RMS Support Letter | Hacker News Reader

RMS Support Letter

rms-support-letter.github.io

85 pointsmilanandreew47 comments

People who are against bullying of Richard Stallman exists too! And there are lot of them - quiet developers, incapable of social interaction. We are not reading Twitter 24/7, we are not speakers nor evangelists. We write commit messages, not tweets. We are doing things, not loud manifestos.

And all powers currently is seized by a loud crowd who believe that person should be judged by his words, not his deeds. They believe that "enough words, show me the code" is a meritocracy.

If you fear that your signature in RMS Support letter open letter may have negative consequences for your career, then just write some support words to info@fsf.org and directors@fsf.org, this is fine too!

No one is bullying RMS, they are holding him accountable for his behavior.

>And all powers currently is seized by a loud crowd who believe that person should be judged by his words, not his deeds.

His deeds actually make people (specially woman) feel unsafe in the community.

Can you give me a list of such women?

I can link you some examples, but a complete list is impossible. In the middle of this article: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

Anything more than unverifiable claims from 30 years ago? And even then, how is sleeping on a mattress oppressive? I also sleep on a mattress. I've also asked girls out when I was young, and been declined (once).

That is some twisted mythos regarding RMS. All his online, TV, and keynote appearances have proven him to be a misunderstood and harmless tech expert. What is your experience from speaking to him personally?

I can link more: https://wwahammy.com/on-safety-at-libreplanet/

But I fear no matter how much I link it will never be enough.

Quality, not quantity. This is just outrage culture, nothing special.

> “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. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason…I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)”

He lived in his office. Maybe that explains the mattress, huh?

Additionally, at some point another anonymous person has sat on RMS' mattress without wearing a shirt. We're setting the bar quite low for what counts as "abuse" here.

> Until around 1998, my office at MIT was also my residence. I was even registered to vote from there.

https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

> 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.”

So one person having allegedly told an arguably sexist text editor joke to another person is somehow good enough evidence to punish the third person who is the subject of the joke?

> Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him. [...] He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.”

Complicated story, and arguably not nice of RMS, but saying that someone is not "a man of [their] word" because they haven't committed suicide is also not nice, in my eyes at least.

> His deeds actually make people (specially woman) feel unsafe in the community.

How is that his problem and not theirs?

1. Given code is words, words and deeds would be the same thing

2. Someone who's good at code might be terrible at being a public figure, or indeed a human being other people would want to be around

How bout a person be judged by both their words and their deeds?

Also, this quasi-poetic, we-we-we, silent-majority, US vs THEM, argument comes off as "all developers must support RMS" saber-rattling.

I don't have a twitter (or any social media) and I've been a software engineer long enough that I worry about ageism. I definitely think RMS has been using his celebrity to avoid dealing with a bunch of unchecked personal demons. I also think MM relationship with JE was highly suspect.

All that said, kicking RMS out the FSF was organized publicity move because someone sensed a chink in the armor, not because they cared about MM accusers.

Yes, silent-majority, exactly.

Because we (or this is me only?) were taught that expressing point of view which differs from current "course of the party", while may not be a subject of criminal prosecution (therefore, your freedom of speech is not formally violated), but leads to "deplatforming", you may lose your contracts, your job etc. "Cancel culture" instructs us that instant breakdown of all relations is normal, and many of those who break off relations with you do this not because they disagree with your point of view, but "just in case" to avoid consequences for themself.

Brendan Eich? Eric Steven Raymond? Media personalities like Johnny Depp, Joanne Rowling, James Gunn... All these people didn't break the law, they are not criminals, but they suffered for saying something. This is not "normal"! These cases are well-known and people will now may think twice before saying a word in defense of RMS because they are afraid! This is where "spiral of silence" comes from.

Except that Depp did get convicted of abuse:

> A High Court judge has ruled that actor Johnny Depp subjected his ex-wife to domestic abuse on twelve occasions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54784429

You are right, good catch.

He's probably not the ideal public figurehead you'd want for the FSF, you can make a point that it'd be good if they chose someone less prone to creating controversies for the role, but frankly, the arguments in that letter range from inaccurate representations to complete lies, and no one should get cancelled for that.

Is there any objective context here? What has RMS said, what are the attacks? I assume there are also fair, clear-headed criticisms of what he has said and how he said it.

Do not mistake any of this friction for rational discussion.

Cancel culture is about bullying and vulgar displays of power.

This may answer your questions https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1173637138413318144

This was debated ad nauseam. First, regarding pedophilia, he was quoting a study published by The Guardian. Second, he backed dawn from his position already several years ago.

Now, imagine you quoted someone saying something controversial twenty years ago, and then apologized for it. And now someone starts a Twitter thread in a mass attack to find all your possible flaws as a human being. It's just sick.

Even if you excuse his terrible personal opinions and his egregious personal hygiene, you cannot excuse his behaviour, specially around women.

https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1173637138413318144?s...

