6 ms·

What did Stallman do specifically? Why is it always so hard to find out what someone actually said or did when they are being cancelled?

bcrescimanno 6y ago
The Open Letter site itself has an Appendix that includes specifics: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix
lukasb 6y ago
Start here: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  I read through it, and the first concrete accusations cites a newspaper article titled "Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were 'Entirely Willing'" which is flat out wrong. He does not defend Epstein (but Marvin Minsky), and he does not state that the victims were entirely willing. Read the original email instead of the smearing article in a tabloid. I also recommend the treatment here: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web
orra 6y ago
Stallman seems to have a history of being manipulative and sexually harassing women. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He also has some troubling views that at best make him an inappropriate spokesperson. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix
- crazypython 6y ago
  Here's a satirization of the open letter: https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22 https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061...
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    I think your link might be broken. Here's a working link: https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22 https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061...
    - crazypython 6y ago
      Thanks! I edited mine to reflect yours.
- nammi 6y ago
  I checked one of those citations, and wow.... > I expect that Sudanese law defines "rape" to exclude rape by the husband. That's comparable to US laws that define "rape" to include voluntary sex with under N years of age (where N varies). Both laws falsify the meaning of "rape". https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html#14_May_2018_(Death_sentence_in_Sudan) https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html#14_May_2018_...
- kristopolous 6y ago
  > "He regularly and repeatedly makes comments about “the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as ‘rape’ even if they are willing.” I'm a gay man who is into older men. When I was in highschool I intentionally sought out men in their 20s and 30s. Cross generational relationships are a sexual preference and can be just as fulfilling and last just as long as any other. Sometimes the younger person has more money and is the one paying for everything. Really. I should know. I've been that younger person. It's really just like any other relationship. We laugh, love, and have deep meaningful emotional connections. These antiquated stereotypes of a mustache twirling abusive old pervert preying on the naive country bumpkin has to go. The vast majority simply aren't like that. There's creeps, sure, but there's creepy people everywhere. A 17 year old in love with a 30 year old shouldn't come with secrecy, shame and judgemental speculation. I had enough of that when I was young. Let us emerge from the shadows. We've been here all along. RMS is saying there shouldn't be prison sentences for love. Abuse is a relationship dynamic, not a function of the age of the participants. Hit me up if you want to have me fired over my sexual orientation as well, email info is on my contact page. I'll mail you my manager's info.
  - anthk 6y ago
    That in Europe it's just "Monday". In my country, the legal age to consent is 16. And, a few years ago, it was... 13!!!
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      I would agree somewhere there is a threshold where abuse can reasonably be assumed. But abuse has to be the thing demonstrated for the crime and not merely the age of the participants. I agree those implications sound shocking, but please read on: When it comes to criminality, we need to stay focused on the abuse and manipulation and not be distracted by ages or any other correlative relationship. Going over the line of consent is the trespass we all agree upon. Such hyper-vigilance will permit us to pursue the true sentiments and goals of metoo and cancel culture, to rout out systems and institutions of abuse. All kinds. For instance, a 10 year old with a 40 year old late at night at a park sounds like a major red flag, something we should all find unacceptable. What if it's a basketball coach waiting for a parent who's running late? The point of that redirection story is that abuse and manipulation is what needs to be demonstrated, not just the mere existence of a relationship. Abuse can happen without sex at all. Our immense paranoia of child sex predators has robbed people of their natural desires to nurture children. By assuming the worst is inevitable we have made the best impossible. I know it's a high standard so let us all aim high.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  Yeah I saw that, but I didn’t see anything that he did specifically. It seems he said some things that one might disagree with which is fair enough but saying it’s sexual harassment seems like a stretch IMO.
  - orra 6y ago
    Did you, uh, read the medium link that I and the appendix linked to? https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He threatened suicide if a woman wouldn't date him. That's abusive manipulation. He, unsolicitedly hands out 'pleasure cards' to women at conferences. That's harassment: Conferences are a interest and professional environment; they're not Tinder. Having a bed in his office at MIT is creepy as hell. Inviting woman at MIT into his office would hence be harassment. Women at MIT had to keep plants in their offices to ward him off. Ward off his persistent, unwanted, sexual advances. That's him causing harassment.
