8 ms·

What about people that love free software, but are appalled that RMS was reappointed to the board. Where should we go?

radmuzom 6y ago
No need to "go" anywhere - thanks to RMS, you have got the freedoms promised available to you like any other user. If you don't like him, your freedom allows you to do what you want with the software (as long as you respect the terms of the license).
lelanthran 6y ago
> What about people that love free software, but are appalled that RMS was reappointed to the board. Where should we go? Why do you have to go anywhere? If all the evidence you have against someone is "they expressed an opinion I didn't like" I suggest, then, the problem isn't them.
- jamienicol 6y ago
  What a juvenile argument. I couldn't care less about Stallman, he can express whatever he likes. But the consequences of that are that he and the FSF are now a detriment to the free software movement.
- ncallaway 6y ago
  But the FSF's raison d'être is to have an opinion. It's a strongly principled organization that exists to advocate for the things it believes. In the context of someone joining a board of an organization like that, their expressed opinions absolutely matter.
  - lelanthran 6y ago
    > But the FSF's raison d'être is to have an opinion. Sure, but not an opinion on every issue in the world - their mission has always been to promote the user's freedom to use and modify software as the user sees fit. Other issues, whether important or not, may not be relevant to preserving software freedoms. > It's a strongly principled organization that exists to advocate for the things it believes. Correct, so why is everyone up in arms when they are refusing to advocate for things that are not of interest to them? > In the context of someone joining a board of an organization like that, their expressed opinions absolutely matter. Only as far as the organisation's mission statement. I would be (rightly) kicked out of my organisation should I publicly mobilise a mob against my employer for the company's lack of interest in abused puppies at the SPCA. People disagreeing with RMS's expressed opinions on (for example) what constitutes a legal age of consent disqualify themselves as leadership material for an organisation committed to software freedoms. The people who support software freedoms know where to go to get lectures on legal age of consent should they want to hear it. Injecting unrelated political ideology into a group committed to software freedoms is as welcome as posting SPAM for ED to a mailing list for cryptography.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Correct, so why is everyone up in arms when they are refusing to advocate for things that are not of interest to them? “Everyone” is not. Of the people up in arms, some (including at least one FSF board member who resigned, and many individuals and entities that contribute—or did until recently—to the FSF and it's projects) are part of the “they” and clearly so have an interest. And others are just on the outside advocating for things they care about, just as vociferously as FSF partisans do (and no more—though also no less—annoyingly to people who aren't concerned about the same issues.)
phkahler 6y ago
Something I learned. Try to hold the opposing thoughts and feelings in your head together at the same time. Hold gratitude at RMS for founding the FSF and all that has come from that, along with whatever anger you have at his other opinions. Meditate on that conflict. Try to accept that these come from the same person. I've found this to be an effective way to overcome splitting (psychology reference, good concept with poor examples about mommy IMHO).
- fao_ 6y ago
  I can be happy that the FSF exists, admire a number of the goals RMS has strived towards, and still be aghast and horrified by RMS's lack of personal boundaries[1], lack of respect for women[1], and specific pieces of writing that lived on his site for decades that were in favour of child abuse. I'm not sure how meditating on it is supposed to negate the latter. Nor how that is supposed to provide a space in which software is free of the shackles of the misogyny of the popular. [1]: Literally just listen to the women who have had to work along side him on the MIT campus for decades. The fact that it was a known fact in the whisper network on campus and that they had developed tactics for "dealing with it" shows you pretty much everything you need to know.
  - posix_me_less 6y ago
    > pieces of writing that lived on his site for decades that were in favour of child abuse. Come on, that is very hard to believe.
    - fao_ 6y ago
      Literally just look at the citations from the Ars Technica article. Which link to Stallman's own writing.
      - posix_me_less 6y ago
        Not sure which Ars Technica article. Please give a link and citation and explain why that shows Stallman is in favour of child abuse. I don't think you will be able to do that.
jcelerier 6y ago
Do you need to "be somewhere" to put your software under GPL ? I have missed the memo.
- jamienicol 6y ago
  I'll continue to put my software under the GPL until I'm convinced a different license would be better. But along with many others I certainly won't be contributing to an FSF project.
  - jcelerier 6y ago
    I mean, sure, but the FSF / GNU projects are a very small drop in a very large bucket of GPL / free software projects anyways.
    - jamienicol 6y ago
      Agreed. I thank them for their license, but they're largely and increasingly irrelevant nowadays. Which is a shame, under better leadership they could effect more positive change on the world.
squarefoot 6y ago
"but are appalled that RMS was reappointed to the board" That's the problem. RMS did never harass a woman in his entire life; he may have expressed comments that today, especially in the post #metoo era, appear as inconvenient, but that's it; does he deserve to be painted like he was a sexual assaulter (which he is not, has never been, not even close) by multiple sides at the same time? Why all that negative press? Doesn't this raise some warning flags? The reason looks very clear to me: he is stubbornly inflexible in his concept of what Free Software means, which is an extremely good thing; he kept the helm straight no matter the external pressure to stop, where others would have sold themselves and the community for 30 pieces of silver. There are huge interests in "killing" him publicly, which would mean destroying the Free Software movement, sell out the Foundation and giving full powers to whomever has to gain big money from that. Just follow the money trail.
- tibbetts 6y ago
  RMS never harassed women? Have you spent any time around MIT or other RMS haunts? Dude was well established as a serial harasser. When I was a grad student in 2002 it was common knowledge that he was afraid of spider plants and many women at LCS had spider plants in their offices to keep him away.
  - ianai 6y ago
    Is there any easy catalog of these harassments somewhere? Preferably outside of social media-I can’t view the stuff.
    - properdine 6y ago
      I would say this is a pretty good run-down - https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... .
  - radmuzom 6y ago
    As someone who is fat and socially awkward, I am generally greeted with scorn if I smile at an attractive woman. But that does not mean I want to harass or assault them. It does not also mean I don’t have the right to smile - if you are uncomfortable with my smile, the problem is with you, not me.
ianai 6y ago
Way I remember it, mathematics has accepted contributions from any walks of life over its history. “Mathematics is so beautiful to transcend whole societies and be for the ages.” Or something. More practically, mathematics is just so hard that people who are willing to spend significant time with it are rare. People who find significant mathematical ideas are very much more rare. For these reasons, it’s a practical thing to accept mathematical contributions from anyone regardless of their other proclivities. Writing good software is hard. I’d recon it’s similar to mathematics in difficulty often. It’s worth it to consider someone can both be awful in other factors of their life but still make meaningful contributions to society through things like math or software. It helps that he’s always willing to show you his code for audit purposes.
- ianai 6y ago
  Also, I’d add that a feeling of having contributed something meaningful to the world is something like a basic human need. You won’t die if you’re fed, sheltered, and have access to clean water. But if that’s literally all you do in a day you will soon be fiddling for something to do. So instead of rushing to exclude people from society, society needs to provide people enough room to be themselves to keep from dangerous fiddling. Further, forgiveness is a more critical tool to the forgiver than the forgiven. To forgive a grievance isn’t to forget it. It’s to put an end to the part of your resources devoted to punishing your opponent or thinking ill. That frees up those resources for more positive uses. The forgiven never needed to expend resources to earn your forgiveness and thus doesn’t have the same resource commitments - hence forgiveness offers less to the forgiven than the forgiver.
  - Nbox9 6y ago
    In this situation forgiveness has has offered a board seat to the forgiven, which is something of considerable value.
  - jamienicol 6y ago
    I can confidently say I've devoted zero resources to punishing Stallman, other than a few comments on this thread. Yet his benefit from the board's forgiveness is quite clearly large. There's a big difference between excluding someone from society or even contributing to a project, and appointing them to the board.
moistbar 6y ago
>Where should we go? If you're so disgusted by RMS that you refuse to use any of his software, I'd suggest therapy.
- jamienicol 6y ago
  So much projection in so few words. I use plenty of GNU software and will continue to do so. I just believe neither he nor the FSF are fit for purpose, and the free software community is better led by others

