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Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech

41 points by mancerayder 7y ago

Traster 7y ago
It's going to be very interesting to hear from Hacker News about this.
moomin 7y ago
We can hope so. Free Software is needed in today’s society, probably more than it was needed at its inception. But it needs to be for everyone, and needs new leaders. I hope this is the start, not the end, of the movement.
- seba_dos1 7y ago
  I hope so too. The way this change happened however leaves a really bad taste, and not in the least due to whatever Stallman has said or done.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  I hope with you, but I doubt. There was nothing keeping new leaders from emerging before. Stallman never struck me as particularly jealous, just particular. We might just be witnessing the retirement of the only person with the single-mindedness and influence to keep the thing going.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    Yes, FSF basically forked into its own not so free software movement, especially after some FSF people publicly joined the attack on Stallman. Old movement is dead, split, new movements are not going to be the same.
  - zelphirkalt 7y ago
    This is also something I fear might happen. Let us hope for the best. Someone with a clear way of making logical arguments, with firm idea about free software, furthering the original goals.
- plange 7y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but this movement has been going on for a long time but and has been very bad at... hisss.. marketing. These are complex topics and people don't want to put in the effort to understand them so this needs some top-shelf selling power. And there's no money to be made. Just freedom (as in speech).
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    The FSF has been wildly successful at marketing, its ideas have completely pervaded and transformed computing and tech, and its effects will be felt for centuries, if humans last that long. In my experience, people who say the FSF have been bad at marketing have three types of criticism. The first two are unbelievably shallow, and honestly obviated by the FSFs success while ignoring them: 1) fonts, and whatever web design trend is current, and 2) Richard Stallman's personal appearance and tone. Plenty of contenders for the group du jour of software freedom have concentrated on web design and being attractive TED Talk types, have gotten zero traction, and faded into the mist - turns out people prefer a complete and detailed philosophy, a track record of standing behind it, and a spokesperson who clearly has no ulterior motives. The third is both far more intense and more telling: when Stallman would criticize the practices of specific companies, or the failure or more permissive licenses to require the users to share changes. IMO, this is the criticism of people who don't actually agree with the idea of software freedom at all but don't want to say it because they have strong feelings about property rights and the ability to control their code after it's left their physical or technical possession, that don't jibe with their visceral disgust at a license that would force you to share, or to behave in any sort of an altruistic way (like the unfree "don't be evil" or "don't be the military" licenses.) Forced altruism bothers them. The people in the third category are obviously unqualified to carry the torch because they at best are bystanders, and at worst enemies of the idea of free software. The people in the first two, the "marketers," are not likely do do it because marketing (of an useful, positive idea) is essentially cynical; it's sugar on the pill. It's what you do to get children to do something that's good for them but they don't understand. Adults prefer better pills. not better sugar. Sugar is cheap, I can buy my own.
thrower123 7y ago
It's a little unsettling that there is such an effort to give more importance to Stallman now, in his disgrace, than he ever had in reality. He'd reached the point of being nearly forgotten until he shot his mouth off inopportunely and caught the full force of the outrage mob.
- jweir 7y ago
  The outrage, not disagreement, over his comments are thoughtless but that is the mob and that is he internet. I doubt most folks really upset by RMS even read the thread.
- adrianN 7y ago
  In my filter bubble RMS was getting more and more important as more and more of his predictions became true. Now more than ever are software freedoms at risk, thanks to Software As A Service Substitute. I find it sad that his career ends in this way and hope that his legacy will live on.
frabbit 7y ago
He asks her out on a date. She says no. He moves on. Is the Wired article mis-representing the gist of Christine Corbett Moran's complaint? Or is the author subtly trying to undermine her?
- kd3 7y ago
  What was her complaint exactly? Are men not supposed to ask her out?
  - AgentOrange1234 7y ago
    Uh, it’s certainly not appropriate to ask someone you’ve just met at a technical conference to go on a date with you.
    - Freak_NL 7y ago
      Why not? It's a bit direct and perhaps odd and unexpected, but also polite, possibly flattering, and a very decent way of taking a chance on getting to know someone who you will likely not meet again unless you take action, better. If the response to the rejection of that offer is polite and professional, then how is this inappropriate?
      - filoleg 7y ago
        As one of the people he asked out mentioned, his response to the rejection was anything but appropriate (he threatened to kill himself) [0]. 0. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - AgentOrange1234 7y ago
        It’s appropriate at a bar. It’s not appropriate at a professional conference or at work. Especially with the age / seniority difference, this is textbook sexual harassment.
kd3 7y ago
Yeah, a new era of brain damage, irrationality and emotions winning over facts. Congratulations.
- verroq 7y ago
  It is truely 2019 when Stallman gets nailed for something he didn’t say, while Wired, Vice and god knows how many medium blogs celebrate this as “progress”.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    Nobody expects the Inquisition.
    - zzzcpan 7y ago
      I think it's pretty obvious that US propaganda and censorship machine pushed into tech at full force in the last couple of years, with all the manufacturing consent at all levels. When they forced codes of conduct, inquisition was already kind of expected.
      - rpiguy 7y ago
        Is Monty Python lost on this generation?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        thrower123 7y ago
        Have they written all of those jokes and references out of the Python documentation for sins against inclusivity yet? I dearly hope not, but I would not be surprised.
