Hacker News Reader

Comment by etiam | Hacker News Reader

Oh my god.

"all computer users" with the implication that Stallman is not representing the ones who demand to go straight to lynch mob behavior without a shadow if due process as soon as the word "sexual" is mentioned? And therefore Stallman should be thrown out of the project that is his creation and life's work?

That's got to be one of the most forced political readings ever of that point in the manifesto. Well, if that's the argument, I'm a computer user too and every one of these signatories have just demonstrated themselves unfit to represent me. Enough of the witch hunt, and hands off Richard Stallman's thoroughly earned standing in the GNU project!

View on HN

Stallman's behavior has been known to the community for a long time. He's been banned from multiple free software conferences that I've visited for his behavior; the first one of such was 7 years ago. This isn't a new "witch hunt", it's been boiling forever, it's been known forever, but now the climate has changed enough that people are believing the allegations, and he's finally facing consequences for his actions.

What due process do you want, given that it's taken at least 7 years for such allegations to be taken seriously by some subsection of the community?

What allegations ?

You came now after years with some people memories on what may have happened? Would you like to be accused of something that you may have said 20 years ago, that is not a crime but may have upset someone? Why not talk about the present, the last year and not dig ancient history because there is nothing recent to complain about.

> He's been banned from multiple free software conferences that I've visited for his behavior; the first one of such was 7 years ago.

Could you name at least couple of those conferences he was banned from? Preferably with surrounding circumstances?

I can't answer that question.

But this HN comment does a good job of describing events at a recentish conference, although not a banning:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21186822

Although I'm a big fan of RMS's deeper works (as will be obvious from my other comment), it's easy to imagine him (or to be honest, anyone insufficiently skilled at public speaking) making terribly misguided (at best) "jokes" and the like about how few women there are in tech and implying something about finding sex and girlfriends etc., and these being understood in some literal way as actual requests for sex (probably incorrectly). Just like the poor-taste sexist humour in the lower-scoring comments on Slashdot, only carried into the public, verbal arena, where it's a really bad idea, and indeed, alienating and oppressive.

That sort of thing could get a person banned at a conference these days. (It would have been treated as humorous banter a few decades ago, and I find myself imagining that's when RMS learned his trade.) But usually there's some kind of escalation process, where people are told to stop doing it, and, if necessary, have it explained to them what is unacceptable and why.

Interesting to see the latest replies to the linked comment debunk it using video. People’s memories are slippery indeed!

People don’t have memories, as such. People have opinions about what their memories ought to be. Then they construct false memories as needed.

Note: I am describing everyone, not just “other people”.

"Debunk" is a pretty strong word. If you haven't, you might want to look over the more recent replies.

Looking at it, I don’t see anything to change what I said. The person replied and doesn’t deny that they didn’t accurately state the words RMS said, just argues that what he actually said in the video is still bad since it’s a joke about sex, even though the words are opposite of what they claimed.

BTW, agreed sex jokes or talks should not have place in a technical conversation or conference. But I find misrepresenting comments to be questionable, and people criticizing others should at least spend the time to watch the video and transcribe the words correctly rather than misstate things.

This discussion would be much more productive if you discussed the specific things you're referring to. Just saying "the accusations" contributes to FUD.

Due process is for the court.

If you ousted yourself as an asshole in public, people not wanting to associate with you isn't legal, it's civilized society.

This is the important point frequently omitted.

They don't _have_ to do any of this. They _should_, though, as society demands it.

Folks are free to disagree, but this is very much the right move.

We, as a society, have established due process in the government and courts because we believe it's the right thing - the moral thing - to do. If it's the right thing to do for the most powerful entity in our land, what makes it not the right thing to do in all venues?

If I come to your house for dinner, and am an asshole to you and your family, do we need to get the law involved or should you just not invite me over for dinner again?

Perhaps I pull you aside, call you out for your actions, and give you the chance to change your ways.

One strike and your out isn't even how we play baseball.

... from the sounds of it, I assume the pull-aside convo happened and failed.

Maybe I'm too trusting. I have no evidence that kind of a convo happened. But the allegations are that RMS has been a missing stair for well over 20 years. I find it very hard to believe that someone who's been causing problems in a community for 20+ years has never had a friend pull them aside and ask them to change their behaviour.

If we're changing the analogy to specifically look at Stallman again, we need to make a few changes. Specifically, a quick note that now you're visiting his house for dinner. This changes things a bit. He may have the best open source dinner spread out there, but it's ultimately your choice to keep participating.

