12 ms·

No Radical Changes in GNU Project

156 points by stargrave 7y ago

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
Good hopefully he can separate GNU from the FSF and get it under responsible stewardship.
- sounds 7y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Do you feel the FSF is irresponsible? If not, what are you trying to say? Can you share any specifics? What evidence do you have to back up your claims?
  - emilfihlman 7y ago
    FSF fell for the hit piece.
    - butchlugrod 7y ago
      The "hit piece" was written by Stallman himself.
      - daze42 7y ago
        I believe this is what is being referred to https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2...
      - sounds 7y ago
        I believe the parent is saying Stallman was resigned from the role of president of the FSF over the controversy about his private emails (when they were made public). The MIT CSAIL and the FSF (according to the parent) were both deceived by a "hit piece." It's not 100% clear what the parent is calling a "hit piece," but this might be it: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2... Richard Stallman's email announcing he is resigning his position at MIT CSAIL: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September_2019_(Resignation) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September... FSF announcement of Richard Stallman resigning: https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns
      - fierarul 7y ago
        > If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
        shadowgovt 7y ago
        Cardinal Richelieu. Maybe; origin of the quote is a bit disputed. In any case, it's a cute sentiment but it's unclear it has any bearing on a world that isn't an authoritarian universe with a power-protected clergy class. Perhaps in terms of modern-day utility, we can interpret it as a warning to always check primary sources, not trust someone else to have accurately or honestly arranged six lines of text from a third party. (Unfortunately for rms, the primary sources don't actually make him look that good in this situation, since he decided to "um actually" a conversation about rape).
      - Rebelgecko 7y ago
        I think they're referring to this article, which took his quotes entirely out of context since Stallman never said that the victims were willing (quite the opposite) https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-defends-epstein-victims-were-entirely-willing https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r...
        dimensi0nal 7y ago
        The original hit piece was from Vice: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
      - asjw 7y ago
        It was written by an engineer who didn't know who Stallaman is and works for the US military.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        I don't see how a person's employment in the military is relevant here.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    Yes. They got rid of RMS based on slander and libel. They are no long relevant to Free Software.
    - iamasoftwaredev 7y ago
      and truth and past actions.
      - ivalm 7y ago
        what truth and past actions? seriously I see lots of vague references but no one actually links to anything concrete. I get a very "it is known" vibe here, which is usually baseless.
      - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
        Please just stop with the libel. Either present evidence or stop defaming people.
        joshuamorton 7y ago
        First hand accounts are evidence. That you dislike or disbelieve them doesn't make them libelous, it just means you don't want to believe firsthand accounts of bad actions by a person you admire.
        sterkekoffie 7y ago
        Pretty sure she was saying that hand-wavey statements like "he's done bad things in the past" are libelous, not people talking about their experiences. Regardless: there's another option here, where you don't dislike or disbelieve anyone, including rms. Just keep that in mind.
        joshuamorton 7y ago
        It's very difficult for me to square "these are libelous hit pieces" with not disbelieving people when said libelous hit pieces reference firsthand accounts. Said handwavey statements are also not libelous, at all. Libel is a high bar.
- flukus 7y ago
  Is there a way to donate to GNU directly? Seems like through the FSF is the only way and after their recent actions I'm not willing to do that.
djsumdog 7y ago
So RMS resigned from the FSF and his role(s) at MIT, but he's still on with GNU?
- p7IDD243 7y ago
  That's correct but it's also worth noting that he did not resign, he was resigned.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    I'm confused; I'm pretty sure resigning is an act done by the individual, at least supposedly voluntarily, and a quick dictionary check seems to bear that out. Are we just using this as a euphemism, or is there another definition that I needed to learn?
    - nathanlied 7y ago
      You're correct in the definition of 'resigning'. However, there are many cases (and this seems to be one) where people are pushed into resigning against their will. People will still resign, whether out of a sense of honour, or due to the alternative being a prolonged process which will end in the same outcome (being out of a job).
    - ng12 7y ago
      > at least supposedly voluntarily This is the implication. As an example very, very few CEOs are fired but a great many are sternly asked to voluntarily resign by the board.
    - hguant 7y ago
      At higher levels of governance (both corporate and governmental) it's customary to not fire people. The way corporate entities/governments get around this is by asking for some one's resignation, with the implication that if it isn't given, the next step will be to forcibly fire that person. There are a lot of social and legal reasons for this, but it mostly boils down to the negative connotations that come with firing someone; it's a way of avoiding shame/saving face for both parties. The person 'being asked to leave' is spared the indignity of being fired, and the institution doesn't have the albatross of 'one of our key leaders fucked up so badly we had to boot them to the curb' hanging around their necks.
ng12 7y ago
Well, good. An FSF without Stallman doesn't seem very relevant anymore, but GNU is still very important.
- scblock 7y ago
  Any movement that depends on one person to thrive is already dead.
  - passwordreset 7y ago
    Are you saying that about the FSF? Certainly, Stallman was very important for the FSF, but there was an array of others who worked at various facets at times. Eben Moglen, for example, did a stand-up job and had great success helping the FSF, as did others. So, no, the FSF has not been about "one person". That said, however, with the circumstances surrounding the removal of RMS, the FSF can longer be trusted. This very different than "depending" on a single person.
hudsonwillis 7y ago
Glad to see this. I don't want GNU to be rebranded into a mediocre open source project from radical free software symbols, and only someone who bites his fingers after scratching toes like Tux has the least possibility to appease corporations with those sugar-coated pills named "open source".