        zzzcpan 7y ago
        > Is Monty Python lost on this generation? Could you elaborate? Looks like a UK television thing from the 70s. I'm not familiar with UK television culture references.
prepend 7y ago
Certainly now tech is finally free to be inclusive. I look forward to the wonderful surge of commits from people who didn’t feel welcome enough to send in their code. Has Freeer Software Foundation been started yet?
- Barrin92 7y ago
  What commits did Stallman make after gcc and emacs? He was a pontificating creep and mothing more for decades. The software world will be better off with people in charge who don't endorse politically absolutist creeds or are so socially maladjusted that they make every woman in a ten feet radius uncomfortable. We don't need people who think defending child abusers or pedophilia is appropriate in this community.The only scandal about this is that he wasn't ousted fifteen years ago.
  - prepend 7y ago
    We?
bjourne 7y ago
"Future Change Warning: Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program." Is the above comment in the glibc manual something to be upset about? I don't understand why.
- pseudalopex 7y ago
  The glibc maintainers removed it because a dated oblique joke didn't help anyone use glibc. People got upset when Stallman demanded they revert the change and refused to compromise.
  - bjourne 7y ago
    Makes sense. When reading the article I thought it implied that the joke was offensive. Apparently, it was Stallman's insistence on preserving the joke that was the problem, not the joke itself.
    - pseudalopex 7y ago
      Some maintainers thought it could bring up painful memories or seem like it was mocking the reader's beliefs. That came up after Stallman insisted on putting it back in, though. The original consensus was just that it was badly written and out of place.
chaboud 7y ago
Huh... I read the CSAIL email thread, and it seems like RMS was discussing distinctions between forcible acts, statutory acts, and coercion by a third party (e.g. Epstein being, in essence, a human-trafficking pimp...). RMS seemed to be arguing for clear description instead of jumping to "everything is child rape". I don't know exactly where RMS is coming from, but, knowing victims of forcible and child sexual assault, I think it's still worth maintaining descriptive, moral, and legal distinctions...
- eesmith 7y ago
  I think Stallman started on the wrong foot. He used his own definition of "sexual assault" - one that requires physical violence - when "sexual assault" generally means something more like "sex with someone without their consent." He criticized people for using "assault" for something where there was no described physical violence, and asserted that "sexual assault" was a meaningless term. For those who understand "sexual assault" to mean "lack of consent", rejecting the first term is the same as rejecting the the concept of "consent" in a sexual relationship. He could have criticized the term, like how he criticizes the term "intellectual property", but instead he rejected the term as being meaningful for this situation. And I want to stress, he used his own (folk) definition for 'sexual assault' in order to disparage how others were (correctly) using the term. How can he argue for a clear description when he doesn't even know that people are using a clear description? His second wrong foot was in arguing that since age-of-consent laws vary, so sex between a 73-year-old and a 17-year-old is legal, shouldn't be counted as completely immoral. However, the same could apply to Epstein's pedophilia, so this is an indirect support of pedophilia. Further, this was coerced sex with a minor, so age-of-consent laws don't apply. This was all part of a defense of Minsky, who (Stallman argues) wasn't violent and likely assumed she was willing. That's the third wrong foot - "I thought she was 18" isn't a legal defense for age-of-consent laws. But really, it's several feet along the wrong path, as the question is not about age-of-consent - which may have been legal at the time Minksy visited the VI - but about sex with a sex slave, or commercial sex with a 17-year-old. Note that under current VI law, sex between a 70+-year-old and a 17-year-old is classified as second-degree rape, so while it's true that not everything is child rape, in this case the distinction is very narrow. And Stallman was not making narrow arguments about VI law at the time the sex occurred. Stallman presented what he thought was the most likely scenario, but didn't consider other scenarios. He assumed that Minsky did have sex with a 17-year-old. In his hypothetical scenario, did Stallman think that Minsky did not consider this was a set-up for blackmail? How many other teens has Minsky had sex with? Why couldn't it be that Minsky knew that Epstein set him up with a prostitute, under a plausible deniability arrangement? (Statutory rape laws are set up to reject a plausible deniability argument.) These seem quite reasonable questions, but unaddressed. To get to your comments, the issue is that there are clear descriptions - well, as clear as anything involving human nature - codified in law and used in wider discussions on ethics and morality. Stallman doesn't appear to understand these, and doesn't seem to believe that others do, so he rejects the basis for complaining about sexual assault at all. He then talked about it at the wrong place, and the wrong time. What's the worst that could have happened had he written nothing? Very little. It would be a footnote in Minsky biographies. But at a time when more and more unethical behavior at MIT comes to light, well, it's not good timing. Even worse was his own long history of poor social interactions with women, which Minsky and the AI lab had helped protect, as well as his standing as the guiding light behind the free software movement. With Minsky gone, and the spotlight on the MIT senior staff for their actions, he no longer had the buffer when he caused that bright light to shine on himself. I think this can be thought of as a change in the social landscape causing a "cusp catastrophe".
zelphirkalt 7y ago
