5 ms·

The issue isn't one problematic statement. It's a history of behaviour that's documented to have driven multiple people away from the free software community an

by mjg59 7y ago

The issue isn't one problematic statement. It's a history of behaviour that's documented to have driven multiple people away from the free software community and an absolute unwillingness on his part to do anything about it. If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already.

rubbingalcohol 7y ago
People who run away from something when their feelings get hurt are no great loss to whatever "movement" they're too weak to contribute to. Free Software has much bigger problems than these losers.
- mjg59 7y ago
  I personally know high quality developers who refuse to work on free software projects because of Stallman. It's not a matter of weakness, it's a matter of principle.
  - prepend 7y ago
    I personally know high quality developers who only work on free software projects because of Stallman. I’m not sure how valuable these baseless anecdotes are to the conversation and is one of the reasons why I try to argue on principles. I’m optimistic that you brought up principles as well as I think it’s important to judge developers based on the quality of their code rather than how popular they are.
    - mjg59 7y ago
      The popularity of a developer is certainly not a reason to judge them in itself. But the reasons for that developer's popularity are. Is that developer popular because they provide empathetic feedback to other developers? Is that developer popular because they help other project members think about the goals of the project in useful ways? Is that developer popular because they make it easier for others to involve themselves in the project? If so, that developer should be regarded highly even if their code isn't great.
      - prepend 7y ago
        I agree with you. I was trying to communicate that we should evaluate based on the underlying value rather than surface characteristics. Hopefully a great developer will also be popular (because of impact) but not necessarily. I frequently try to remind myself that I should assume value based on popularity. Good software isn’t a democracy. Democracy is great for things that are arbitrary, but sucks for things where there’s objective value. I don’t want my surgeon taking a vote on how to proceed while I’m on the table. However, that doesn’t mean democratic principles have no place. Consensus, discussion, collaboration are all important. But not to the exclusion of skill and responsibility. While I don’t want my surgeon taking a vote that includes the orderly and electrician who happen to be in the room, I hope that they solicit input and consider opinions from others before they decide on the course of action. I also don’t know of a way to compare individuals for their value and think it’s a waste of effort to do so. People who encourage facilitation are awesome and I think frequently projects can do better with a fun person who attracts participation rather than some hard core coder who pisses everyone off. But not as an absolute rule. I’ve worked on projects with wonderful cheerleaders that never produced anything because they were all happiness and tons of people, but no one actually doing work.
  - rubbingalcohol 7y ago
    So they only work on commercial software projects because of Richard Stallman?
    - mjg59 7y ago
      Yes. They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software.
      - ratww 7y ago
        This is a disingenuous argument. I work on some free software projects and most people don't even know who RMS is. There are multiple Free/Open Source software associations, projects and communities to choose, all with different people working on them, some of them don't tolerate such behavior. If none of those fit, people can just create their own and choose who to associate with.
      - zzzcpan 7y ago
        > They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software. This is clearly a fabricated justification. But if such people were to actually exist they would not participate in the free software movement either way due to misalignment of values and ideologies.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      Companies have cultures and legal constraints that get coworkers fired for perpetually hitting on their coworkers. That's a positive for a lot of people (myself included). Bushnell makes the excellent point that he wasn't pushed out for this email alone, but for the pattern of thought the email indicates when aligned with other behaviors in his career. https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
  - Sadkov 7y ago
    The main problem of Free Software (read GPL) is that it is not free, compared to say BSD. It doesn't promote competition and doesn't help small player, as you have to release all changes back under GPL. On the other hand, GPL increases barrier to entry, so big monopolistic players, like Microsoft and governments, win from it, while small indie devs lose.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Context: https://medium.com/@zephoria/facing-the-great-reckoning-head-on-8fe434e10630 https://medium.com/@zephoria/facing-the-great-reckoning-head...
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  This comment is precisely indicative of the attitude that is holding the Free Software movement back, and if pushing Stallman out gives better indication to the fact that this attitude is not to be tolerated, then his removal succeeds in sending the correct message. The movement doesn't grow further as just an old-boys-club, or a tough-emotions-only club. That stuff is, quite frankly, exhausting and detracts from good engineering.
zzzcpan 7y ago
> If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already. You are making a baseless assumption that it hurts the movement and are using it to push a change in leadership to someone, who is ideologically more aligned with your views (presumably, maybe you have hidden agendas, who knows). To me it seems that politically correct leadership afraid to talk about controversial topics and express controversial opinions is going to hurt free software much more by letting "the mobs", corporate PR attacks, etc. influence them and shape the movement.
- mikeash 7y ago
  These are not “controversial opinions.” Controversial opinions are things like “Chernobyl wasn’t that bad” or “abortion is murder.” This is just a guy defending the rape of children.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
    He wasn't defending the rape of children.
    - mikeash 7y ago
      Well, he spent a bunch of words arguing it’s not rape. I suppose that is slightly different.
- eesmith 7y ago
  What would provide sufficient base for you to accept that statement? Because I think there is some basis in that statement, given the many conversations I've had over the last 20 years I've known of free software, and known of people who dealt with Stallman. Including my own experience.

