Statement on Re-Election of Richard Stallman to Free Software Foundation Board | Hacker News Reader

Statement on Re-Election of Richard Stallman to Free Software Foundation Board

eff.org

33 pointsanigbrowl29 comments

It's a travesty that the EFF is linking Selam G.'s blog post as evidence of RMS's poor behavior. That article grossly mischaracterizes RMS's statements and makes it sound like he defended Epstein, which he didn't. This means that the author of this statement didn't bother to read RMS actual comments on the Epstein-Minsky issue, or that he linked Selam G.'s hit piece on purpose. Either way, this portrays EFF as an organization that doesn't care about truth. Also, I would've assumed that EFF, an organization that has promoting free speech on the Internet as one of its stated goals [1], would be against mob justice, but apparently these days they are more concerned with petty virtue signalling.

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/free-speech

The whole situation is even more absurd if you take into account the fact we're tech folks, we're supposed to be good at logic, reasoning, and detecting bias. In this particular case, it looks like people have problems parsing a simple sentence, and projecting their own meaning onto it. At this point nobody seems to care what Stallman actually said, it only matters that the crowd already passed sentence and you will be criticized if you disagree.

It's pretty incredible that after years and years of searching, all what cancel-activists[0] could find against Stallman was:

- Stallman reminding folks of the lack of key evidence in the allegations against Minsky.

- A graffiti on his door at MIT

- The fact he had a mattress in his office

- Some awkward social interactions he allegedly had (it's all anonymous, there's no way to know)

All from a blog-post.

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

The page links to just that blog post, but the post links to other reports, and an earlier open letter had many links (https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix) to RMS's own blog; to substantiate their claim that RMS holds views objectionable to them.

> The page links to just that blog post, but the post links to other reports, and an earlier open letter had many links (https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix) to RMS's own blog; to substantiate their claim that RMS holds views objectionable to them.

But it seems like he's disavowed those comments (and did so prior to that website being compiled):

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman...

> "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it," Stallman wrote. "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per [sic] psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."

> Note: RMS apologized for this comment on 14 September, 2019.Citation. Edit made: 24 March, 2021 - 08:50 EDT.

But this issue isn't all that his detractors have found objectionable.

Many, many people have come forward, especially women, relating horrible experiences with RMS covering the last 30 years - which you are promptly disregarding as "alleged". If you do more research, you'll find many more non-anonymous stories from people about RMS's behavior.

For example, the FSF employees formed a union specifically to defend themselves against his behavior.[1][2]

This is how abusers continue their abuse - hiding behind others who keep excusing their behavior. RMS's behavior, regardless of cause, is not acceptable.

It's not "Cancel Culture", it's accountability.

[1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1374541822693761025

> Many, many people have come forward, especially women, relating horrible experiences with RMS covering the last 30 years - which you are promptly disregarding as "alleged". If you do more research, you'll find many more non-anonymous stories from people about RMS's behavior.

I couldn't care less about RMS stupid ideas on his personal website. But if he abused people, that is really worrying. Thus, I have read all the anonymous and non-anonymous stories about him that I could find by following these links. I assume that all of these stories are true. But there's really nothing to it. All of such stories of "abuse" are variations of the following four:

1. he asked me out very awkwardly and I had to say no

2. he's a really bad flatmate

3. he spoke loudly over me at a conference

4. I have read his opinions and that made me uncomfortable

Really? Does any of this even merit a call for "accountability"? It seems very childish to me. As if he systematically farted in elevators. Of course, that's not nice, but does it really merit all this kerfuffle? Let people be weird!

No first-hand experience is enough any more, RMS has become the figurehead for that sector of tech that actually believes "cancel culture" exists because they're worried it's coming for their own abhorrent views next.

Even those Twitter posts are vague. What exactly did he do?

> A graffiti on his door at MIT

This was a joke that someone played on him [1] and he removed it as soon as he found it.

[1] https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216

I must say, of all institutions, this one makes me the saddest to hear from. Of course, like others perhaps ought to do elsewhere, I will not demonize them as a whole because they said something I don't like, as I believe their mission is sincere and more important. Still, a bad taste is left in my mouth.

Indeed, it's a real disgrace that EFF is joining the dogpile since they have Internet free speech as one of their stated goals: https://www.eff.org/issues/free-speech

I have the same feeling. Heck, they could even use this opportunity to straighten the repeated lies that Stallman was defending Epstein when the opposite is true. Instead, they chose to link to a hate piece by Selam G.

I wonder... What happened to the law? In the past, when someone was accused, they were brought to court and could defend themselves, and in the end the judge/jury declared them guilty or not. These days, the mob seems like a caricature of dystopian Judge Dredd - police, judge, jury and executioner combined.

The march through the institutions is complete. EFF, The Register, FSFE all publish the same boilerplate.

New organizations are needed.

The FSF still exists, you know. I just renewed my membership to show them some love.

That's the end of my support for the EFF. What a strange and surprising overstep.

A sad statement. I feel like EFF is here joining some school bullies. Had to check if (Finnish) EFFI had stated anything like that but fortunately it seems they are not really affiliated with EFF. Thus no need to cancel EFFI membership..

FSF reelecting Stallman puts the org in an awkward position. He was previously let go for a reason. If he has been reelected, it suggests that circumstances have changed to preclude the original reason, the decisions made leading up to the original removal were somehow flawed, or some other cause, and many of the third option causes here aren't particularly savory. FSF could clarify by releasing a statement about their decision to re-elect him, but I have not yet seen one.

Organizations that make a controversial decision and then reverse that decision without explanation are perceived (fairly or unfairly) as having weak leadership and a lack of ability to commit to difficult choices, and the criticism they are now pulling down on themselves is not surprising. I have to wonder if such a perception will harm FSF and their goals in the medium term.

In the short-term, it's already costing the organization volunteer support.

https://itwire.com/open-source/foss-developers-launch-petiti...

I really don't understand how the FSF could possibly have thought this was a good idea.

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