> Later, he becomes so enthralled by his vision that he excuses—and is excused for—all the wreckage around him. Sound familiar? Is Mark Zuckerberg—the brilliant young man who dreamed of connecting the world and instead made everyone isolated and angry—very different? Is Sergey Brin or Larry Page? Hahaha! Oh my, what utter crap. Zuckerberg, when did he ever show a true conviction to some higher ethical standards? Where is the positive ingenuity in anything Zuckerberg created? Is there even one thing that man did, that has not turned out to be an abomination? Tell me, what that man did, that _positively_ influenced anything besides human greed and his own wallet. That comparison is the most laughable that I heard in a loong time. Up to that point, I already had a feeling about the tone of the article, but this then finally shows, that the author does not even know what they are writing about. The article is rubbish. If there is wreckage around Stallman, then it is caused by him expressing himself in ways, which people tend to misunderstand, although he argues quite mathematically, maybe it is especially, because he does so. He does not care about gender stuff. He cares about what is getting done. Today's socialization is _unfortunately_ in a way, that not _many_ women get into computer science. When he then states something about more men contributing code to some project, he is making a mathematical statement about numbers, not about a gender issue. Why are people unable to understand that? Here is a typical example of people not being able to understand him and his way of making a logical argument: https://youtu.be/eG4HrOpzQXY https://youtu.be/eG4HrOpzQXY I very much doubt, that Stallman is in general against women in tech or anything similar claimed in the article and have never seen him saying anything like that. Seriously, what kind of crap about "female professors keeping plants, because Stallman does not like plants". Go to any office, where women work and check for plants. It is called socialization. We don't have to like it, but saying, that it does not exist, is certainly not going to help solving the issue. Then we have the usual stupid writing going on about how the OS might be called "Linux", but Stallman wants it to be called "GNU/Linux". As if he was the only one person in the world wanting that. Download Linux and from the repositories and run your computer with that! What is wrong with these people? Can't they acknowledge _years_ of work in his youth and later on, basically life, this man put into creating something, that now they rely on every single day of their comparatively unproductive lives? Can we stop being uninformed and call the OS the name of the kernel? Can we prevent uninformed authors from writing more articles about tech, so that technically correct terms can finally win over wrong usage and being uninformed and work done is finally given appropriate credit? The ungratefulness some people show towards Stallman is just so unbelievable. Well, should not have expected a fair account from magazines like Wired in the first place.
salawat 7y ago
Read the emails. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html#document/p20 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420... Then come back and read what I have to say. There was nothing offensive or controversial in there. Not a one. The man only pushed to avoid letting the narrative people wanted to believe run away with the reputation of a friend (Minsky) before all the facts were in. He's endorsing to let the justice system do it's work instead of letting a near tabloid level effort of the media hang a man's reputation out to dry. He's even willing to accept wrongdoing if that is what the facts spell out. He also asks the more extreme poster to the mailing list to provide evidence that it seems he is incapable of uncovering due to his commitment to only using Free Software. If he's guilty of anything, it's being overconfident of the rationality of others in a world so tormented by those willing to turn even a hint of inconvenient independent thought into a sign of some disfigurement of one's essential humanity. There are people out there who pose a threat to civil society and deserve civil/social ostracization. Richard Stallman is not the one in this case, as is evidenced by a willingness on his part to have his mind changed. The media, if anyone, deserves to be ostracized for not actually digging into and presenting the original posts, and picking and choosing only the most controversial aspects of the man that weave the best narrative to draw clicks. If they had done their job, this would have been a non-story, as it would be clear the man was calling for calm in a discussion where passions were running high. The FSF, and MIT handled the entire thing poorly. Instead of investigating, and not doing anything hastily, they caved to engineered histrionics, and also failed to demonstrate a bare modicum of scrutiny to establish the facts of the matter, or reach out to correct the media. Essentially they prioritized distance and public perception over ensuring the truth was known. Both proved to have betrayed fundamental principles that their respective institutions were set up to protect.
- pseudalopex 7y ago
  The responses to Stallman on csail-related show that his comments were controversial and did offend some people even before the media distorted them. I agree with some of what Stallman said, but he didn't simply encourage everyone to reserve judgment. He imagined a plausible scenario, argued for a particular moral interpretation, and emphatically rejected legal definitions. He called opposing views "absolutely wrong" and "morally absurd". He dug in when someone suggested that the conversation was unproductive and could reflect badly on CSAIL. Why do you believe the FSF and MIT didn't investigate? Many people have called this the straw that broke the camel's back.
pherrephatta 7y ago
In seeing all the criticism that software developers have been taking lately over supposed speech transgressions (e.g. Stallman, Torvalds, "Bro", "Weboob"), I can't help but wonder why technical debates have shifted into personal ones, what the proper alternative is to the now seemingly much dreaded meritocratic way of doing things, who truly profits from this change and in what way do they profit from it? There's no doubt in my mind that harassment and sexual assault, as well as discrimination and sexism, really do happen to some individuals. But when you have narratives being twisted to fit a prescribed perspective, when words and talk about the semantics of those words as signifiers (such as in Stallman's case) are interpreted as defense for the object signified by those words, the line between the aggressor and the aggressee become blurred. That does a lot more harm to movements FOR victim and AGAINST discrimination, by generalizing the phenomenon to the point that it loses all relative value it might've had. If everyone's an aggressor, and every conversation is discriminatory in terms of potential interpretation, all men, women, non-binary, etc. are affected. It is debilitating to the highest degree, and no one should defend, let alone strive to create, such an environment. If anything, when faced with such situations, we are not discriminatory enough. As Popper described with his famous paradox of tolerance, tolerance of intolerance presages the destruction of tolerance itself. He clarifies, saying: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."[0] I can only hope that people who are outraged by these aforementioned cases of verbal transgressions have become so because they've misinterpreted what thought was being communicated. Unfortunately, as they more often than not work in consulting or have some "acceptance" program to push towards companies and projects, I can't be certain that they are genuine in their offense. [0] Karl Popper, Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, note 4 to chapter 7.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  Stallman wasn't silenced, he just couldn't meaningfully parse or respond to the criticism.