    - endisneigh 6y ago
      Having a bed in your office is unusual but I disagree it’s harassment.
    - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
      Those cards said "Sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance - tender embraces - unusual sense of humor." Handing out such calling cards seems to only be classified as harassment if the man is fat.
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      I have an office in my bedroom. Is that ok?
      - salawat 6y ago
        That depends. Do you wear shirts while on teleconferences, and what art do people get subjected to? I will also require your taste in literature, boxers or briefs, tube socks with/without the colored stripes or those ankle socks, and toilets or bidets to make a final determination.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  I read through as many specific quotes as I could find and it all looked like your typical tenured male professor running his mouth. Is Stallman kind of creepy? I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Has he DONE anything wrong? If so, someone should notify the police. That blog post calling for his removal was way overblown and quite childish. I worked in a college setting for years and tenured professors were found in possession of pornography on school grounds and on school equipment. We in tech, who discovered and reported it,thought it was a big deal. Academic freedom policy and union protection gave it the big shrug. That didn't protect their reputation but it did protect their freedom. I came to hold dear the notion of academic and intellectual freedom from my years working there. Web filtering and monitoring were completely off the table. Not because it might protect some creepy dudes from exposure but because it protects us all in ways that most people don't even fathom. I predict that the author of that post will deeply regret their actions one day when they grow up.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Uh? No, I don't think you should be allowed to advocate for the morality of statutory rape in a university mailing list on an entirely unrelated topic. I was on some csail mailing lists and I certainly wouldn't want to get that. And we wonder why this field is so gender lopsided.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    > I predict that the author of that post will deeply regret their actions one day when they grow up. The original signers of that letter are: * Molly de Blanc (Debian Project, GNOME Foundation) * Nathan Freitas * Matthew Garrett (Former member of the FSF board of directors). See: https://twitter.com/mjg59 https://twitter.com/mjg59 * Shauna Gordon-McKeon * Elana Hashman (Debian Technical Committee Member, Open Source Initiative Director, Kubernetes SIG Instrumentation Chair) * Faidon Liambotis (Open Source Initiative Director) * Katherine Maher * Tom Marble (Software Freedom Conservancy, Evaluation Committee Chair) * Neil McGovern (GNOME Foundation Executive Director, Former Debian Project Leader) * Deb Nicholson (OSI General Manager, SeaGL Co-Founder) * Nadya Peek * Julia Reda * Eric Schultz * Joan Touzet (Apache CouchDB PMC, Former Apache Software Foundation Director) * Luis Villa (Former Director of the Open Source Initiative and the GNOME Foundation; contributor to the GPL v3 drafting process) * Stefano Zacchiroli (Former Debian Project Leader and Former Director of the Open Source Initiative) See: * https://rms-open-letter.github.io https://rms-open-letter.github.io
- amanzi 6y ago
  Have you read this too? https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web
kbelder 6y ago
By being vague, they can give the slightest missteps immense gravity.
konjin 6y ago
He was (((white))) and a not quite black enough student needed a scalp for her future career. It pays to destroy lives: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. This is not a site for political or ideological hell war. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - kinghajj 6y ago
    Thank you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
geofft 6y ago
Many things, over many years. The free software community was deeply unhappy with him for a long while. Here's a subset: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and... https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 The immediate pressure for him to resign was a media firestorm over his Epstein comments, but that wouldn't have done anything had he not already lost the support of the free software community by then. (BTW, the answer to why it's so hard: every single reply giving you an answer has been downvoted, and the only reply that's staying up is the one that implies people want to be vague. I've been getting downvoted for providing actual answers often enough that HN blocks me for commenting for a bit. So if you are having trouble finding answers, remember the reason is censorship.)
salawat 6y ago
Can't help on what set people off, but those who value the truth collated a thorough debunking of the media smear job. https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Wow thanks for sharing that. This rabbit hole of smearing by activists and left leaning news media is far far deeper than I was expecting. Unfortunately with so few paying attention I’m not sure how to even fight back. It feels like speaking up risks one’s social and professional credentials, and I’m not sure it would be effective given there are overwhelming numbers of people spreading these smears.

bcrescimanno 6y ago

The Open Letter site itself has an Appendix that includes specifics: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

lukasb 6y ago

Start here: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...

