Richard Stallman has resigned as president of and from the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation. The move comes after several reports on deeply inappropriate behaviour towards women, as well as a spirited defense of convicted child trafficker and child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Stallman defended Marvin Minsky, an AI pioneer accused of raping one of Epstein’s trafficked children, by basically saying that since the underage child was forced by Epstein, Minsky wasn’t at fault for raping an underage child.
Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked. Stallman goes on to argue about the definition of “sexual assault,” “rape,” and whether they apply to Minsky and Giuffre’s deposition statement that she was forced to have sex with him.
In response to a student pointing out that Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky in the Virgin Islands, Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
Stallman has a history of defending child rape, so perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise. On top of all this, there’s a long list of problematic behaviour towards women.
Today, a notice on the Free Software Foundation website announced his resignation, after he left MIT yesterday, too.
On September 16, 2019, Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board of directors.
The board will be conducting a search for a new president, beginning immediately. Further details of the search will be published on fsf.org.
Good riddance to bad people. We’ve always known Stallman had some seriously disturbing ideas, but I had no idea they went this far and this deep. This is for the better of the Free software community as a whole.
People in the community have known about Stallman for years. I remember having a conversation at a party several years ago where people were swapping stories about him. While he was recognized as an incredible programmer, the stories shifted to his behavior, particularly his freeloading and general obnoxious nature to everyone.
MIT has a 500-year-flood level of crisis right now because of their acceptance of funding from Epstein and the tolerance of not only Stallman’s bad behavior, but numerous others. The brand, especially in light of the increasing number of women on tech company boards, has seriously suffered over the past few weeks and will take years to recover. Numerous efforts that others have made to promote MIT as an institution for women have lost credibility.
This is not about political correctness. This is about tolerating bad behavior and violating numerous policies and rules to accept money from convicted sex offenders.
Again, Richard Stallman has contributed significantly to the community and technology. That is not in doubt. However, his words and actions, especially in light of the Epstein situation, cannot be hidden and talked about out of the public eye anymore.
Wait for my comment to be moderated before parroting what Thom has said.
MIT will be just fine.
May god (or zeus, or enki, or whatever) grant me a death before I get alzheimer’s.
Stallman goes on to argue about the definition of “freedom,”
I mean, I have always be so keen to conveniently redefine things according to his beliefs.
People can’t seem to read these days:
This is what was actually said:
The article tries to make it sound like he was talking about all of Epstein’s victims. He was talking SPECIFICALLY about the Marvin Minsky incident. He doesn’t say he thinks the victims were willing. He SPECIFICALLY said that he assumed Epstein coerced her to present herself as willing, and not to tell her unwitting attackers that she was being forced. It’s pretty clear he accepts that she wasn’t willing, and that presenting as willing under duress does not constitute actual willingness.
—————–
This blatant misunderstanding of the words hides the bigger problem: Richard Stallman has really outdated ideas about what constitutes sexual assault. It doesn’t matter if there was no obvious violent force involved – the fact of being forced into sex can be a very damaging one whether or not there are visible injuries. This is a huge problem for people, like those in the anti-feminist gamergate crowd, to continue to misunderstand consent, and how the loss of agency can be damaging for anyone.
Richard Stallman’s bad idea about sexual assault is really bad. We don’t need to give ammunition to the anti-feminist crowd by misconstruing his words.
(I know nothing about the case, so maybe I don’t know enough context)
How is it a misunderstanding of the words ?
“The article tries to make it sound like he was talking about all of Epstein’s victims. He was talking SPECIFICALLY about the Marvin Minsky incident. He doesn’t say he thinks the victims were willing. He SPECIFICALLY said that he assumed Epstein coerced her to present herself as willing, and not to tell her unwitting attackers that she was being forced. It’s pretty clear he accepts that she wasn’t willing, and that presenting as willing under duress does not constitute actual willingness.”
So: he’s saying Marvin Minsky didn’t know, so he’s not guilty. Is that what is going on ?
Because how is that misunderstanding/misuse of the words ?
