a derived work of Linux in origin). At exactly what point does it become a derived work of the kernel (and thus fall under the GPL)?”

Is this enough to fire people?

BTW Canonical have been distributing OpenZFS for years now and the sky has not fallen, nor Oracle have become richer thanks to that. They still distribute the real ZFS (the proprietary one) which is a much better implementation of ZFS.

> With that move he protected both.

He protected the Software Freedom Conservancy by accusing it of violating the Software Freedom Law Center trademark? You're going to need to explain that more clearly.

> I've just asked for a clarification, that you refuse to provide.

I've clarified as much as I can. When there's no other public evidence available, what do you want me to do?

> The different opinion was a minor difference though.

It really wasn't.

> Is this enough to fire people?

Evidently.

> You're going to need to explain that more clearly.

I think you are intelligent enough to understand it on your own.

BTW, I know asking question is good, but sometimes try to answer other people's questions, it's good too!

> When there's no other public evidence available, what do you want me to do?

So we can safely assume he did not do anything you say, he's innocent until proven guilty, like any of us, right?

> It really wasn't.

It really was.

I'm with Joshua Gay (former employee of the FSF Licensing & Compliance Team) on this:

    It is not clear to me that there is any contradiction between the SFLC statement and the FSF’s statement on the matter of Linux and ZFS. That is, I can’t really find how the SFLC and FSF differ in their interpretation GPLv2 and CDDL.

The complete comment can be found here https://blog.halon.org.uk/2017/11/software-freedom-law-cente...

>> Is this enough to fire people? > Evidently

That's why it is bad, if it wasn't evident.

FSF should not act as evil corporations do.

> I think you are intelligent enough to understand it on your own.

I wouldn't be asking if I could. How does "Software Freedom Conservancy" damage the "Software Freedom Law Center" trademark?

> So we can safely assume he did not do anything you say, he's innocent until proven guilty, like any of us, right?

Given the lack of independent corroboration, it's certainly reasonable for you to assume that I'm mistaken or lying.

I must admit I didn't know who Mr. Bushnell was, so I looked him up. Finding out about his dismissal from GNU Hurd back in 2003 was quite ironic to me:

> RMS has now "dismissed" me as Hurd maintainer because I have publicly spoken against the GFDL, saying that a GNU maintainer must support and speak in favor of GNU policies. If this is really RMS's reason, then it means that he demands the right to control the speech of every GNU volunteer when it comes to GNU project policies. He wants not merely to set the direction, but also to require that each and every one of us publicly support a GNU policy when asked to.

[1] https://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/discussioni/2003-N... [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/59147/

Keep in mind that Stallman maintained that Bushnell stopped answering emails for two years, and that was the reason for firing him.

Seems like he still holds a grudge.

Interesting. Not to entirely doubt what you're saying, but the source for that statement on Wikipedia doesn't have a primary source. Do you happen to have more reading? I would love to have the complete story between them.

(Aside: Now that I look into it, Mr. Bushnell's Wikipedia page has basically been rewritten on September 22nd [1] after his article) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Bushnell&a...

So it is safe to say that at least some of the people eager to see Stallman burn have a grudge with him. In other words, they are not being objective.

One of the issues whenever this sort of cancelling occurs is of the people who come out of the woodwork to join in the calls, it turns out some of them have personal issues with the person aside from their contentious conduct. This is why these things, as others have mentioned, should be tried in official channels, not merely be executed in response to public attitudes and press releases.

What official channels? Nobody has accused RMS of anything that constitutes a crime. (But it's not surprising that the necessary qualifications for leading the FSF are stricter than the qualifications for not being in jail.)

The board could have met, deliberated, have an honest discussion, reviewed evidence. Not simply oust him a week later.

Are we sure he didn't just resign to take pressure off the FSF? Are we sure the board didn't deliberate?

It's not their job nor their responsibility to handle issues this way

Bushnell authored GNU Hurd:

"RMS: I am not very optimistic about the GNU HURD. It makes some progress, but to be really superior it would require solving a lot of deep problems. However, mainly what I think about the HURD is that finishing it is not crucial."

https://redditblog.com/2010/07/29/rms-ama/

I think Bushnell makes some good points but:

(1) he’s biased.

(2) a Googler calling out Stallman is just rich (given the debt Google, its employees, and all modern tech companies owe free software and the relatively little they repay).

> a Googler calling out Stallman

Isn't it stange that the other one calling out Stallman, Matthew Garret, is a Googler too?

Totally. I get that the OP is from Stallman's publicist. But I think a good publicist shouldn't at worse be selective about the truth, not say outright false things like this.

Plenty of people who know Stallman have made it clear that Stallman's behavior is consistent, harmful, and willful. E.g.: https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1172422966904160257

This quote from the opening paragraph "I recommend in particular Selam G’s original articles on this topic for background" doesn't do much to endear it to me. I'd hardly call the original article a very accurate representation of Stallman's words or even his overall point. Far be it from me to defend Stallman's outrageous statements and opinions, I don't feel that the original article or the subsequent media frenzy stirred up in its wake is a fair representation of the situation. The author then goes on in the subsequent paragraphs to talk about how the media circus mischaracterised Stallman...

He worked with rms longer than any other programmer and said nothing for decades? Then after this fall from grace, he piles on and acts superior?

Gross.

Yeah, where are all those articles and opinions about his bad behavior from before the recent debacle? Why are they all being written now?

And not a single word about his dismissal from RMS beforehand? And looking at the older entries on his Wikipedia entry, it seems that the dismissal itself was a controversial topic, with Bushnell claiming disagreement with licensing and RMS claiming communications blackout.

I highly doubt his recount is objective, or even tried to be.

He could've admitted to potentially being biased beforehand, that would've redeemed his account in my eyes, but having me find out that they didn't part on the best of terms leaves a bad taste instead.

How is this different than police planting evidence on a known bad guy and saying, well he was a criminal anyway so who cares, justice was done by putting him in jail with falsified evidence. As long as you get what your deserve, process is irrelevant.

One is a criminal investigation where evidence is planted. The other is not.

What got Stallman taken down was a false claim that he said Epstein's victims were "willing". That was totally a lie, and the equivalent of planting evidence.

"Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'."

https://archive.is/RVpdd

Was something planted in Stallman's case? Blowing his quotes out of proportion isn't the same thing as planting evidence. I suppose a better analogy is being on your second strike and doing some minor crime to get your third. Some would argue people on two strikes should keep their head down.

Furthermore his quotes are pretty fucking creepy.

Twisting a quote into a different meaning is a lie, and pretty similar to planting evidence. You are saying two strikes, and then we have license to make up a third to take you out.

It's called "libel".

Selam G wrote that Stallman considered that Minsky's victim was actually willing.

That's not "planting evidence" in a legal sense because sure, that's not evidence at all. Mainly because it isn't true and it's easily verifiable. But in this context, by these people, it has been taken as actual evidence against Stallman. I guess that's the rationale behind the analogy.

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