4 ms·

It doesn't make sense to remove someone from a position because of a few things they said. Rather, we should evaluate the individual as a whole. Is he a good pe

It doesn't make sense to remove someone from a position because of a few things they said. Rather, we should evaluate the individual as a whole. Is he a good person or a bad person? Is he effective or inneffective? Based on everything I read about Stallman so far over the years, I'd say he is truly decent human being and an extremely effective leader. He is almost certainly a better person than all of the self-righteous, hypocritical bureaucrats who are now trying to take him down who never did anything altruistic their entire self-centered lives. IMO, if Stallman didn't do any crime himself, he can say whatever the heck he wants about anything. People need to toughen up and stop being such hypocrites. We all have a brain between our ears; how about we start using it to decide for ourselves if some celebrity or politician is right or wrong instead of trying to censor them. Just because they're famous doesn't mean they're right and it doesn't mean you have to agree with them.

geofft 7y ago
Sure, that seems like a much more reasonable basis for this discussion. There has been very strong consensus at MIT for decades that he's not a decent human being and he himself tries to take down people who are doing altruistic things but dare to host their volunteer signup form on Google Forms. I genuinely don't know what the argument for reinstating his MIT position is. The internal politics of GNU have been awful for decades too, largely due to RMS, and I know plenty of free software folks (including a few folks formerly associated with FSF - i.e., true believers in the cause that RMS managed to deconvert) who think his leadership is ineffective, harmful, or both. So, if there's a claim that he's a good leader for the FSF and for GNU, that seems like something we can have a direct, factual debate on. "RMS didn't make the statements about Epstein that the media claimed he said, therefore he's a qualified and effective leader of the free software movement" is fallacious. "The media attacked him unfairly, so he needs his old job back to get back at them regardless of his fitness for the job" isn't justice, just revenge.

geofft 7y ago

Sure, that seems like a much more reasonable basis for this discussion. There has been very strong consensus at MIT for decades that he's not a decent human being and he himself tries to take down people who are doing altruistic things but dare to host their volunteer signup form on Google Forms. I genuinely don't know what the argument for reinstating his MIT position is. The internal politics of GNU have been awful for decades too, largely due to RMS, and I know plenty of free software folks (including a few folks formerly associated with FSF - i.e., true believers in the cause that RMS managed to deconvert) who think his leadership is ineffective, harmful, or both. So, if there's a claim that he's a good leader for the FSF and for GNU, that seems like something we can have a direct, factual debate on. "RMS didn't make the statements about Epstein that the media claimed he said, therefore he's a qualified and effective leader of the free software movement" is fallacious. "The media attacked him unfairly, so he needs his old job back to get back at them regardless of his fitness for the job" isn't justice, just revenge.