Lennie,
Fucking hell. Already there’s an example of not bothering to read. I just quoted the words – both the article, and what Stallman actually said.
THE ARTICLE QUOTE misunderstands the words in Stallman’s PARAGRAPH. Did you not read the quote from the ARTICLE? Did you not read the Stallman PARAGRAPH it was referring to?
Seriously, tell me the article’s interpretation of that Stallman paragraph actually says what the paragraph actually says.
You are correct,I did misread one line in your comment !
kwan_e,
Thanks for clarification. Twist the words of someone else to better fit an agenda or values of now, IS crime.
We are, indeed, at a time when the complex kind of human interactions are being dissected and disgusting behavior denounced. I am all for having clear rules about what can not be tolerated anymore, but would like to add some points:
– Until some many years ago, when I was still a teenager, worries about hurting the feelings of someone else wasn’t talked a lot about. The consequences of it was repugnant: jokes about race, mistreating and misbehaving toward woman, LGBT and minorities, bullying and so on;
– More than one time, because of above, I had to have argumentation with people I would classify as good persons, humanists, on current time, because they had not examined the consequences of thoughtless words or acts. Many were surprised and ended feeling uncomfortable and ashamed;
– The immense majority of us are the product of the culture of epochs and display patterns of thought and behavior characteristics of it.
The above considerations explain why slavering was once socially acceptable, woman had to marry older man they didn’t want, and on, and on.
Should we call all man and woman that didn’t rise above their peers, judging by current values, as deplorable? If you answer yes, perhaps, be aware that what we find now acceptable may not be considered as so in a couple of years, and I really hope we keep improving.
So, instead of be so caustic toward someone else and demonize him/her about words and facts that are clearly unacceptable, lets put things on a scale, use some perspective and remember what we are, flawed animals still evolving. Under examination, I suspect many will regret the poor thought they dispensed to the subject and, after all, may still be viewed as a mostly good person.
I would like to emphasize that I am not defending the horrible things we did on past or are doing now, they must be exposed. I just ask people to be more thoughtful toward our human condition.
While the Stallman’s PARAGRAPH looks more clear, what’s clear to me is that making business with Epstein should have raised many many blink red flags, even to someone as intelligent as Marvin Minsky. Is you get fooled by young looking girls pretending giving consent, you get what you deserve for.
Kochise,
No person, not even Stallman, doubts the accusations against Epstein.
Marvin Minsky was supposedly accused from something that happened in 2015. The “Lolita express” was famous long before that. Marvin Minsky should have known the stories and how dangerous it was to deal with that kind of a character. Stallman shouldn’t try to minimize Minsky ‘s implication.
Here is a link to the original medium post that started this whole thing, including Stallman’s text:
https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
Thanks for posting this. It is a lesson for everyone that news is just like a game of telephone: Every step you get removed from the actual source is not an extra layer of useful analysis, it is a step removed from the actual truth.
kwan_e,
I know nothing about these cases, or even stallman’s history, however the difference between those two quotes is stunning and omitting that context completely mis-characteristics what stallman said at least in this instance. They took his statement of logic and rewrote it themselves to insinuate it was all of the vitcim’s faults, which is not what he said at all.
If you read his original statements, he writes that definitions of rape are legally problematic, and objectively he’s not wrong. I don’t see where he wrote anything condoning actual child rape, where does he say that in his own words? If we don’t have such a statement then this entire article/headline is libelous against him.
These kinds of topics resulted in locked threads in the past, so it’s probably not a good topic for osnews.
Alfman,
In links to archived notes from Stallman, a few times he seems to say it is possible for a teenager to be able to consent to sex with adults. He does try to make clear that it is only if there’s no power dynamics involved, but he’s walked into a minefield with that one.