What is annoying is the original open letter failed to go into depth about all this. I'd heard rumblings about this around the original time he was removed from various positions, but the hard transcripts here really solidify the opinion RMS is a bit of a creep. Like, "pleasure cards"? Come on dude.

He was told off for asking people out. His (an autistic man keep in mind) solution was "pleasure cards", as opposed to business cards. It's a very tame innuendo which suffers from outdated language. People don't use the word "pleasure" casually today.

Here's a picture of one of said cards - how shocking: https://twitter.com/bella_velo/status/1172524864193945603/ph...

I thought it was a pun on the silly question asked in old movies when you enter a country: "Business or pleasure?".

RMS hates business and renames everything, so it's a pleasure card. I wonder if he even intended innuendo other than being anti-business.

There is already a mechanism in place if Stallman has infringed any law, and it is not Twitter threads. The mere disliking of man's behavior does not constitute ground for his harassment in turn. Hitting on women is no crime. That linked thread is nothing but a person disagreeing with RMS's fringiest opinions. Stop with the empty mobbing of people just because you do not agree with them.

The standard on public behavior doesn't stop at what's legal or not. At least I would hope so.

Yet you don't get a man to abdicate from a life's work because some things he said in the past may get on someone's nerves. Especially with a civil rights fighter and advocate like RMS you have to weigh in what he has done too.

I assume MIT has a department which handles sexual harassment incidents. Why has none of this gone through proper channels if it's so egregious?

You didn't actually post any evidence of allegedly inexcusable behaviour around women.

Did you read the Twitter thread? It cited examples of his quite objectionable opinions.

Granted, he might have thoroughly recanted those statements, but they are always going to be baggage that the FSF is going to be stuck defending, which is not part of their mission.

Surely, there are other people who made better decisions about what is defensible and what is not.

>objectionable

Things taken out of context, at worst. At best, personal opinions.

>FSF is going to be stuck defending

From what? Outrage culture? A self-made problem? FSF is about software and software licenses, not blogposting and whataboutism.

>Surely,

No, there is not one person as qualified on free software as RMS and Torvalds, for as long as those two are alive. It's unacceptable that a non-engineer takes the lead in FSF, a software engineering oriented organisation. Maybe it'll be fine for IBM, Oracle or other profit and customer satisfaction oriented businesses to have a PR person.

> FSF is about software and software licenses

Like all advocacy organizations, the FSF is mostly about PR. “Software and software licenses” are the target area of impact.

I suggest you re-read that thread. The examples cited are his opinions.

The FSF is going to be stuck defending him now now, regardless if it’s in their mission or not. Maybe not every press conference but enough to be a distraction at best, no matter the source.

I wouldn’t suggest a non-engineer for a lead position in the FSF, but I would suggest they look to someone who hasn’t held such polarizing and objectionable opinions on such a polarizing topic.

RMS, a disgusting person who is often right about software, and built some good stuff.

Yeah, dead-on. Like "The right to be rude"[0], a year old events when Eric S. Raymond - co-founder of OSI - was kicked off from the OSI mailing list.

(Back then someone suggested adding a "we-don't-like-them" clause to Free licenses which prohibits the use of Free software by "bad people or bad companies" (e.g. the US Migration Service for its policy towards migrants). ESR pointed out a violation of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Open Source Definition: "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups", "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" in his usual way of communicating and... Well, you know how it's ended up)

[0] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8609

Yeah! I've signed it!

why?

Because they support rms obviously.

Because he is an icon of free software and a permanent lead of the community

What are the people having signed this letter back in 2019 do now?

https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...

I know what I would do if the organization I do free work for disregards my opinion in such a blatant way.

I would just walk away. I wonder how many will do this?

“Bullying”

FSF is free to choose to bring RMS back. Likewise, people and organizations are free to choose to neither fund nor support the FSF as a result.

It cuts both ways.

Why is this flagged? Even if it's controversial, it's a fault line that begs discussion, with direct and indirect implications for the vast majority of HN users.

It’s pretty crazy that there are still people out there who can defend RMS for his contributions but are perfectly capable of conveniently IGNORING his vile comments about women, Epstein and related accusations while spouting “bullying” and “cancel culture.”

Could you please quote his "vile comments" about Epstein?

Did you just miss September 2019?

Refresh your memory: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/09/17/computer...

I remember it very well. Please include his quote because I don't remember anything vile in it. I do remember though how several media outlets misquoted him ("Stallman defends Epstein", "Stallman describes the victim as 'entirely willing'") attributing to him the words he never said. Many of these still run this false story, with no correction nor apology.

The very fact that instead of a reply I receive downvotes is a good summary of the general situation.

Exactly. They refuse to accept that what was said about Stallman was false.

It's exactly the same attitude Trump has about truth: it doesn't matter.

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