3 ms·

Alexy, was this message you received published in a public forum or private correspondence? If it was normally a private channel, does Mr. Stallman have a stand

Alexy, was this message you received published in a public forum or private correspondence? If it was normally a private channel, does Mr. Stallman have a standard policy of accepting that his private emails may be published? If not, did you set that expectation? I don't want to jump to a lot of conclusions here, but what I'm seeing is a real lack of sincerity in your actions by writing him an open letter instead of sending him a private email, then publishing what appears at first glance to be a private response. I may have it wrong, so please set me straight: Are you really trying to influence him, or are you using him as a foil for sharing your views with us?

raganwald 16y ago
Mr. Braithwaite, did you ever take that test yourself? What sincerity can you claim when you wrap your criticism in a faux-question and then pose that question in a public forum?
AlexeyMK 16y ago
Hey, That's a fair question. I wrote the open letter and sent it to RMS in addition to publishing it; given that RMS doesn't frequent HN, it seemed insincere to do otherwise. I did not ask for explicit permission to publish his one-line response; that said, this was a response that I had heard RMS use in conversations while he was here, and did not feel that there was any reasonable violation of privacy in publishing what I considered to be a boilerplate response. As to my intentions: certainly, influencing RMS would be fantastic; that said, from reputation and from meeting in person I've found RMS to be a difficult person to convince (I tried inquiring about his position on certain issues in person, and was interrupted/dismissed several times until I gave up). More realistically, I was looking for a way to collect my thoughts on the matter and did not expect quite this much attention. If I have at all influenced any Free Software advocates that the best argument for their position is a dignified one (cynicalkane proposes William Buckley as an example), that would be a happy accomplishment.

raganwald 16y ago

Mr. Braithwaite, did you ever take that test yourself? What sincerity can you claim when you wrap your criticism in a faux-question and then pose that question in a public forum?

AlexeyMK 16y ago

Hey, That's a fair question. I wrote the open letter and sent it to RMS in addition to publishing it; given that RMS doesn't frequent HN, it seemed insincere to do otherwise. I did not ask for explicit permission to publish his one-line response; that said, this was a response that I had heard RMS use in conversations while he was here, and did not feel that there was any reasonable violation of privacy in publishing what I considered to be a boilerplate response. As to my intentions: certainly, influencing RMS would be fantastic; that said, from reputation and from meeting in person I've found RMS to be a difficult person to convince (I tried inquiring about his position on certain issues in person, and was interrupted/dismissed several times until I gave up). More realistically, I was looking for a way to collect my thoughts on the matter and did not expect quite this much attention. If I have at all influenced any Free Software advocates that the best argument for their position is a dignified one (cynicalkane proposes William Buckley as an example), that would be a happy accomplishment.