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Comment by packetslave | Hacker News Reader

I don't see how that's relevant.

People in the thread are dropping all kinds of trivia about Pixar and BSD but possibly the biggest news about the subject of the article in the last 5 years is that he was ousted from his role at Pixar for sexual harassment. Feels relevant.

He is an incredibly talented director and storyteller. I can understand why his well documented history of sexual misconduct may not feel relevant. Apparently, the situation was so bad that Disney assigned a "minder" to him to keep him out of trouble.

On the other hand, his great creative talent should not diminish the fact that he was a creep of a boss if you happened to be female.

He's a complex person. If we want to talk about the great things he has done, I think we should also remind ourselves of the bad stuff.

I'm not sure I agree with that last part. He drew the BSD logo. I don't need to audit his failings and indiscretions to note that that's an interesting factoid.

It is interesting how the creations we cherish as a society become separate from the creator. Not even a creator's misconduct can reappropriate the art from society.

“To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim." ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Oh, this from the posing somdomite" - Wilde's contemporaries.

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - The Importance of Being Earnest

I assume you refuse to use gcc, emacs, etc. because of their creator, refuse to use JavaScript anywhere on the web, never take an Uber etc.?

Or is it just the cases where it's convenient to virtue signal?

I also find it ironic that you posted a Steve Jobs quote in a comment recently...

Is this about Stallman? I don't consider him to have done anything wrong, and so yes I sure do use gcc, and do at least prefer as little js as possible though I simply have no control over that, and in fact never use uber, and specifically because of the company, even though it would be convenient.

Of course you can't do any of this 100% because the world is interconnected and interdependent and countless infinite things are indirect.

But so what? You can still care and still try and still exert your own one-persons share of influence, even if it's only avoiding Amazon when you can, instead of just buying everything through them.

That is worth doing and 100% better than not caring and not bothering, and the value isn't invalidated by being impossible to be absolute.

Stallman did eat skin from his feet multiple times while on stage and may have asked people to serve him tea in an uncouth way multiple times. I do actually think about that when I compile from source and yes it bothers me a little but I soldier on.

That bothers you, but Stallman's decades of advocacy for sex with minors and the numerous accusations of harrassment against him don't?

I'm not saying it should, but it seems you're either unaware of, or don't consider relevant, the most actually troublesome aspects of the man.

No you are absolutely right and I was being tongue in cheek. Yeah he is basically toxic waste in terms of association. It’s a shame his personal toxicity will have had a negative effect not just on people vulnerable to predation perhaps even directly but also it will have undermined the popularity of FOSS more broadly and taken oxygen out of the air for things that aren’t Richard Stallmans scandalous behavior.

He did not advocate sex with minors good grief.

The mans worst crime is singing.

Yes because that particular quote is funny to me, the idea that boot up time is equivalent to harming someone to death is low key hilarious.

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