A literal interpretation of his words, and the law, means that, yes, he does defend a situation that, in the legal definition, is child rape (not the legal term, of course) under many jurisdictions.
kwan_e,
Well, of course there are multiple issues here, but when you’ve got laws that ignore the principal of consent (actual consent mind you, and nothing coercive) then the laws themselves deserve a lot of blame for incriminating people who haven’t committed and don’t condone rape by any reasonable standard. You’ve got instances where high school lovers end up on sex offenders lists even when they’re of similar age. These kinds of laws pose grave danger for teens who’ve done no grave harm. Governments have created laws that, if widely enforced, could easily convict large swaths of the public with no real victims.
https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a6294/teen-sex-offender/
Real rape is serious, but we should not be watering down the label to the point where it includes normal relationships. It’s unfortunate that society can’t even talk about these things without hysterics. Oh well.
Alfman,
I’m not even wading into the debate. All I said, was from a literal interpretation of the law, and a literal interpretation of Stallman’s words on the subject, then yes, what they are claiming is technically correct.
So the debate (if any) is whether it’s a good idea to take anything literally at all, and for my part, I hate literal interpretations of most things, especially when it manifests as this annoying habit of nerd types to try to win arguments on technicalities.
kwan_e,
This is debatable on two levels. Here’s the relevant quote: “I think it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”.
First is the leap of logic used to jump from something thinking it’s absurd to define rape that way to actually defending child rape.
The second is the fact that there is no singular “interpretation of the law”, which goes strait to stallman’s point that it changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Does rape become not rape just because someone enters a misogynistic country that does not protect women’s rights? That seems like a truly morally void position. And of course everyone is rightfully going to jump in and say “well obviously that’s not my position, the laws don’t define what I think about rape in those countries”, but guess what, that’s exactly what stallman said. The law should derive from morality, NOT the other way around!
That is a load of bull and you know it. Children usually mean below 13 especially legally speaking, and sex with teenagers is not even necessarily staturary rape in the US since 18 and 19 years olds are teenagers too but considered adult enough for consent.
Stating that teengers are able to consent to sex, is not a controversial statement in any way. Stallman has said worse, so don’t pick that particular statement unless you wish to just be wrong.
Carefwolf,
That’s how the legal system interprets it. So no, it’s not a load of bull.
This is why we’re in the mess we’re in. When people are talking from the legal point of view, people like you then deliberately obfuscate the issue by interpreting them in a different light.
Fucking hell. When people say teenagers, as opposed to adults, the obviously mean someone below 18 – adult age, not the hyperliteral interpretation of “in the tens”.
Try to keep up.
kwan_e,
It’s just funny to ask for non-literal flexibility after that talk of “literal interpretation” earlier
But even so, it’s not really obvious since the legal ages can vary between countries and even within the US.
Alfman,
There’s no inconsistency. I was explaining why other people would/have make the about Stallman defending anything. I was not supporting or disagreeing with it – just explaining where they are coming from.
Just like I’m doing with Stallman’s words. In one part, I try to explain where he’s coming from. That is separate from the other parts where I explain whether I agreed with him or not.
Sad to see that Thom is siding with the SJWs
j0scher,
You lost the argument and any credibility the moment you typed out those three letters.
I, for one, am sincerely hoping that Thom will side with the Social INjustice Warriors next time. Or are they called the Anti-Social Justice Warriors?
(obligatory /s because internet)
avgalen,
Not going to lie – the “/s” is appreciated
So objecting to child rape is now objectionable… Ohhhhh kayyyy.
Remind me never to let you near my children.
Thom has been siding with the “SJWs” for years now, and rightly so! Go back to hiding in your cave, troll.
Avoiding the issues around the Reason for the resignation, I would like to talk about what that will mean for the FSF.
For better or worse, the FSF has always been a Stallman centric organisation. Its policies, and priorities have followed his direction and vision. Will they be looking for a president to continue that well trodden path or one to refocus FSF in the “modern world”?
Personally, I have felt the FSF has been fighting battles from decades ago some of which just arn’t relevant anymore, including the general “Microsoft == evil” standpoint and the FreeBIOS campaign, that effort could be refocused into something relevant Today.
FSF has always been very principled, they do not fight battles of the past (in their view), the current situation has gotten worse.