He is no longer the sole occupant of that house.

It's absolutely maddening to see such vociferous "defense" of Stallman in ways we know he could not stand. If you think he would tolerate an "open source dinner spread", you don't appreciate what he's actually done and have just glommed onto the bizarre 4chan personality cult surrounding him.

yeah, the only way this makes sense is if you slide right past the "multiple conferences" part in the comment rooting this thread( which, apparently, you are). And of course also the "multiple women have come forward" part in the statements online. The mental gymnastics here to justify this is awe inspiring.

They shouldn't invite you over for dinner again, but it ends there. They don't get to come for your job, your career, your legacy.

Right, so if the assholery happens at work then the equivalent of "shouldn't invite you over for dinner again" is being asked not to come back to work.

Except that in this analogy, RMS is the one who invited them for dinner. You don't simply get to tell the host that "we don't like you but I think we'll keep meeting in your house for dinner.

So you're saying that RMS, is the sole owner of everything GNU?

No. This is equivalent to a threat to strike. RMS without the GNU project maintainers is just a dude with a blog. And this approximates a vote of no confidence.

No - analogies are imperfect. But it's certainly a better analogy, RMS is not just a rude guest.

The problem is that they want to keep his ideas and achievements, but don't want to keep him.

They're free to walk away from Stallman and the movement he created, but they won't because they can't let go of the shiny. Instead, they convince themselves they deserve free software and GNU without the nasty man who built it.

Then fork. Why don't they fork? The XFree86 group didn't have an issue forking and disbanding. Yet these people, with projects like Guix that noone has ever heard of, are simply using a GNU name to lobby against the hand that fed them.

Dr Richard Stallman is a person, too. It's no longer a secret that he likely has high-functioning autism. What is he supposed to be being now being disbarred from his own project that he founded in 1985? If people think he doesn't deserve to be credited as the founder of FSF, just fork, and be done with it. Instead what they're doing is trying to actively ostracise the very hand that fed them.

I don't think that is what they mean by "all computer users".

You can not be a part of a lynch mob, and still take issue with Stallman's statements / behavior.

But the lynch mob is still there and defends its cancel culture. You can see them all over Twitter. They are ruthless.

That's not really relevant to what the folks who wrote that letter means by "all computer users".

Cancel culture isn't a thing. Being held accountable for one's actions and freedom of assocation, those are things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szybEhqUmVI

I only seen some accusation that appeared now after 20 years , where RMS said something and some people were made uncomfortable.

I agree RMS is not a sociable person but I would have preferred to see some significant "crime" , now I have the feeling that you can be kicked out from your own project if you made a stupid comment or thing in the past and the social media gets enraged by mostly FUD and exagerations of your said comment.

I've seen enough written about it, even by Stallman's supporters who say they've had conversations with him about these things before, to indicate his behavior has been more than just a poorly worded conversation.

The existence of some folks who skew those things IMO isn't relevant when it comes to the things that I've seen that seem like believable accounts.

Some of those people that wrote against RMS are not in good relations with him so you need to consider those memories as biased.

I'm not sure that means something is necessarily biased.

Our memories are always biased, now if you add some grudge in the mix I am sure you will remember the bad parts as extreme and ignore the good parts.

If that's your concern, I recommend reading up further on people's issues with rms. It's not "some accusations that appeared after 20 years," it's 30 years of pattern.

https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

Your article is fake news, RMS did not defended Epsein and the pedophilia thing is an opinion that he changed his mind about. From what I read about this topic the legal age for sex is not topic where 95% people agree one and RMS had a different view then the majority and he was convinced to change his mind (proving he is open minded)

I did not read the rest since it probably is as fake or exaggerated as the beginning.

If you didn't read it, you failed to read the part about "Richard Stallman has been contributing to a negative environment for women at MIT for over thirty years," with citations.

Then the anti RMS group could create a blog post that is 100% factual and fake. You can put facts and testimonials with names and time period when it happen, bonus points if you can mention any conflict of interest or personal biases this people may have.

I read in other places about RMS pathetic way of asking for a date so I know he was and is not perfect.

You seem to disagree that that imperfection, along with his other documented imperfections, isn't sufficient to induce people to want to walk away from his leadership.