- Traster 7y ago
  > I can't help but wonder why technical debates have shifted into personal ones, This pretty much hits the nail on the head. Why do engineers think they can talk about sexual assault in the same way they mull over the pros and cons of Kubernetes. Which is why, when Richard Stallman is mulling over whether sexual assault is a real thing, or whether you can really have assault without violence, it's a nasty place to be. Because the person talking about the issue very clearly isn't read up on the subject and is talking about (and often to) people who have actually experienced quite disturbing situations.
riazrizvi 7y ago
> This is a lesson we are fast learning about freedom as it promoted by the tech world. It is not about ensuring that everyone can express their views and feelings. Freedom, in this telling, is about exclusion. The freedom to drive others away. And, until recently, freedom from consequences. Disagree with the author here. Freedom in the tech world and indeed in the 1st Amendment is absolutely about the right to express objectionable views. The problem was that historical cultural norms permitted misogynistic bigots to maintain positions of power - it was a lack of political coordination to root out these leaders. Now there is a political wave driving sexual equality. But just like we learned with racism after Obama’s election, these things don’t move in one direction, they are wars, Trump is still in the Whitehouse and his poll numbers aren’t too bad. So if you care about the long term improvement of sexual equality, best to follow a laser sharp political strategy and discern that a principle like freedom of speech brings allies to the cause, it helps far more than it harms. Free speech means permitting people to say hurtful things. We should protect everyone’s opportunity to reveal who they are. The main focus should be on what we do with that information.
smadge 7y ago
First, my comment has nothing to say about Stallman’s problematic behavior or expulsion of FSF or MIT. However the article is characterizing free software as a centralized system whose purpose is to give powerful men the “freedom” to exclude. It also says the free software movement shares this perverse notion of freedom with the tech giants like Facebook. Can free software maintainers become exclusionary tyrants? Of course, but built into free software is the remedy. You have access to the source control and you are not obligated to tolerate a tyrant. You have near complete freedom over the source code to make any changes or to fork the project, completely sidestepping the maintainer. If someone truly wanted to be a petty tyrant with the “freedom” to exclude they would write their software as closed source, start a company and maintain complete control over all versions of the software and hire or fire all of the programmers who can edit it.
bsaul 7y ago
I believe this trend of prefering moral purity over professional qualities will reach its tipping point when cancer doctors will get fired for making inappropriate comments to female coworkers. At this point we'll start to get serious about what constitutes fireable behaviors and what just makes you a prick. I sincerely hope we'll reach that point very soon.
- stallmanite 7y ago
  I mean who wants their cancer cured by a misogynist? /s
ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
>This is a lesson we are fast learning about freedom as it promoted by the tech world. It is not about ensuring that everyone can express their views and feelings. Freedom, in this telling, is about exclusion. The freedom to drive others away. This seems to be presenting opinion as fact. From a software perspective though, I would argue that yes, I should absolutely have the freedom to reject a change in my code from someone else. The rejected party has the freedom to fork my code.
thosakwe 7y ago
I would argue that a so-called "new era" has already begun, regardless of whether Stallman is physically the chair of any organization. So much time has passed since the formation of the FSF, and (though HN likes to pretend otherwise), tech doesn't exist in a bubble. Different issues are driving decisions today than were a few decades ago; that's just the flow of time. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that standards and goals have changed. I think this "new era" began with the rise of FAANG companies, so really, these trends have been in motion for a while. I'm excited what new developments in AR/VR, AI, compiler theory, etc. will come in the approaching years.
craigsmansion 7y ago
Someone took the time to actually sift through all the accusations and put them in context. https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html This is only about the publications on medium, Vice, and The Daily Beast, not this new one in Wired, who apparently also discovered there's good money in selling pyres.
mnm1 7y ago
Yet another article full of unsubstantiated accusations. This is garbage. Sorry what has Stallman actually done to alienate women? Surely the silly abortion joke is not an example of it. So what if he has strange opinions? Lots of people do. How does that disqualify him from his role? Has he assaulted or harassed women? Has he actually done something worth of being forced to resign? If he has it's not in this article or any other one I've read. Just vague allusions to people growing plants to keep him away. So it's a popularity contest now? This is garbage reporting. The new era of tech is unlikely to attract more women. With this kind of mindset, it's unlikely to attract anyone with a brain, man or woman. I certainly would not want to be associated with the people who would oust someone because of unrelated opinions they didn't like. That's the truly disgusting thing here.
mancerayder 7y ago
What's flagged about this Wired article?
- x3n0ph3n3 7y ago
  I suspect the mods don't like these comments treading into the Culture War conversation.
  - mancerayder 7y ago
    I probably agree with the mods but how is that the article author's fault? Downvote the comments.