marble-drink 7y ago
Hard to read, but we definitely need to make sure the GNU project stays in the right hands.
- appleflaxen 7y ago
  Why do you say it's hard to read? Because it's talking about the eventual need for succession?
  - marble-drink 7y ago
    > I won't be here forever
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  It definitely needs to removed from the FSF. They have shown themselves to be unable to stand up to the mob. What will the next mob call for?
Aissen 7y ago
For context, I think it's an answer to this open letter from GNU developers: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...
- nabla9 7y ago
  Very anemic list. For example, only one person from GCC steering committee (Ian Lance Taylor)
  - zapita 7y ago
    Also not a single woman on that list of Stallman supporters, as far as I can tell. EDIT: I misread, it’s not a letter of support to Stallman. Sorry.
    - nabla9 7y ago
      It's a list of people against RMS.
      - mattl 7y ago
        Not at all. I'm one of the people who signed it.
        computerex 7y ago
        I'll quote the page since maybe you had trouble reading it: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... > Yet, we must also acknowledge that Stallman’s behavior over the years has undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users. GNU is not fulfilling its mission when the behavior of its leader alienates a large part of those we want to reach out to. > We believe that Richard Stallman cannot represent all of GNU. We think it is now time for GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project. The GNU Project we want to build is one that everyone can trust to defend their freedom. These are not supporters and the page isn't made in support of RMS.
jgon 7y ago
I don't want to get into the weeds discussing the ins and outs of the various things that have happened with RMS and the FSF. I have my own opinions on whether or not these moves were warranted. Separate from that I guess my largest worry is that this is another step on the road to a complete neutering of the Free Software movement, and the increasing corporate enclosure of the software commons. The one thing I feel like everyone would have to agree on with RMS is that he was strident in his belief in the Free Software movement and refused to compromise in ways that initially seemed intransigent, and were later revealed to be prescient. I worry that both Gnu and the FSF will move more and more toward being co-opted by the corporate "open source" movement as people less obstinate that RMS take charge and let themselves and the "overton window" of Free Software be dragged further into the realm of captive corporatism. Of course the counter to this is that retaining RMS as the leader alienates enough people to weaken the movement equally, and that may be true, I don't have a crystal ball. What I do know is that he published The Right to Read in 1997 and a year later we had the DMCA and things have only accelerated from there. I guess we'll see where the road takes us, but as someone who remembers the excitement and energy that surrounded the web, linux, firefox etc etc, it feels like nowadays open source reigns supreme and it's all just a bunch of free work for corporations to scoop up, stick a web interface on (or containerize), and give back none of the same freedoms they make use of. I just hope we don't look back on this moment (from our locked down walled garden devices) as when the real decline of a true free software commons started.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  It's a complicated question, but I think the real decline of true free software commons was probably around the time cloud services proved so valuable. Cloud provides huge leverage to some end-users for getting to the goal of doing the thing they want to do with the software, and it utterly side-steps the Four Freedoms via the simple expedient of "You don't own the hardware the software runs on." GNU hasn't had an answer to this besides "boycott it," which feels an awful lot like horse-riders suggesting we deal with the problems with cars by never owning or supporting ownership of them.
  - swsieber 7y ago
zeko1195 7y ago
This might be a noob question but can someone explain me how mailing lists are used in software projects. I keep seeing these archived emails that are posted. Could someone fill me in?
- jedberg 7y ago
  Mailing lists are still the best async method for discussing meta issues with regards to a project, when the people who work on it span the globe. Basically you post to the list if you have a meta issue and then everyone replies. It can get pretty tough to follow if you're using email, but most of these had (still have?) mail<->news gateways, so you could use a threaded Usenet reader to keep track of all the forks in the threads. It's sort of a lost art with the news service being mostly gone and with threaded social media.
  - jeena 7y ago
    Many email applications can be set to a threaded view to be able to see who replied what to which message: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thund...
    - jedberg 7y ago
      This is a good point. I've been using gmail for so long I forgot that there are better MUAs out there.
  - zeko1195 7y ago
    Thank you for your response. I have a better understanding now. How is spam dealt with? Do people get banned quickly? Also, who archives these emails. Do they automatically get archived for public viewing?
    - javagram 7y ago
      The mailing list software automatically archives them. There are also provisions for spam blocking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman
kauffj 7y ago
Excellent. This entire incident has been re-enforcing of how willing the media is to lie and how little people care when the lies support a narrative they believe in. Here is what reporter Edward Ongweso Jr. wrote for Vice [1]: > Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked. Here is what Stallman actually wrote: > We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates. There is literally no way to read the previous sentence as Stallman arguing that Epstein's victims were entirely willing. People like Edward Ongweso should be the ones losing their jobs, not Richard Stallman. [1]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-re...
- endianswap 7y ago
  "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children." https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why." https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
    - 29083011397778 7y ago
      Cue somebody pointing out how recent this is; then followed by a rebuttal pointing out the phrase recent years, and that while the post may be new, the change of heart may not be
Fnoord 7y ago
This whole issue, it hurts. Why do we need lynch mobs to bring justice? That is precisely what we need courts of law for. Yet those are overburdened because lawyers and judges are expensive because law is complex. It just makes me so sad. I'd like to learn the truth about this whole issue, and see justice served, but without an official and thorough situation it all remains hearsay and such.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  It is amazing to see a plea for basic standards of justice being downvoted.

