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It does rather smack of the old police tactic: When someone's known to have done something Bad, but the police cannot prove it, they send them to prison for a m
by johnday 7y ago
It does rather smack of the old police tactic: When someone's known to have done something Bad, but the police cannot prove it, they send them to prison for a minor crime such as tax evasion.
I'm not saying that RMS has committed any crimes of course, but there are other reasons that people do not see him as a political figure that they can rally behind in the modern day. A lot of this is entirely about image. People feel uncomfortable having an aging, socially irrepressible person in charge of an organisation which they support. A (seemingly false) allegation is all that it took to bring those qualms to the fore.
Also I note that the author tacitly avoids the other comments which RMS has historically made, in particular with regards to abuse of minors, instead focusing on the one which was incorrectly taken out of context.
- Ensorceled 7y agoThis is a weird way to think of it. All of these organizations have been putting up with Stallman's problematic behavior for a long time. This incident reopened a dark chapter in MIT history, too soon and Stallman has a history of, at best, minimizing the impact of pedophilia. This was a final straw situation.
- johnday 7y agoI agree with you, that's roughly what I was saying. The events of the last few weeks were the catalyst that allowed people to start externalising those things, small or big, which they had previously been withholding in the name of "getting on".