Lennie,
The need for FSF is as great as ever. Freedom movements in tech have always grated against against proprietary products, the response was relatively straitforward: develop and distribute open source variants, something the FSF is well known for. However the threats today are somewhat more problematic, consumers don’t fully own their devices any longer because they don’t hold the keys. Things like walled gardens, DRM and locked hardware can prevent us from running open source software and create obstacles making it much harder or less effective to use open software. This poses quite a significant challenge for groups like FSF, we need them to continue fighting for user rights.
Maybe we need a “Code of Conduct” that instead of avoiding triggering snowflakes says it is wrong to rape children.
SF/F has had the problem for longer. David Asimov was found with the largest child porn collection until that time and nothing happened to him. Now “The Last Closet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0-8YHBh08U
Maybe Stalman can get a job at San Diego State:
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/ohio-college-normalizes-pedophilia-sexual-orientation
Hollywood is also known to have pedophile rings.
Don’t get me started on the Catholic Church and Frances’ Lavender Mafia.
I would not be surprised if Silicon Valley has them too. But if you have the right politics, like Bill Clinton, you can literally rape women and they won’t care (A Feminist wrote an article saying literally if he kept Abortion legal he could rape her in the White House). He hasn’t returned one dime and other than being disbarred for perjury, not rape, hasn’t suffered at all, and his enabler almost beat Trump, and they were on Epstine’s Lolita Express but that somehow didn’t matter. As long as you are a good little Democrat you can be corrupt and rape and not lose your position. I wonder if that is why Big Tech is all to the left of Che Guavera.
We have gone totally insane about sex. Now 3 year olds can “choose” their geneder. Anything LGBTQ+ goes. But if she decides two months later it wasn’t consensual even if she was sober and he was passed out drunk, it’s rape. Abortionists are supposed to report underaged pregnancies to the Police to stop this kind of thing, but they don’t (there was more than one expose) but no one wants to even stop pedophelia if it would limit Abortion. Rotherham England (and Telford and so many others) had “Asian” grooming gangs basically raping underaged girls, but the Police would arrest the Fathers if they tried to rescue them instead of stopping it because it wouldn’t be politically correct to recognize this interesting aspect of “Asian” culture. Tommy Robinson just got out for trying to expose this.
Spare me your virtue signalling. Everyone has known this has been going on for Decades, and not in the shadows, but we’ve looked the other way – and still look the other way when we don’t want to know. But then call for their scalps when it becomes too obvious. Every time someone brought this up they were (and are!) attacked as being anti-Gay.
Speaking of Planned Parenthood, how is it not pedophelia to teach anal sex and such to 5th graders and younger? But so many people support teaching them early.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/california-school-district-says-parents-cant-pull-kids-from-new-lgbt-sex-ed
State law says you must teach pornographic lessons to grade schoolers.
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20141114/university-village/fifth-grade-sex-ed-plan-horrifies-chicago-parents-who-say-its-obscene/
Though they deny it when they get caught.
You will celebrate teaching grade schoolers everything – far more than what Stalman has ever advocated – but somehow say it is for adults only? How about learning how to smoke and which brandys, beer, wine, and hard liquors are best, but you can’t drink until 21.
Pick one side or the other. Either Children ought to keep their innocence until puberty when it should be carefully and gently taught. Or if we’re going to show X rated movies and cartoons to Kindergartners (so they learn LGBTQ and everything they do in graphic detail) is perfectly normal and they might be transgender so need to call the nurse to start transitioning.
I’d prefer them to retain their innocence, but then I’ll be called backwards, a prude, old fashioned and far worse. But Stallman type people have designed and are implementing the alternative.
We get it. You don’t like gay people, you think sex is a sin, and women shouldn’t have rights over her own reproductive system.
You could’ve said so in far fewer words.
Trans people too apparently.