156 points by stargrave 7y ago

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago

Good hopefully he can separate GNU from the FSF and get it under responsible stewardship.

sounds 7y ago
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Do you feel the FSF is irresponsible? If not, what are you trying to say? Can you share any specifics? What evidence do you have to back up your claims?
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  FSF fell for the hit piece.
  - butchlugrod 7y ago
    The "hit piece" was written by Stallman himself.
    - daze42 7y ago
      I believe this is what is being referred to https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2...
    - sounds 7y ago
      I believe the parent is saying Stallman was resigned from the role of president of the FSF over the controversy about his private emails (when they were made public). The MIT CSAIL and the FSF (according to the parent) were both deceived by a "hit piece." It's not 100% clear what the parent is calling a "hit piece," but this might be it: https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec2... Richard Stallman's email announcing he is resigning his position at MIT CSAIL: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September_2019_(Resignation) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#16_September... FSF announcement of Richard Stallman resigning: https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns
    - fierarul 7y ago
      > If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        Cardinal Richelieu. Maybe; origin of the quote is a bit disputed. In any case, it's a cute sentiment but it's unclear it has any bearing on a world that isn't an authoritarian universe with a power-protected clergy class. Perhaps in terms of modern-day utility, we can interpret it as a warning to always check primary sources, not trust someone else to have accurately or honestly arranged six lines of text from a third party. (Unfortunately for rms, the primary sources don't actually make him look that good in this situation, since he decided to "um actually" a conversation about rape).
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      I think they're referring to this article, which took his quotes entirely out of context since Stallman never said that the victims were willing (quite the opposite) https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-defends-epstein-victims-were-entirely-willing https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-r...
      - dimensi0nal 7y ago
        The original hit piece was from Vice: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
    - asjw 7y ago
      It was written by an engineer who didn't know who Stallaman is and works for the US military.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        I don't see how a person's employment in the military is relevant here.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  Yes. They got rid of RMS based on slander and libel. They are no long relevant to Free Software.
  - iamasoftwaredev 7y ago
    and truth and past actions.
    - ivalm 7y ago
      what truth and past actions? seriously I see lots of vague references but no one actually links to anything concrete. I get a very "it is known" vibe here, which is usually baseless.
    - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
      Please just stop with the libel. Either present evidence or stop defaming people.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        First hand accounts are evidence. That you dislike or disbelieve them doesn't make them libelous, it just means you don't want to believe firsthand accounts of bad actions by a person you admire.
        sterkekoffie 7y ago
        Pretty sure she was saying that hand-wavey statements like "he's done bad things in the past" are libelous, not people talking about their experiences. Regardless: there's another option here, where you don't dislike or disbelieve anyone, including rms. Just keep that in mind.
        joshuamorton 7y ago
        It's very difficult for me to square "these are libelous hit pieces" with not disbelieving people when said libelous hit pieces reference firsthand accounts. Said handwavey statements are also not libelous, at all. Libel is a high bar.
flukus 7y ago
Is there a way to donate to GNU directly? Seems like through the FSF is the only way and after their recent actions I'm not willing to do that.