MauranKilom 6y ago
I read through it, and the first concrete accusations cites a newspaper article titled "Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were 'Entirely Willing'" which is flat out wrong. He does not defend Epstein (but Marvin Minsky), and he does not state that the victims were entirely willing. Read the original email instead of the smearing article in a tabloid. I also recommend the treatment here: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

orra 6y ago

Stallman seems to have a history of being manipulative and sexually harassing women. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He also has some troubling views that at best make him an inappropriate spokesperson. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

crazypython 6y ago
Here's a satirization of the open letter: https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22 https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061...
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  I think your link might be broken. Here's a working link: https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22 https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061...
  - crazypython 6y ago
    Thanks! I edited mine to reflect yours.
nammi 6y ago
I checked one of those citations, and wow.... > I expect that Sudanese law defines "rape" to exclude rape by the husband. That's comparable to US laws that define "rape" to include voluntary sex with under N years of age (where N varies). Both laws falsify the meaning of "rape". https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html#14_May_2018_(Death_sentence_in_Sudan) https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html#14_May_2018_...
kristopolous 6y ago
> "He regularly and repeatedly makes comments about “the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as ‘rape’ even if they are willing.” I'm a gay man who is into older men. When I was in highschool I intentionally sought out men in their 20s and 30s. Cross generational relationships are a sexual preference and can be just as fulfilling and last just as long as any other. Sometimes the younger person has more money and is the one paying for everything. Really. I should know. I've been that younger person. It's really just like any other relationship. We laugh, love, and have deep meaningful emotional connections. These antiquated stereotypes of a mustache twirling abusive old pervert preying on the naive country bumpkin has to go. The vast majority simply aren't like that. There's creeps, sure, but there's creepy people everywhere. A 17 year old in love with a 30 year old shouldn't come with secrecy, shame and judgemental speculation. I had enough of that when I was young. Let us emerge from the shadows. We've been here all along. RMS is saying there shouldn't be prison sentences for love. Abuse is a relationship dynamic, not a function of the age of the participants. Hit me up if you want to have me fired over my sexual orientation as well, email info is on my contact page. I'll mail you my manager's info.
- anthk 6y ago
  That in Europe it's just "Monday". In my country, the legal age to consent is 16. And, a few years ago, it was... 13!!!
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    I would agree somewhere there is a threshold where abuse can reasonably be assumed. But abuse has to be the thing demonstrated for the crime and not merely the age of the participants. I agree those implications sound shocking, but please read on: When it comes to criminality, we need to stay focused on the abuse and manipulation and not be distracted by ages or any other correlative relationship. Going over the line of consent is the trespass we all agree upon. Such hyper-vigilance will permit us to pursue the true sentiments and goals of metoo and cancel culture, to rout out systems and institutions of abuse. All kinds. For instance, a 10 year old with a 40 year old late at night at a park sounds like a major red flag, something we should all find unacceptable. What if it's a basketball coach waiting for a parent who's running late? The point of that redirection story is that abuse and manipulation is what needs to be demonstrated, not just the mere existence of a relationship. Abuse can happen without sex at all. Our immense paranoia of child sex predators has robbed people of their natural desires to nurture children. By assuming the worst is inevitable we have made the best impossible. I know it's a high standard so let us all aim high.
endisneigh 6y ago
Yeah I saw that, but I didn’t see anything that he did specifically. It seems he said some things that one might disagree with which is fair enough but saying it’s sexual harassment seems like a stretch IMO.
- orra 6y ago
  Did you, uh, read the medium link that I and the appendix linked to? https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... He threatened suicide if a woman wouldn't date him. That's abusive manipulation. He, unsolicitedly hands out 'pleasure cards' to women at conferences. That's harassment: Conferences are a interest and professional environment; they're not Tinder. Having a bed in his office at MIT is creepy as hell. Inviting woman at MIT into his office would hence be harassment. Women at MIT had to keep plants in their offices to ward him off. Ward off his persistent, unwanted, sexual advances. That's him causing harassment.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    Having a bed in your office is unusual but I disagree it’s harassment.
  - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
    Those cards said "Sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance - tender embraces - unusual sense of humor." Handing out such calling cards seems to only be classified as harassment if the man is fat.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    I have an office in my bedroom. Is that ok?
    - salawat 6y ago
      That depends. Do you wear shirts while on teleconferences, and what art do people get subjected to? I will also require your taste in literature, boxers or briefs, tube socks with/without the colored stripes or those ankle socks, and toilets or bidets to make a final determination.
datavirtue 6y ago
I read through as many specific quotes as I could find and it all looked like your typical tenured male professor running his mouth. Is Stallman kind of creepy? I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Has he DONE anything wrong? If so, someone should notify the police. That blog post calling for his removal was way overblown and quite childish. I worked in a college setting for years and tenured professors were found in possession of pornography on school grounds and on school equipment. We in tech, who discovered and reported it,thought it was a big deal. Academic freedom policy and union protection gave it the big shrug. That didn't protect their reputation but it did protect their freedom. I came to hold dear the notion of academic and intellectual freedom from my years working there. Web filtering and monitoring were completely off the table. Not because it might protect some creepy dudes from exposure but because it protects us all in ways that most people don't even fathom. I predict that the author of that post will deeply regret their actions one day when they grow up.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > I think so. Is it a good idea to explore the philosophical points of under age sex in an academic setting or in public? No, but thank the gods you are allowed to...sort of. Uh? No, I don't think you should be allowed to advocate for the morality of statutory rape in a university mailing list on an entirely unrelated topic. I was on some csail mailing lists and I certainly wouldn't want to get that. And we wonder why this field is so gender lopsided.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > I predict that the author of that post will deeply regret their actions one day when they grow up. The original signers of that letter are: * Molly de Blanc (Debian Project, GNOME Foundation) * Nathan Freitas * Matthew Garrett (Former member of the FSF board of directors). See: https://twitter.com/mjg59 https://twitter.com/mjg59 * Shauna Gordon-McKeon * Elana Hashman (Debian Technical Committee Member, Open Source Initiative Director, Kubernetes SIG Instrumentation Chair) * Faidon Liambotis (Open Source Initiative Director) * Katherine Maher * Tom Marble (Software Freedom Conservancy, Evaluation Committee Chair) * Neil McGovern (GNOME Foundation Executive Director, Former Debian Project Leader) * Deb Nicholson (OSI General Manager, SeaGL Co-Founder) * Nadya Peek * Julia Reda * Eric Schultz * Joan Touzet (Apache CouchDB PMC, Former Apache Software Foundation Director) * Luis Villa (Former Director of the Open Source Initiative and the GNOME Foundation; contributor to the GPL v3 drafting process) * Stefano Zacchiroli (Former Debian Project Leader and Former Director of the Open Source Initiative) See: * https://rms-open-letter.github.io https://rms-open-letter.github.io
amanzi 6y ago
Have you read this too? https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-web