41 points by mancerayder 7y ago

It's going to be very interesting to hear from Hacker News about this.

We can hope so. Free Software is needed in today’s society, probably more than it was needed at its inception. But it needs to be for everyone, and needs new leaders. I hope this is the start, not the end, of the movement.

seba_dos1 7y ago
I hope so too. The way this change happened however leaves a really bad taste, and not in the least due to whatever Stallman has said or done.
pessimizer 7y ago
I hope with you, but I doubt. There was nothing keeping new leaders from emerging before. Stallman never struck me as particularly jealous, just particular. We might just be witnessing the retirement of the only person with the single-mindedness and influence to keep the thing going.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  Yes, FSF basically forked into its own not so free software movement, especially after some FSF people publicly joined the attack on Stallman. Old movement is dead, split, new movements are not going to be the same.
- zelphirkalt 7y ago
  This is also something I fear might happen. Let us hope for the best. Someone with a clear way of making logical arguments, with firm idea about free software, furthering the original goals.
plange 7y ago
I agree with everything you said, but this movement has been going on for a long time but and has been very bad at... hisss.. marketing. These are complex topics and people don't want to put in the effort to understand them so this needs some top-shelf selling power. And there's no money to be made. Just freedom (as in speech).
- pessimizer 7y ago
  The FSF has been wildly successful at marketing, its ideas have completely pervaded and transformed computing and tech, and its effects will be felt for centuries, if humans last that long. In my experience, people who say the FSF have been bad at marketing have three types of criticism. The first two are unbelievably shallow, and honestly obviated by the FSFs success while ignoring them: 1) fonts, and whatever web design trend is current, and 2) Richard Stallman's personal appearance and tone. Plenty of contenders for the group du jour of software freedom have concentrated on web design and being attractive TED Talk types, have gotten zero traction, and faded into the mist - turns out people prefer a complete and detailed philosophy, a track record of standing behind it, and a spokesperson who clearly has no ulterior motives. The third is both far more intense and more telling: when Stallman would criticize the practices of specific companies, or the failure or more permissive licenses to require the users to share changes. IMO, this is the criticism of people who don't actually agree with the idea of software freedom at all but don't want to say it because they have strong feelings about property rights and the ability to control their code after it's left their physical or technical possession, that don't jibe with their visceral disgust at a license that would force you to share, or to behave in any sort of an altruistic way (like the unfree "don't be evil" or "don't be the military" licenses.) Forced altruism bothers them. The people in the third category are obviously unqualified to carry the torch because they at best are bystanders, and at worst enemies of the idea of free software. The people in the first two, the "marketers," are not likely do do it because marketing (of an useful, positive idea) is essentially cynical; it's sugar on the pill. It's what you do to get children to do something that's good for them but they don't understand. Adults prefer better pills. not better sugar. Sugar is cheap, I can buy my own.

thrower123 7y ago

It's a little unsettling that there is such an effort to give more importance to Stallman now, in his disgrace, than he ever had in reality. He'd reached the point of being nearly forgotten until he shot his mouth off inopportunely and caught the full force of the outrage mob.

jweir 7y ago
The outrage, not disagreement, over his comments are thoughtless but that is the mob and that is he internet. I doubt most folks really upset by RMS even read the thread.
adrianN 7y ago
In my filter bubble RMS was getting more and more important as more and more of his predictions became true. Now more than ever are software freedoms at risk, thanks to Software As A Service Substitute. I find it sad that his career ends in this way and hope that his legacy will live on.

frabbit 7y ago

He asks her out on a date. She says no. He moves on. Is the Wired article mis-representing the gist of Christine Corbett Moran's complaint? Or is the author subtly trying to undermine her?

kd3 7y ago
What was her complaint exactly? Are men not supposed to ask her out?
- AgentOrange1234 7y ago
  Uh, it’s certainly not appropriate to ask someone you’ve just met at a technical conference to go on a date with you.
  - Freak_NL 7y ago
    Why not? It's a bit direct and perhaps odd and unexpected, but also polite, possibly flattering, and a very decent way of taking a chance on getting to know someone who you will likely not meet again unless you take action, better. If the response to the rejection of that offer is polite and professional, then how is this inappropriate?
    - filoleg 7y ago
      As one of the people he asked out mentioned, his response to the rejection was anything but appropriate (he threatened to kill himself) [0]. 0. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - AgentOrange1234 7y ago
      It’s appropriate at a bar. It’s not appropriate at a professional conference or at work. Especially with the age / seniority difference, this is textbook sexual harassment.

kd3 7y ago

Yeah, a new era of brain damage, irrationality and emotions winning over facts. Congratulations.

verroq 7y ago
It is truely 2019 when Stallman gets nailed for something he didn’t say, while Wired, Vice and god knows how many medium blogs celebrate this as “progress”.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  Nobody expects the Inquisition.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    I think it's pretty obvious that US propaganda and censorship machine pushed into tech at full force in the last couple of years, with all the manufacturing consent at all levels. When they forced codes of conduct, inquisition was already kind of expected.
    - rpiguy 7y ago
      Is Monty Python lost on this generation?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - thrower123 7y ago
        Have they written all of those jokes and references out of the Python documentation for sins against inclusivity yet? I dearly hope not, but I would not be surprised.
      - zzzcpan 7y ago
        > Is Monty Python lost on this generation? Could you elaborate? Looks like a UK television thing from the 70s. I'm not familiar with UK television culture references.

prepend 7y ago

Certainly now tech is finally free to be inclusive. I look forward to the wonderful surge of commits from people who didn’t feel welcome enough to send in their code. Has Freeer Software Foundation been started yet?