djsumdog 7y ago

So RMS resigned from the FSF and his role(s) at MIT, but he's still on with GNU?

p7IDD243 7y ago
That's correct but it's also worth noting that he did not resign, he was resigned.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  I'm confused; I'm pretty sure resigning is an act done by the individual, at least supposedly voluntarily, and a quick dictionary check seems to bear that out. Are we just using this as a euphemism, or is there another definition that I needed to learn?
  - nathanlied 7y ago
    You're correct in the definition of 'resigning'. However, there are many cases (and this seems to be one) where people are pushed into resigning against their will. People will still resign, whether out of a sense of honour, or due to the alternative being a prolonged process which will end in the same outcome (being out of a job).
  - ng12 7y ago
    > at least supposedly voluntarily This is the implication. As an example very, very few CEOs are fired but a great many are sternly asked to voluntarily resign by the board.
  - hguant 7y ago
    At higher levels of governance (both corporate and governmental) it's customary to not fire people. The way corporate entities/governments get around this is by asking for some one's resignation, with the implication that if it isn't given, the next step will be to forcibly fire that person. There are a lot of social and legal reasons for this, but it mostly boils down to the negative connotations that come with firing someone; it's a way of avoiding shame/saving face for both parties. The person 'being asked to leave' is spared the indignity of being fired, and the institution doesn't have the albatross of 'one of our key leaders fucked up so badly we had to boot them to the curb' hanging around their necks.

ng12 7y ago

Well, good. An FSF without Stallman doesn't seem very relevant anymore, but GNU is still very important.

scblock 7y ago
Any movement that depends on one person to thrive is already dead.
- passwordreset 7y ago
  Are you saying that about the FSF? Certainly, Stallman was very important for the FSF, but there was an array of others who worked at various facets at times. Eben Moglen, for example, did a stand-up job and had great success helping the FSF, as did others. So, no, the FSF has not been about "one person". That said, however, with the circumstances surrounding the removal of RMS, the FSF can longer be trusted. This very different than "depending" on a single person.

hudsonwillis 7y ago

Glad to see this. I don't want GNU to be rebranded into a mediocre open source project from radical free software symbols, and only someone who bites his fingers after scratching toes like Tux has the least possibility to appease corporations with those sugar-coated pills named "open source".

marble-drink 7y ago

Hard to read, but we definitely need to make sure the GNU project stays in the right hands.

appleflaxen 7y ago
Why do you say it's hard to read? Because it's talking about the eventual need for succession?
- marble-drink 7y ago
  > I won't be here forever
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
It definitely needs to removed from the FSF. They have shown themselves to be unable to stand up to the mob. What will the next mob call for?

Aissen 7y ago

For context, I think it's an answer to this open letter from GNU developers: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...

nabla9 7y ago
Very anemic list. For example, only one person from GCC steering committee (Ian Lance Taylor)
- zapita 7y ago
  Also not a single woman on that list of Stallman supporters, as far as I can tell. EDIT: I misread, it’s not a letter of support to Stallman. Sorry.
  - nabla9 7y ago
    It's a list of people against RMS.
    - mattl 7y ago
      Not at all. I'm one of the people who signed it.
      - computerex 7y ago
        I'll quote the page since maybe you had trouble reading it: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... > Yet, we must also acknowledge that Stallman’s behavior over the years has undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users. GNU is not fulfilling its mission when the behavior of its leader alienates a large part of those we want to reach out to. > We believe that Richard Stallman cannot represent all of GNU. We think it is now time for GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project. The GNU Project we want to build is one that everyone can trust to defend their freedom. These are not supporters and the page isn't made in support of RMS.

