Richard Stallman Removed from the GCC Steering Committee
gcc.gnu.org
gcc.gnu.org
> In 2012 RMS was added to the GCC Steering Committee web page based on his role in the GNU Project, though his role as a member of the Steering Committee has been ambiguous and he was not a member of the Steering Committee when EGCS became GCC
In this context, the HN title above is somewhat misleading.
> Porting CLANG would have been easier (to some extent) BUT my choice was political and Stallman in the Steering Committee is a long term warranty that GCC development will not steer away from the Free Software conception that I know, betraying my trust.
The SC itself only removed Stallman from the web page, stating that he was really not a member anyway.
The message was pretty diplomatic and crafted to appease the fanatics while not actually doing much.
Is your objection to the whole idea of a "steering committee" that gets more of a say than TempleOS Developer CrunkLord420? Because you might need to take that up with 1999, and the EGCS/GCC detente.
Speaking for myself, I've got a lot of opinions, many - admittedly not all - of which overlap with the ones outlined in the GNU manifesto. One that may differ is that I'm simply unable to trust a cult of personality. GNU is already dangerously close to that, and I've sometimes wondered if there's cause for splintering off a group that is more firmly centered on Free Software instead of on Richard Stallman.
But it is a bit worrying if the GCC team feels that a man who has dedicated his life to software freedom is at odds with their objectives to the point where he doesn't even deserve a thankyou as they boot him off their webpage.
Mailing lists are famous for their drama, but Stallman is one of the most reliable public figures there is on the subject of software freedom. It is worrying if the people who control these projects think they have priorities above freedom, because it'll probably turn out those priorities are corporate interests. Not such a problem in GCC, but if this is a trend it is of concern. The GPL is not a license written to be friendly and agreeable, disagreeable but competent people should be responsible for maintaining it.
It'd be interesting to see the results of a totally anonymous vote among them. The majority would probably still vote him out, but not sure how close it'd be.
At any rate, I'm mostly just here to say that contra the nerd-popular argument that Stallman's "cancellation" is perpetrated by people "outside" of free software, here it's pretty clearly the reverse: the people most vigorously advocating for Stallman's removal from the project have unimpeachable GCC credentials.
This is about the removal of a listing, i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not?
It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter contains several blatant lies and there is no way around the fact. Every single person or organization that signed that letter is (unintentionally or not) supporting these lies because, well, they put their signature on them. I am finding this really hard to swallow.
Sane discussion within the community to get some things straight is probably too time-consuming and fussy, so it was probably easier to just remove a listing and throw some generic reassuring copypasta at the end.
The announcement reads as if his identification as a Steering Committee member was never anything other than symbolic (emphasis, added):
---quote---
In 2012 RMS was added to the GCC Steering Committee web page based on his role in the GNU Project, though his role as a member of the Steering Committee has been ambiguous and he was not a member of the Steering Committee when EGCS became GCC. We no longer feel that this listing serves the best interests of the GCC developer and user community. Therefore, we are removing him from the page.
---end quote---
About point 5 about "defending sexual assault", I think it's important to note that it was "sexual assault" only because that is the statutory charge used in Texas for violating the age of consent law [1]. If the incident [2] had happened a few miles away in Oklahoma where the age of consent is 16, there would not be a "sexual assault" charge. I complete agree with Stallman's other point (made elsewhere) that more precise language needs be used to describe what actually happened.
I'm not defending Stallman about everything - the other points, which can be summed up as "he's a creep towards women and alienates them", are problematic, and if he won't change his behaviour that might be a valid reason to cancel him.
[0] https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html
[1] https://www.ageofconsent.net/states/texas
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cody-wilso...
But instead of talking about the merits of the behavior, folks want to throw out the “tolerance” card.
You want that to stop? Then stop.
I don't think it works this way. When Selam Gano wrote her original hate piece, she concluded that people like Stallman need to be removed, and if necessary, MIT should be burned to the ground. What people? "Jeffrey Epstein. Marvin Minsky. Richard Stallman." The sentence has been passed.
She didn't demand an apology or a change of behavior. She wanted punishment. By putting Minsky next to Epstein, and Stallman next to Minsky, she wanted to create the impression that somehow the terrible monster, the AI pioneer and the founder of the GNU project are same kind of terrible scum that needs to be completely removed to make the world better.
Now used as a cudgel to intimidate and harass everyone who does not follow the party line.
Often the harassers profit financially from their bigotry, which makes them gigantic hypocrites.
Popper knew things like forgiveness, not taking single statements out of context, not reading too much into statements, not misquoting people and much more.
Please do not associate Popper with mob justice. He would have despised the mob.