Barrin92 7y ago
What commits did Stallman make after gcc and emacs? He was a pontificating creep and mothing more for decades. The software world will be better off with people in charge who don't endorse politically absolutist creeds or are so socially maladjusted that they make every woman in a ten feet radius uncomfortable. We don't need people who think defending child abusers or pedophilia is appropriate in this community.The only scandal about this is that he wasn't ousted fifteen years ago.
- prepend 7y ago
  We?

bjourne 7y ago

"Future Change Warning: Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program." Is the above comment in the glibc manual something to be upset about? I don't understand why.

pseudalopex 7y ago
The glibc maintainers removed it because a dated oblique joke didn't help anyone use glibc. People got upset when Stallman demanded they revert the change and refused to compromise.
- bjourne 7y ago
  Makes sense. When reading the article I thought it implied that the joke was offensive. Apparently, it was Stallman's insistence on preserving the joke that was the problem, not the joke itself.
  - pseudalopex 7y ago
    Some maintainers thought it could bring up painful memories or seem like it was mocking the reader's beliefs. That came up after Stallman insisted on putting it back in, though. The original consensus was just that it was badly written and out of place.

chaboud 7y ago

Huh... I read the CSAIL email thread, and it seems like RMS was discussing distinctions between forcible acts, statutory acts, and coercion by a third party (e.g. Epstein being, in essence, a human-trafficking pimp...). RMS seemed to be arguing for clear description instead of jumping to "everything is child rape". I don't know exactly where RMS is coming from, but, knowing victims of forcible and child sexual assault, I think it's still worth maintaining descriptive, moral, and legal distinctions...

eesmith 7y ago
I think Stallman started on the wrong foot. He used his own definition of "sexual assault" - one that requires physical violence - when "sexual assault" generally means something more like "sex with someone without their consent." He criticized people for using "assault" for something where there was no described physical violence, and asserted that "sexual assault" was a meaningless term. For those who understand "sexual assault" to mean "lack of consent", rejecting the first term is the same as rejecting the the concept of "consent" in a sexual relationship. He could have criticized the term, like how he criticizes the term "intellectual property", but instead he rejected the term as being meaningful for this situation. And I want to stress, he used his own (folk) definition for 'sexual assault' in order to disparage how others were (correctly) using the term. How can he argue for a clear description when he doesn't even know that people are using a clear description? His second wrong foot was in arguing that since age-of-consent laws vary, so sex between a 73-year-old and a 17-year-old is legal, shouldn't be counted as completely immoral. However, the same could apply to Epstein's pedophilia, so this is an indirect support of pedophilia. Further, this was coerced sex with a minor, so age-of-consent laws don't apply. This was all part of a defense of Minsky, who (Stallman argues) wasn't violent and likely assumed she was willing. That's the third wrong foot - "I thought she was 18" isn't a legal defense for age-of-consent laws. But really, it's several feet along the wrong path, as the question is not about age-of-consent - which may have been legal at the time Minksy visited the VI - but about sex with a sex slave, or commercial sex with a 17-year-old. Note that under current VI law, sex between a 70+-year-old and a 17-year-old is classified as second-degree rape, so while it's true that not everything is child rape, in this case the distinction is very narrow. And Stallman was not making narrow arguments about VI law at the time the sex occurred. Stallman presented what he thought was the most likely scenario, but didn't consider other scenarios. He assumed that Minsky did have sex with a 17-year-old. In his hypothetical scenario, did Stallman think that Minsky did not consider this was a set-up for blackmail? How many other teens has Minsky had sex with? Why couldn't it be that Minsky knew that Epstein set him up with a prostitute, under a plausible deniability arrangement? (Statutory rape laws are set up to reject a plausible deniability argument.) These seem quite reasonable questions, but unaddressed. To get to your comments, the issue is that there are clear descriptions - well, as clear as anything involving human nature - codified in law and used in wider discussions on ethics and morality. Stallman doesn't appear to understand these, and doesn't seem to believe that others do, so he rejects the basis for complaining about sexual assault at all. He then talked about it at the wrong place, and the wrong time. What's the worst that could have happened had he written nothing? Very little. It would be a footnote in Minsky biographies. But at a time when more and more unethical behavior at MIT comes to light, well, it's not good timing. Even worse was his own long history of poor social interactions with women, which Minsky and the AI lab had helped protect, as well as his standing as the guiding light behind the free software movement. With Minsky gone, and the spotlight on the MIT senior staff for their actions, he no longer had the buffer when he caused that bright light to shine on himself. I think this can be thought of as a change in the social landscape causing a "cusp catastrophe".