kbelder 6y ago

By being vague, they can give the slightest missteps immense gravity.

konjin 6y ago

He was (((white))) and a not quite black enough student needed a scalp for her future career. It pays to destroy lives: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie https://www.linkedin.com/in/selamjie

dang 6y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. This is not a site for political or ideological hell war. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kinghajj 6y ago
  Thank you.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

geofft 6y ago

Many things, over many years. The free software community was deeply unhappy with him for a long while. Here's a subset: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and-gnu https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/10/08/thoughts-on-rms-and... https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374 The immediate pressure for him to resign was a media firestorm over his Epstein comments, but that wouldn't have done anything had he not already lost the support of the free software community by then. (BTW, the answer to why it's so hard: every single reply giving you an answer has been downvoted, and the only reply that's staying up is the one that implies people want to be vague. I've been getting downvoted for providing actual answers often enough that HN blocks me for commenting for a bit. So if you are having trouble finding answers, remember the reason is censorship.)

salawat 6y ago

Can't help on what set people off, but those who value the truth collated a thorough debunking of the media smear job. https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

throwawaysea 6y ago
Wow thanks for sharing that. This rabbit hole of smearing by activists and left leaning news media is far far deeper than I was expecting. Unfortunately with so few paying attention I’m not sure how to even fight back. It feels like speaking up risks one’s social and professional credentials, and I’m not sure it would be effective given there are overwhelming numbers of people spreading these smears.