“David Asimov was found with the largest child porn collection until that time and nothing happened to him” – First, David Asimov is a nobody. Yes, the son of a famous writer, but not a celebrity himself. Secondly, it was the biggest collection in the history “of Sonoma County” (https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Charges-shatter-Asimov-son-s-reclusion-3099867.php) , not necessarily the biggest ever. But yes, “six months’ home detention with electronic monitoring and three years federal probation” (https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg69057.html) is practically nothing.
Otherwise, what have you been smoking…
This does not invalidate his contributions, which are huge.
But indeed, he has to go. However he didn’t abuse children himself, as far as we know, so it is mainly a crime of opinion. He is not fit to lead an organization if he is not sensitive for these things.
There is a very good article about Stallman and what he really said on The Register:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_interview/
Once more, I feel tragically compelled to agree with Umberto Eco about the legions of stupid using the Internet.
Thom, please, be a little more willing to read more about sensible subjects before posting, you are an intelligent guy, don’t get trapped by lack of time to research things, do it diligently, do it right.
I did. I read the actual email thread. It’s unhinged crazy talk about trying to defend raping children, and considering he has a history of doing so, this fits right in. It’s not the first time, and had he not been actively called out on it, it wouldn’t have been the last time.
Thom Holwerda,
With all due respect, that’s not good enough. Quote the actual piece where he defends raping children. Maybe he’s defended it in the past, I really don’t know, but since you are the one making the allegations I think it’s reasonable to ask you the exact quote you are basing your assertions on. As it stands your source is an article that sought to promote a misleading narrative by misrepresenting his words. I hope that you can be above that.
Alfman,
Read the article, Stallman on one interview acknowledges that he was wrong about some of his positions about consenting because he didn’t contemplate enough all that is involved on a relationship between people in early years’ formation and someone older.
There are countless examples of him defending his buddy Minsky for raping a child, but here’s the most damning one:
“I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
Imagine you going to the police with your son or daughter of 17 who has been coerced into having sex with a 74 year old man (Minsky was 74), and the police sending you away with this exact same reasoning? Would you also be “okay whatever, no big deal”?
Thom Holwerda,
What you are describing is rape. It wouldn’t matter if my son or daughter was 20, it’d still be rape. Would you seriously not have a problem with what epstein did if his victims were all 18&19? I doubt that very much…what kind of message is that sending? It was only rape because they were below a certain age? Of course not, that’s a terrible way to look at things. Won’t you admit that this is about something more heinous than an arbitrary legal age? That’s what stallman was saying if we read them without trying to misconstrue his words. Saying he “defended child rape” in this email exchange appears to be a media fabrication as far as I can tell.
Apparently he has expressed views in the past about consensual sex that make many uncomfortable regarding age. Fair enough, criticize him for that! But when you say he was defending child rape here, that’s not really reflected in any quotes I’ve read so far. We should dislike him over things he’s said or done without having to deliberately twist what was said or done to fit a prejudiced narrative.
I’m going to quote his response in acobar’s link…
Thom,
So you’re saying that, if the US defines the age of consent to 14, then what Epstein did would be okay? While I disagree with Stallman’s implied stance (based on past writings of his) that he thinks the age of consent should be lowered, it IS an absurd thing to treat an arbitrary age as “adult”.
My response to Stallman would be “but laws need to have a clear line, even if it does introduce some philosophical absurdities, otherwise it becomes a random crapshoot in the courts. We can’t just wait until we’ve ironed out all philosophical absurdities, otherwise we’d have no societal standard at all.”
This misconstruing of that email is giving oxygen to the fire of the alt-right nerd crowds on places like Slashdot, Hacker News and Reddit.
His emails clearly state that the point he was trying to make was that Minsky may possibly not have known about the coercion, but that there’s no way we can know either way based purely on the evidence that has been publicised. He didn’t even deny the probable situation that Minsky did have sex in that incident.
Whether or not you think Minsky should have suspected something is a different matter. I think anyone in Epstein’s circle should have suspected something. But Stallman trying to argue that someone in Epstein’s circle may not have suspected something is not defending them, at least not entirely. To deny this spreads the dangerous myth that child trafficking occurs like some silent movie and a guy twirling his moustache, when the lesson is that it happens in plain-sight.