zelphirkalt 7y ago

> Later, he becomes so enthralled by his vision that he excuses—and is excused for—all the wreckage around him. Sound familiar? Is Mark Zuckerberg—the brilliant young man who dreamed of connecting the world and instead made everyone isolated and angry—very different? Is Sergey Brin or Larry Page? Hahaha! Oh my, what utter crap. Zuckerberg, when did he ever show a true conviction to some higher ethical standards? Where is the positive ingenuity in anything Zuckerberg created? Is there even one thing that man did, that has not turned out to be an abomination? Tell me, what that man did, that _positively_ influenced anything besides human greed and his own wallet. That comparison is the most laughable that I heard in a loong time. Up to that point, I already had a feeling about the tone of the article, but this then finally shows, that the author does not even know what they are writing about. The article is rubbish. If there is wreckage around Stallman, then it is caused by him expressing himself in ways, which people tend to misunderstand, although he argues quite mathematically, maybe it is especially, because he does so. He does not care about gender stuff. He cares about what is getting done. Today's socialization is _unfortunately_ in a way, that not _many_ women get into computer science. When he then states something about more men contributing code to some project, he is making a mathematical statement about numbers, not about a gender issue. Why are people unable to understand that? Here is a typical example of people not being able to understand him and his way of making a logical argument: https://youtu.be/eG4HrOpzQXY https://youtu.be/eG4HrOpzQXY I very much doubt, that Stallman is in general against women in tech or anything similar claimed in the article and have never seen him saying anything like that. Seriously, what kind of crap about "female professors keeping plants, because Stallman does not like plants". Go to any office, where women work and check for plants. It is called socialization. We don't have to like it, but saying, that it does not exist, is certainly not going to help solving the issue. Then we have the usual stupid writing going on about how the OS might be called "Linux", but Stallman wants it to be called "GNU/Linux". As if he was the only one person in the world wanting that. Download Linux and from the repositories and run your computer with that! What is wrong with these people? Can't they acknowledge _years_ of work in his youth and later on, basically life, this man put into creating something, that now they rely on every single day of their comparatively unproductive lives? Can we stop being uninformed and call the OS the name of the kernel? Can we prevent uninformed authors from writing more articles about tech, so that technically correct terms can finally win over wrong usage and being uninformed and work done is finally given appropriate credit? The ungratefulness some people show towards Stallman is just so unbelievable. Well, should not have expected a fair account from magazines like Wired in the first place.

salawat 7y ago

Read the emails. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html#document/p20 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420... Then come back and read what I have to say. There was nothing offensive or controversial in there. Not a one. The man only pushed to avoid letting the narrative people wanted to believe run away with the reputation of a friend (Minsky) before all the facts were in. He's endorsing to let the justice system do it's work instead of letting a near tabloid level effort of the media hang a man's reputation out to dry. He's even willing to accept wrongdoing if that is what the facts spell out. He also asks the more extreme poster to the mailing list to provide evidence that it seems he is incapable of uncovering due to his commitment to only using Free Software. If he's guilty of anything, it's being overconfident of the rationality of others in a world so tormented by those willing to turn even a hint of inconvenient independent thought into a sign of some disfigurement of one's essential humanity. There are people out there who pose a threat to civil society and deserve civil/social ostracization. Richard Stallman is not the one in this case, as is evidenced by a willingness on his part to have his mind changed. The media, if anyone, deserves to be ostracized for not actually digging into and presenting the original posts, and picking and choosing only the most controversial aspects of the man that weave the best narrative to draw clicks. If they had done their job, this would have been a non-story, as it would be clear the man was calling for calm in a discussion where passions were running high. The FSF, and MIT handled the entire thing poorly. Instead of investigating, and not doing anything hastily, they caved to engineered histrionics, and also failed to demonstrate a bare modicum of scrutiny to establish the facts of the matter, or reach out to correct the media. Essentially they prioritized distance and public perception over ensuring the truth was known. Both proved to have betrayed fundamental principles that their respective institutions were set up to protect.

pseudalopex 7y ago
The responses to Stallman on csail-related show that his comments were controversial and did offend some people even before the media distorted them. I agree with some of what Stallman said, but he didn't simply encourage everyone to reserve judgment. He imagined a plausible scenario, argued for a particular moral interpretation, and emphatically rejected legal definitions. He called opposing views "absolutely wrong" and "morally absurd". He dug in when someone suggested that the conversation was unproductive and could reflect badly on CSAIL. Why do you believe the FSF and MIT didn't investigate? Many people have called this the straw that broke the camel's back.