> 4. Regarding morality. This letter (like many other sjw creatures) says many words about morality, diversity, but at the end of the day it boils down to removing Stallman from position. As a citizen of post-soviet country I can vividly see that this letter is enterely about politics and looks very similar to communist agenda which likes to hide authoritarian policies behind morality. It is very surprising for people from former Soviet block countries to see western world falling into 'very familiar' but notorious propaganda.
I believe it's not something specific to communism but to human nature. People in power tend to have low tolerance towards opposing views and perceive them as a threat. Hence the 'you are either with us or against us' attitude, both from the left and right. In the end, people with more balanced views, or with no particular opinion on a give issue, seem to be in minority and as a consequence are afraid to speak up. This strengthens the position of those who have an axe to grind - it's a vicious circle.
This is a private organization removing someone for poor behavior according to their own bylaws. It is not somehow a symbol for the fall of liberal capitalism in the US. Please. People are removed from boards and committees for poor behavior all the time. The sky does not fall.
Removing Stallman isn't an economic decision, true enough. But it is the same hubris of believing that someone's political trappings and status should determine their influence on technical matters. The Free Software community can survive without Stallman. But it is extremely worrying if the Free Software community feels Stallman is so at odds with their mission that they want to cast him out.
Stallman has flaws, but his commitment to that cause is really beyond question. It is appropriate to give him a voice in deciding how these projects are run. He is a reliable lighthouse for working out what is and isn't free about software.
Stallman and Free Software have been explicitly political from the start. Stallman hasn't made any technical contribution in decades, and honestly, hasn't been relevant coding wise since the late 90s. He was put on the GCC committee as a political symbol, not a technical leader. That symbol is now toxic to GCC's mission due to Stallman's volitional behavior.
This statements is simply not true. I had several exchanges and communications with Stallman, private and official. It was clear to him that I am less knowledgeable than him and less competent in the areas we discussed. But he never showed any of the traits you mention, the opposite was true. He was very patient and explained things to me without patronizing. I also observed his behavior towards others, it was similar (even though I found his hygiene habits highly objectionable).
But I mean, you can just go read the guys blog for content that would clearly bar him from ever holding a position of influence within most corporate businesses. No one wants an evangelist/spokesperson that is blogging about how "voluntary" pedophilia should not be a crime.
No one is canceling Stallman unfairly. What's getting canceled is a free pass he never should have been granted in the first place about this behavior.
Of course not. It would make no sense to negate the experiences of other people, I was just objecting to the sentence "...behaves in an angry and abusive manner towards anyone he deems inferior" as it uses an absolute quantifier.
Frankly, I've seen in my life several "coups" like this. There is a great rage, people feel fed up and overthrow the leader. There is a moment of excitement, then the dust settles and what remains is a bland void. The enthusiasm disappears, it turns out that charisma is not easy to replace, and the whole projects slowly withers into total insignificance.
A very similar pursuit of ideological purity (in name only; it was a power game) was a characteristic of daily life in the Soviet Union.
Even until the very end, things like the fact that your grandfather used to own more than 10 cows before the revolution (a wealthy oppressor!) or that your family celebrates Christmas (unloyal to the party!) were used to morally judge you and deny things like an apartment allocation (there was no real estate market) or a permit to buy a car. The government had massive databases of personal histories of people (several generations deep, going back many decades) to assess their "morals", supplemented with characterizations people had to write about each other. Almost every hiring, foreign trip, university application etc was checked against these databases. Every organization of had a committee for this. All companies too (because they were all state-owned).
Instead of "toxic", they used the phrase "ideologically unsound", and once you had been deemed as such, many doors in life remained closed for you.
Kinda strange to see the free world slowly re-inventing this.
We didn't reinvent anything, it's been here the whole time.
"The GCC Steering Committee is committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disabilities, neurodiversity, physical appearance, body size, ethnicity, nationality, race, age, religion, or similar personal characteristics."
He’ll never notice to cause trouble about it, he lives in a bubble.
Soon the problem will just solve itself, given his age and various obvious physical issues he’ll be dead in the next few years anyway.
But fun-fact:
>The GCC Steering Committee is committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disabilities, neurodiversity, physical appearance, body size, ethnicity, nationality, race, age, religion, or similar personal characteristics.
It reminds me when those people raise their hand in a talk and say “what about security” and aren’t happy until you add the word “security.” Comically, even if nothing in the content is changed. Just adding the word makes them happy and I found it interesting that they didn’t actually assess whether the project was secure and obviously nothing changed except for a label so it was unusual to me that they would be happy since the security posture didn’t change at all.
Haha true, my mind always translate it to "but what about the children's".
>hello, i too am one of "us" *wink wink*. lets mutually support each other in conflicts with people from the out-group.
https://miro.medium.com/max/1200/1*TnDoAk0BjC7x4OuBISbYCw.jp...
he would disagree heavily.