———————–
The monster is Epstein and the people who knowingly helped him run things. This whole email blowup does nothing but take attention away from them. Or Stallman’s actually problematic understanding of sexual assault, regardless of age.
kwan_e,
You know what, I find it odd being even slightly associated with the alt-right given my usual disdain for them, but I think you hit the nail on the head here. The libelous coverage bothers me more than anything else. I’m really not inclined to defend stallman from criticism in general especially from past comments, but misquoting and misinterpreting his quotes to commit character assassination is something that really bugs me and I feel someone here ought to stand up against it. If it weren’t for that I think we could find a lot more common ground.
Nothing surprises me after the Dr Pizza affair. World is full of messed up people.
For some reasons Thom has chosen not to publish my first comment which renders his opinion wrong and almost insulting. And for this reason I’m not going to leave any more comments here on OSAlert ’cause it’s simply unacceptable. It’s not the first time Thom says something without taking time to get into an issue.
For some reasons a website about operating systems has turned into an opinionated blog which sometimes spreads falsehoods or baseless accusations.
birdie,
Even tough I agree with your point about Thom crossing a line by lack of due diligence, Thom rants are not, per see, a reason to not come to OSAlert.
I have great admiration by the quality of many posts here. In an age where almost any place we go to discuss things is full of trolls dumping their ignorant, disrespect and prejudice, OSAlert and lwn have been sites where I can collect insightful perspectives on many subjects. So, as long as OSAlert don’t descend to a level I would call unacceptable, I will keep coming back.
Also, ignorance, alone, is not something to be deemed as a proof of anyone character. As long as the person is willing to listen (read) and think, it is a temporary situation that can be overcome and, hopefully, forgiven.
Hi Thom.
I have been reading OSAlert for a couple of years now and this is my first comment. In a way it is a shame, it has to be written in such circumstances. The way you wrote this article, that doesn’t leave much room for any further opinions or interpretation. Those, who don’t see it like presented, are defending child rape?
I read all the links you provided, and some other on the internet, and i don’t see any evidence of RMS defending child rape. The way i read RMS reasoning is he says different countries have different legislation, when it comes to legal sex age. And if somebody has consensual sex with a 17 year old girl, that doesn’t necessarily make him a child rapist. Does it? He doesn’t defend Epstein in any way and does call him a child rapist. Second link you gave, a long list of bad things RMS supposedly did in the past. Therefore RMS is guilty of slavery, woman not having equal rights in the USA and he slept in his office on MIT. Did he rape woman and child there, or what exactly is that link trying to insinuate?
I like and respect women, hate child rapist and hate the type of journalism you have just used. I wish you all well, but i must say i can’t read OSAlert anymore. As what is next. Linus offended somebody, hence good riddance to such bad people? Sorry, but just no.
I am also a long time reader of OSAlert, this is my first comment. I am sorry to see such a misleading and factually incorrect story on OS News. We also have share of difference with RMS opinions and ways. That is not a reason to misrepresent what he said. So far there is no allegation of verbal or non verbal abuse of any one by RMS. He possessing controversial, non-‘progressive’ or socially unacceptable opinions does not make him any less or warrant this kind of attack. The world has only become less better in this process of demonizing him based on half truths and misinformation.
One may look for Stephen Fry’s arguments on Political Correctness in this context.
Here let me break it down for you.
Country A has a law forbidding Foobar. Person 1 does Foobar in country A. Did Person 1 break the law in country A?
Yes. Yes he did. QED.
Honestly, I cannot help but to understand the confusion of Stallman. Of course there are issues about legality, ethics and so on. I don’t agree with him on many points. But look at the picture below (link) and tell me that it is obvious that the is underage, a sex slave, and against her will, in that situation. Mind you, it _might_ be, but it is IMHO not obvious at all:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NINTCHDBPICT000504218541-e1567427843208.jpg
Anyway. He didn’t touch the girl himself; we wasn’t involved at all. He got removed thanks to a Crime of Opinion, and here on OSAlert the official standpoint is to applaud such a culture. Sad. We are now in a culture where leftist-feminist emotions are more important than facts or reason.