pherrephatta 7y ago

In seeing all the criticism that software developers have been taking lately over supposed speech transgressions (e.g. Stallman, Torvalds, "Bro", "Weboob"), I can't help but wonder why technical debates have shifted into personal ones, what the proper alternative is to the now seemingly much dreaded meritocratic way of doing things, who truly profits from this change and in what way do they profit from it? There's no doubt in my mind that harassment and sexual assault, as well as discrimination and sexism, really do happen to some individuals. But when you have narratives being twisted to fit a prescribed perspective, when words and talk about the semantics of those words as signifiers (such as in Stallman's case) are interpreted as defense for the object signified by those words, the line between the aggressor and the aggressee become blurred. That does a lot more harm to movements FOR victim and AGAINST discrimination, by generalizing the phenomenon to the point that it loses all relative value it might've had. If everyone's an aggressor, and every conversation is discriminatory in terms of potential interpretation, all men, women, non-binary, etc. are affected. It is debilitating to the highest degree, and no one should defend, let alone strive to create, such an environment. If anything, when faced with such situations, we are not discriminatory enough. As Popper described with his famous paradox of tolerance, tolerance of intolerance presages the destruction of tolerance itself. He clarifies, saying: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."[0] I can only hope that people who are outraged by these aforementioned cases of verbal transgressions have become so because they've misinterpreted what thought was being communicated. Unfortunately, as they more often than not work in consulting or have some "acceptance" program to push towards companies and projects, I can't be certain that they are genuine in their offense. [0] Karl Popper, Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, note 4 to chapter 7.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
Stallman wasn't silenced, he just couldn't meaningfully parse or respond to the criticism.
Traster 7y ago
> I can't help but wonder why technical debates have shifted into personal ones, This pretty much hits the nail on the head. Why do engineers think they can talk about sexual assault in the same way they mull over the pros and cons of Kubernetes. Which is why, when Richard Stallman is mulling over whether sexual assault is a real thing, or whether you can really have assault without violence, it's a nasty place to be. Because the person talking about the issue very clearly isn't read up on the subject and is talking about (and often to) people who have actually experienced quite disturbing situations.

riazrizvi 7y ago

> This is a lesson we are fast learning about freedom as it promoted by the tech world. It is not about ensuring that everyone can express their views and feelings. Freedom, in this telling, is about exclusion. The freedom to drive others away. And, until recently, freedom from consequences. Disagree with the author here. Freedom in the tech world and indeed in the 1st Amendment is absolutely about the right to express objectionable views. The problem was that historical cultural norms permitted misogynistic bigots to maintain positions of power - it was a lack of political coordination to root out these leaders. Now there is a political wave driving sexual equality. But just like we learned with racism after Obama’s election, these things don’t move in one direction, they are wars, Trump is still in the Whitehouse and his poll numbers aren’t too bad. So if you care about the long term improvement of sexual equality, best to follow a laser sharp political strategy and discern that a principle like freedom of speech brings allies to the cause, it helps far more than it harms. Free speech means permitting people to say hurtful things. We should protect everyone’s opportunity to reveal who they are. The main focus should be on what we do with that information.

smadge 7y ago

First, my comment has nothing to say about Stallman’s problematic behavior or expulsion of FSF or MIT. However the article is characterizing free software as a centralized system whose purpose is to give powerful men the “freedom” to exclude. It also says the free software movement shares this perverse notion of freedom with the tech giants like Facebook. Can free software maintainers become exclusionary tyrants? Of course, but built into free software is the remedy. You have access to the source control and you are not obligated to tolerate a tyrant. You have near complete freedom over the source code to make any changes or to fork the project, completely sidestepping the maintainer. If someone truly wanted to be a petty tyrant with the “freedom” to exclude they would write their software as closed source, start a company and maintain complete control over all versions of the software and hire or fire all of the programmers who can edit it.

bsaul 7y ago

I believe this trend of prefering moral purity over professional qualities will reach its tipping point when cancer doctors will get fired for making inappropriate comments to female coworkers. At this point we'll start to get serious about what constitutes fireable behaviors and what just makes you a prick. I sincerely hope we'll reach that point very soon.

stallmanite 7y ago
I mean who wants their cancer cured by a misogynist? /s

ourlordcaffeine 7y ago

>This is a lesson we are fast learning about freedom as it promoted by the tech world. It is not about ensuring that everyone can express their views and feelings. Freedom, in this telling, is about exclusion. The freedom to drive others away. This seems to be presenting opinion as fact. From a software perspective though, I would argue that yes, I should absolutely have the freedom to reject a change in my code from someone else. The rejected party has the freedom to fork my code.

thosakwe 7y ago

I would argue that a so-called "new era" has already begun, regardless of whether Stallman is physically the chair of any organization. So much time has passed since the formation of the FSF, and (though HN likes to pretend otherwise), tech doesn't exist in a bubble. Different issues are driving decisions today than were a few decades ago; that's just the flow of time. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that standards and goals have changed. I think this "new era" began with the rise of FAANG companies, so really, these trends have been in motion for a while. I'm excited what new developments in AR/VR, AI, compiler theory, etc. will come in the approaching years.

craigsmansion 7y ago

Someone took the time to actually sift through all the accusations and put them in context. https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html This is only about the publications on medium, Vice, and The Daily Beast, not this new one in Wired, who apparently also discovered there's good money in selling pyres.

mnm1 7y ago

Yet another article full of unsubstantiated accusations. This is garbage. Sorry what has Stallman actually done to alienate women? Surely the silly abortion joke is not an example of it. So what if he has strange opinions? Lots of people do. How does that disqualify him from his role? Has he assaulted or harassed women? Has he actually done something worth of being forced to resign? If he has it's not in this article or any other one I've read. Just vague allusions to people growing plants to keep him away. So it's a popularity contest now? This is garbage reporting. The new era of tech is unlikely to attract more women. With this kind of mindset, it's unlikely to attract anyone with a brain, man or woman. I certainly would not want to be associated with the people who would oust someone because of unrelated opinions they didn't like. That's the truly disgusting thing here.

mancerayder 7y ago

What's flagged about this Wired article?

x3n0ph3n3 7y ago
I suspect the mods don't like these comments treading into the Culture War conversation.
- mancerayder 7y ago
  I probably agree with the mods but how is that the article author's fault? Downvote the comments.