jgon 7y ago

I don't want to get into the weeds discussing the ins and outs of the various things that have happened with RMS and the FSF. I have my own opinions on whether or not these moves were warranted. Separate from that I guess my largest worry is that this is another step on the road to a complete neutering of the Free Software movement, and the increasing corporate enclosure of the software commons. The one thing I feel like everyone would have to agree on with RMS is that he was strident in his belief in the Free Software movement and refused to compromise in ways that initially seemed intransigent, and were later revealed to be prescient. I worry that both Gnu and the FSF will move more and more toward being co-opted by the corporate "open source" movement as people less obstinate that RMS take charge and let themselves and the "overton window" of Free Software be dragged further into the realm of captive corporatism. Of course the counter to this is that retaining RMS as the leader alienates enough people to weaken the movement equally, and that may be true, I don't have a crystal ball. What I do know is that he published The Right to Read in 1997 and a year later we had the DMCA and things have only accelerated from there. I guess we'll see where the road takes us, but as someone who remembers the excitement and energy that surrounded the web, linux, firefox etc etc, it feels like nowadays open source reigns supreme and it's all just a bunch of free work for corporations to scoop up, stick a web interface on (or containerize), and give back none of the same freedoms they make use of. I just hope we don't look back on this moment (from our locked down walled garden devices) as when the real decline of a true free software commons started.

shadowgovt 7y ago
It's a complicated question, but I think the real decline of true free software commons was probably around the time cloud services proved so valuable. Cloud provides huge leverage to some end-users for getting to the goal of doing the thing they want to do with the software, and it utterly side-steps the Four Freedoms via the simple expedient of "You don't own the hardware the software runs on." GNU hasn't had an answer to this besides "boycott it," which feels an awful lot like horse-riders suggesting we deal with the problems with cars by never owning or supporting ownership of them.
- swsieber 7y ago

zeko1195 7y ago

This might be a noob question but can someone explain me how mailing lists are used in software projects. I keep seeing these archived emails that are posted. Could someone fill me in?

jedberg 7y ago
Mailing lists are still the best async method for discussing meta issues with regards to a project, when the people who work on it span the globe. Basically you post to the list if you have a meta issue and then everyone replies. It can get pretty tough to follow if you're using email, but most of these had (still have?) mail<->news gateways, so you could use a threaded Usenet reader to keep track of all the forks in the threads. It's sort of a lost art with the news service being mostly gone and with threaded social media.
- jeena 7y ago
  Many email applications can be set to a threaded view to be able to see who replied what to which message: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thund...
  - jedberg 7y ago
    This is a good point. I've been using gmail for so long I forgot that there are better MUAs out there.
- zeko1195 7y ago
  Thank you for your response. I have a better understanding now. How is spam dealt with? Do people get banned quickly? Also, who archives these emails. Do they automatically get archived for public viewing?
  - javagram 7y ago
    The mailing list software automatically archives them. There are also provisions for spam blocking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman

kauffj 7y ago

Excellent. This entire incident has been re-enforcing of how willing the media is to lie and how little people care when the lies support a narrative they believe in. Here is what reporter Edward Ongweso Jr. wrote for Vice [1]: > Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked. Here is what Stallman actually wrote: > We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates. There is literally no way to read the previous sentence as Stallman arguing that Epstein's victims were entirely willing. People like Edward Ongweso should be the ones losing their jobs, not Richard Stallman. [1]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-re...

endianswap 7y ago
"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children." https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%20...
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  "Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why." https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
  - 29083011397778 7y ago
    Cue somebody pointing out how recent this is; then followed by a rebuttal pointing out the phrase recent years, and that while the post may be new, the change of heart may not be

Fnoord 7y ago

This whole issue, it hurts. Why do we need lynch mobs to bring justice? That is precisely what we need courts of law for. Yet those are overburdened because lawyers and judges are expensive because law is complex. It just makes me so sad. I'd like to learn the truth about this whole issue, and see justice served, but without an official and thorough situation it all remains hearsay and such.

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
It is amazing to see a plea for basic standards of justice being downvoted.