This is a regression to the Terrrible Mother archetype in our society, and she devours her son-lovers.
https://frithluton.com/articles/hero-archetype/
I don’t care what RMS’s opinion on ages of consent and various sexual allegations/charges/cases etc are.
I just don’t give a damn.
The only thing that matters about RMS in my view is the work he does – historically directly in software and in more recent times in the FSF’s mission. I’m not familiar with the details of his MIT post so I have no opinion there.
Unless he ends up on trial/in prison for an actual crime, his opinions on things outside that are completely irrelevant and as far as I’m concerned he erred in giving in to irrelevant pressure and departing the posts in which he was doing a reasonably good job.
The lynching mob mentality has exploded with Internet. They keep carrying their torches wherever they go to burn anything they dislike at first sight because, well, knowing the facts and connections is something time consuming, and they don’t need these bullshit anyway, they have intuition about almost everything and it is more than enough. This is such a jeopardizing of the rule of law that I am worried of what will come in next years when automation will be able to take on most tasks and people will be even more angry than they are already now.
Let’s burn all the witches and tarnish for life people’s reputation on any mistake, world will surely be a better place then.
I agree, but I also think compartmentalization is sorely needed.
The same mentality that allows “the mob” to hound someone out of a job, for personal comments or opinions (whether real, exaggerated or imagined) that are completely irrelevant to that job, allows companies to fire or harrass employees for what they do on personal time.
When you are working, what you do at work is all that should matter. Not what you do at home. Not what opinions you hold or comments you make outside of work or which don’t directly impact your ability to do your job.
And I simply do not care what RMS does or thinks, or what any other random person does or thinks, in their personal life.
Well, Thom Holwerda, you have deleted a post I wrote about double standards applied by mass media.
No warning, no dicussion, no explanation, just deletion. In few words, no respect for those who dissent.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
dariapra,
Considering I, and many others, have written comments that disagree with Thom, and they’re still there, I think you may have just stuffed up somehow.
Another one bites the dust! After Peter “Petard/DrPizza” Bright, the tech world’s biggest d-bags are dropping like flies… Oh well, now that Stallman can’t squat at MIT anymore, at least he has the “homeless person begging for change in front of the liquor store” look down pat.
I also must say that’s it’s VERY revealing (if not at all surprising) to see the usual suspects bending over backwards to give Stallman a pass for this or pretend he’s being unfairly persecuted for a one-off comment taken out of context – when a 5 minute search makes it obvious as just one of a long pattern of similar behaviour, much of it substantially worse, going back as far as the 80s. E.g. his reputation unwanted groping female students, typically while creepily propositioning any woman in sight; then when he got in trouble for that, he resorted to handing out “pleasure cards” (AKA propositioning them in business card format); and when he was told to stop handing those out at events, he reportedly tricked a woman into walking across the street from the event venue, so that he could give her a “pleasure card” without technically violating the events code of conduct. Oh, but my absolute favourite? Apparently it became conventional wisdom/an ope secret among female faculty that if they did’t want Stallman creepily lurking in their offices, they should put in lots of plants – because he had a phobia of them. And that’s all just from links in the first page of the comments on the Ars Technica coverage.
I always thought he was a nutjob ideologue – but with the stuff that comes out recently, it paints a picture of him basically embodying the “nice guy”/autistic wannabe-Don Juan cliche, lacking only a fedora to tip, Basically, a (slightly) higher-functioning version of that “Chris Chan”/”Sonichu” guy. It’s truly hilarious, until you consider the people who had to put up with his creepy shit over the years. Interacting with him in any fashion is unpleasant enough, can imagine how awful it must have been to be hit on/groped by a creepy, toejam-eating autist with a hobo beard?
A blog entry I just wrote about this (specifically about people calling for open source to be abolished, and why that’s stupid):
The Stallman affair and what it means for Open Source