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Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know much more than superficial things about either FSF or RMS. I read the things he said, they sound reasonable, but very prone to misinterpretation.

I won’t jump to his defence, I think not offending people even through their misunderstandings is a key skill in public speech. I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper. I don’t know if I agree with him, but I sure have some opinions of mine that are not palatable to mainstream woke Twitter mobs. The idea that I couldn’t express them for fear of being cancelled sends shivers down my spine.

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> I do find it terrifying though how he is lynched for what is essentially rational and permissible speech in an ugly wrapper.

What he said in 2019 was basically the last straw for many people of behaviour that stretches back a decade or three:

* https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

He hasn't admitted to doing anything wrong, or feeling regret for any words/actions, and so the thinking is if he won't ask for forgiveness (?) then why should he be let back in?

Again, I’m not defending or endorsing him. My issue is with the form.

Apart from his unsavoury and mean things he says, most of the accusations seem to be centred around his MIT presence, and also sound like firable offences. I think a better place to start would be to enforce that, if the accusations are true (very possible, I just don’t know).

Otherwise there are some accusations hanging around, b the organisation who should first and foremost address them (apparently) doesn’t. Then a lunch mob forms.

Incidentally, I think this is the origin of the outrage society-the lack of appropriate reactions where they should be made in the first place.

Still, I prefer C+ law-based justice to a B lunch mob.

Most people just quote the Medium post without having done their own research. These are the best two links I've found that put all the accusations into context:

https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

I read the top link, very good.

It strikes me that RMS writes a lot about sex, rape and minors. Well, we all have interests. If the article is anything to go by, it confirms my hunch that he says a lot of things that are prone to misinterpretation.

While I would think it is his fault (we have a duty to say controversial things in a way that the audience can understand), this still doesn’t seem to be a good reason to cancel him, and of all things, from the FSF. It’s not like he is on the board of the Girl Guides.

> It strikes me that RMS writes a lot about sex, rape and minors.

He writes quite a lot about many subjects, and there's a huge corpus of text written by him. He has written a handful of paragraphs regarding sex, rape and minors, and all of these are quoted on that website. But it does not seem that this is a subject that he's particularly interested in.

I don't really think he is as "irredeemable" as people make him out to be. He could rebrand like Linus, and do less of the things which appear to irritate people. He could run more controversial things through someone else before publishing it.

They've already made their point that what he said / did wasn't acceptable two years ago.

It’s not just the opinions he’s held (some of which are incredibly disgusting) but it’s also the things he’s done at MIT. I encourage you to read the stories [1] of those who have interacted with him. This isn’t “cancel culture gone mad”, this is a terrible person being held accountable for their actions.

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

Maybe your first step before speaking up should be to go deepen your knowledge of the situation beyond "superficial".

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