by mjg59 7y ago

rubbingalcohol 7y ago

People who run away from something when their feelings get hurt are no great loss to whatever "movement" they're too weak to contribute to. Free Software has much bigger problems than these losers.

mjg59 7y ago
I personally know high quality developers who refuse to work on free software projects because of Stallman. It's not a matter of weakness, it's a matter of principle.
- prepend 7y ago
  I personally know high quality developers who only work on free software projects because of Stallman. I’m not sure how valuable these baseless anecdotes are to the conversation and is one of the reasons why I try to argue on principles. I’m optimistic that you brought up principles as well as I think it’s important to judge developers based on the quality of their code rather than how popular they are.
  - mjg59 7y ago
    The popularity of a developer is certainly not a reason to judge them in itself. But the reasons for that developer's popularity are. Is that developer popular because they provide empathetic feedback to other developers? Is that developer popular because they help other project members think about the goals of the project in useful ways? Is that developer popular because they make it easier for others to involve themselves in the project? If so, that developer should be regarded highly even if their code isn't great.
    - prepend 7y ago
      I agree with you. I was trying to communicate that we should evaluate based on the underlying value rather than surface characteristics. Hopefully a great developer will also be popular (because of impact) but not necessarily. I frequently try to remind myself that I should assume value based on popularity. Good software isn’t a democracy. Democracy is great for things that are arbitrary, but sucks for things where there’s objective value. I don’t want my surgeon taking a vote on how to proceed while I’m on the table. However, that doesn’t mean democratic principles have no place. Consensus, discussion, collaboration are all important. But not to the exclusion of skill and responsibility. While I don’t want my surgeon taking a vote that includes the orderly and electrician who happen to be in the room, I hope that they solicit input and consider opinions from others before they decide on the course of action. I also don’t know of a way to compare individuals for their value and think it’s a waste of effort to do so. People who encourage facilitation are awesome and I think frequently projects can do better with a fun person who attracts participation rather than some hard core coder who pisses everyone off. But not as an absolute rule. I’ve worked on projects with wonderful cheerleaders that never produced anything because they were all happiness and tons of people, but no one actually doing work.
- rubbingalcohol 7y ago
  So they only work on commercial software projects because of Richard Stallman?
  - mjg59 7y ago
    Yes. They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software.
    - ratww 7y ago
      This is a disingenuous argument. I work on some free software projects and most people don't even know who RMS is. There are multiple Free/Open Source software associations, projects and communities to choose, all with different people working on them, some of them don't tolerate such behavior. If none of those fit, people can just create their own and choose who to associate with.
    - zzzcpan 7y ago
      > They concluded that working in communities that wouldn't tolerate people like RMS was more important than working on free software. This is clearly a fabricated justification. But if such people were to actually exist they would not participate in the free software movement either way due to misalignment of values and ideologies.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Companies have cultures and legal constraints that get coworkers fired for perpetually hitting on their coworkers. That's a positive for a lot of people (myself included). Bushnell makes the excellent point that he wasn't pushed out for this email alone, but for the pattern of thought the email indicates when aligned with other behaviors in his career. https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...
- Sadkov 7y ago
  The main problem of Free Software (read GPL) is that it is not free, compared to say BSD. It doesn't promote competition and doesn't help small player, as you have to release all changes back under GPL. On the other hand, GPL increases barrier to entry, so big monopolistic players, like Microsoft and governments, win from it, while small indie devs lose.
pjc50 7y ago
Context: https://medium.com/@zephoria/facing-the-great-reckoning-head-on-8fe434e10630 https://medium.com/@zephoria/facing-the-great-reckoning-head...
shadowgovt 7y ago
This comment is precisely indicative of the attitude that is holding the Free Software movement back, and if pushing Stallman out gives better indication to the fact that this attitude is not to be tolerated, then his removal succeeds in sending the correct message. The movement doesn't grow further as just an old-boys-club, or a tough-emotions-only club. That stuff is, quite frankly, exhausting and detracts from good engineering.

zzzcpan 7y ago

> If your movement's leadership acts in a way that hurts the movement, what's the appropriate response? Everything short of pushing RMS out has been tried already. You are making a baseless assumption that it hurts the movement and are using it to push a change in leadership to someone, who is ideologically more aligned with your views (presumably, maybe you have hidden agendas, who knows). To me it seems that politically correct leadership afraid to talk about controversial topics and express controversial opinions is going to hurt free software much more by letting "the mobs", corporate PR attacks, etc. influence them and shape the movement.

mikeash 7y ago
These are not “controversial opinions.” Controversial opinions are things like “Chernobyl wasn’t that bad” or “abortion is murder.” This is just a guy defending the rape of children.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  He wasn't defending the rape of children.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Well, he spent a bunch of words arguing it’s not rape. I suppose that is slightly different.
eesmith 7y ago
What would provide sufficient base for you to accept that statement? Because I think there is some basis in that statement, given the many conversations I've had over the last 20 years I've known of free software, and known of people who dealt with Stallman. Including my own experience.