Hacker News Reader

Comment by sterkekoffie | Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure she was saying that hand-wavey statements like "he's done bad things in the past" are libelous, not people talking about their experiences. Regardless: there's another option here, where you don't dislike or disbelieve anyone, including rms. Just keep that in mind.

View on HN

It's very difficult for me to square "these are libelous hit pieces" with not disbelieving people when said libelous hit pieces reference firsthand accounts.

Said handwavey statements are also not libelous, at all. Libel is a high bar.

What is being said about RMS is easily hitting the UK standard for libel including actual harm being inflicted.

Please provide any first hand accounts of actual behaviour that justify what you said. I've yet to see any.

Luckily, no one involved is in the UK.

> 2. Richard Stallman has been contributing to a negative environment for women at MIT for over thirty years.

From the original article, contains a number of quotes from witnesses and people who felt uncomfortable or harassed due to Stallman's behavior over a span of ~20 years while he was at MIT.

Then there's this[1], this one where he argued about the re-inclusion of an abortion joke in code because his code is inherently political[2][3], Stallman apparently violating the policies at a conference he attended and going unpunished (which is a common occurrence)[4]. People have been complaining about his casual sexism publicly for decades[5].

And I'll remind you that the "charge" here, insofar that there is one, is that "Stallman behaves in a way unbecoming of a leader of the free software movement and other organizations". There's ample evidence here that he repeatedly and continually refuses to communicate with others in common ways, instead he invents his own language (no really, he has a personal dictionary on his website) and when his counterproductive communication methods cause confusion or pain on the part of others, he is generally unapologetic and unwilling to correct them.

[1]: https://twitter.com/bella_velo/status/1172524864193945603

[2]: https://twitter.com/alicegoldfuss/status/993677847280562178 (I remember people complaining about this one at the time), https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html for the entire thread

[3]: Remember this one the next time you say code isn't political!

[4]: https://wwahammy.com/on-safety-at-libreplanet/

[5]: https://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard...

Nothing here justifies what you said.

My original claim was simply "firsthand accounts are evidence". Your said there wasn't evidence. I provided firsthand accounts. Multiple ones. You are now apparently claiming that these firsthand accounts are not evidence. This is a simple falsehood. You may disbelieve these accounts, but they are still evidence. And they justify what I said: evidence exists.

These are not firsthand accounts. Nor are they accounts of actual bad behavior.

There is nothing in what you posted that merits me believing or disbelieving.

I engaged with your defamation in good faith. You provided no evidence of any bad behaviour so there is nothing more to discuss than you apologizing.

I won't be engaging further.

Edit: wow you even reposted the original hit piece.

Please explain for each example I posted, including those from the original article[1], how it isn't a firsthand account, and why the behavior is acceptable.

I went to the work of providing specific examples, it would be polite for you to specifically and precisely explain why you think they're bad. You have repeatedly avoided giving specific reasons that the examples I provided are acceptable, instead you have claimed that these examples aren't evidence, with no accompanying reason. This is not a good faith interaction by you. It's avoidance of actually addressing the evidence provided. Since it's so bad, addressing it should be quick and easy.

Edit:

> Edit: wow you even reposted the original hit piece.

Of course I did! My statement was that the original article referenced firsthand accounts. That's a true statement. There are attributed quotes. Do you deny the existence of those quotes? Like, they're there in the article.

[1]: quoted in this https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appendi...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com