You're entitled to your opinion, but other people would disagree with your opinion on the topic. And because free software is free as in freedom, they're certainly welcome to attempt to route around him (whether that fractures the community will be up to the community as a whole).

Utterly destroying a person's reputation should come with a damn high burden of proof. That article would be laughed out of any courtroom.

Reading that has been a complete waste of time. To save everyone else some effort:

1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy.

2. He used a bad pick-up line, saying he'll kill himself if X doesn't go out with him.

3. The MIT report doesn't mention Stallman by name.

3. Had a mattress in his office.

The discourse level in the US has hit rock bottom lately, all I see are online mobs running amok.

  1. The man has problematic opinions. Welcome to
  democracy, where people with uncomfortable opinions are
  free to hold and discuss them. This is healthy.

People are free to hold and discuss them but others are just as free to exercise their democratic right of free association by choosing not to associate with you because of them.

This last is a major contributing factor to the volume of those asking for his ouster... they are free to walk away and not use GNU or other free software, but they don't want to. They want to have their cake and eat it too, they want to keep free software and get rid of the guy that makes them feel bad about it because he's awkward and poorly socialized... like very many computer savvy people are.

These people are arguing for their own desires more than anything. They want an FSF they can feel good about, not this one with a flawed person producing the software they can't give up.

If he doesn't sit well on a pedestal, push him over and set someone else there.

That's arguably what figureheads are for; to be set up and knocked down at the whims of the public. When a person becomes symbolic of an organization, they run the risk the organization will change (or they will) and dissociation will become necessary.

He's never really been a figurehead, at least not entirely. At the start, he was one of the most prolific programmers around, and I think he still writes code sometimes.

Can you honestly say that the others have merely chosen not to associate with Stallman?

No, they are coordinating a character assassination campaign and are pressuring everyone to disavow him. It's disappointing to see people cheering mobs on, just because they seem to attack "bad" people, while forgetting that anyone can be made to look bad.

"anyone can be made to look bad" is an opinion that basically throws the human capacity for discernment under the bus, and if humans can't discern things then why bother with anything?

No; rms is gross and creepy because rms is gross and creepy. Not because some conspiracy has worked to make him look like he is.

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This is why we have due process and innocent until proven guilty.

Even if he were gross and "creepy", that's no reason to oust someone from the organizations they helped create and destroy their reputation with absurd unverifiable anecdotes, like the ones about plants or vi. Or the note hanging on the door, which was likely a prank.

Creepy is also a meaningless word, best associated with ghosts and monsters, not people. Nowadays it seems to be used to criticize awkward male courtship attempts, as if trying to romance someone isn't tough enough and those that don't know how to do it have to be ridiculed too.

We have innocent until proven guilty as a guardrail against depriving people of their freedom. That doesn't even fully describe the entire US court system, which includes civil court (standard of proof is "preponderance of evidence"), and neither of these are the same as the softer standard of when we deprive a person of the privilege of their trusted station (which is what is happening to rms). In that court, "burden of association with tarnished reputation" is plenty. That's why concepts like "the appearance of impropriety is impropriety" exist.

> I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”

I do not believe this. Stallman has no kind of irrational hate against vi beyond "church of emacs" memery. Stallman doesn't even take the editor war thing seriously.

>He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it.

Stallman lived in his office. This is well-known and well-documented.

It's not mentioned in this article, but there's also the claim that women kept plants around to scare Stallman off. This is also patently false; besides being obviously ridiculous, one can also find plenty of pictures of Stallman surrounded by plants.

All of these claims are so utterly ridiculous, so absurd, that I not only feel confident to dismiss them without evidence; I'm also inclined to believe that most of them were made in jest.

It becomes hard to believe any of the accusations when so many of those that are repeated in earnest are so laughable.

That article is basically a hit piece, meant to character assassinate Stallman based on lies and misinterpretations[0].

[0] https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

> I agree RMS is not a sociable person

Project leadership is a social task. Sometimes, being well-suited to be a chief-of-doctrinal-purity or chief-of-technology is not being well-suited to being a chief-of-chiefs.

His job is to present his idea, mostly write and present it. He does not need to go in schools,bars and churches to trick people into his believes. He has a mathematical style of presenting things: primary notions, definitions, axioms . Though I liked his sense of humor (probably some religions zelot would dislike the saint joke)

The GNU project still allows you to use, read and modify all their work with no restrictions other than you must not place restrictions on your derived work.

How have they stopped you from doing so in their signed open letter?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com