No need to "go" anywhere - thanks to RMS, you have got the freedoms promised available to you like any other user. If you don't like him, your freedom allows you to do what you want with the software (as long as you respect the terms of the license).

lelanthran 6y ago

> What about people that love free software, but are appalled that RMS was reappointed to the board. Where should we go? Why do you have to go anywhere? If all the evidence you have against someone is "they expressed an opinion I didn't like" I suggest, then, the problem isn't them.

jamienicol 6y ago
What a juvenile argument. I couldn't care less about Stallman, he can express whatever he likes. But the consequences of that are that he and the FSF are now a detriment to the free software movement.
ncallaway 6y ago
But the FSF's raison d'être is to have an opinion. It's a strongly principled organization that exists to advocate for the things it believes. In the context of someone joining a board of an organization like that, their expressed opinions absolutely matter.
- lelanthran 6y ago
  > But the FSF's raison d'être is to have an opinion. Sure, but not an opinion on every issue in the world - their mission has always been to promote the user's freedom to use and modify software as the user sees fit. Other issues, whether important or not, may not be relevant to preserving software freedoms. > It's a strongly principled organization that exists to advocate for the things it believes. Correct, so why is everyone up in arms when they are refusing to advocate for things that are not of interest to them? > In the context of someone joining a board of an organization like that, their expressed opinions absolutely matter. Only as far as the organisation's mission statement. I would be (rightly) kicked out of my organisation should I publicly mobilise a mob against my employer for the company's lack of interest in abused puppies at the SPCA. People disagreeing with RMS's expressed opinions on (for example) what constitutes a legal age of consent disqualify themselves as leadership material for an organisation committed to software freedoms. The people who support software freedoms know where to go to get lectures on legal age of consent should they want to hear it. Injecting unrelated political ideology into a group committed to software freedoms is as welcome as posting SPAM for ED to a mailing list for cryptography.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Correct, so why is everyone up in arms when they are refusing to advocate for things that are not of interest to them? “Everyone” is not. Of the people up in arms, some (including at least one FSF board member who resigned, and many individuals and entities that contribute—or did until recently—to the FSF and it's projects) are part of the “they” and clearly so have an interest. And others are just on the outside advocating for things they care about, just as vociferously as FSF partisans do (and no more—though also no less—annoyingly to people who aren't concerned about the same issues.)

phkahler 6y ago

Something I learned. Try to hold the opposing thoughts and feelings in your head together at the same time. Hold gratitude at RMS for founding the FSF and all that has come from that, along with whatever anger you have at his other opinions. Meditate on that conflict. Try to accept that these come from the same person. I've found this to be an effective way to overcome splitting (psychology reference, good concept with poor examples about mommy IMHO).

fao_ 6y ago
I can be happy that the FSF exists, admire a number of the goals RMS has strived towards, and still be aghast and horrified by RMS's lack of personal boundaries[1], lack of respect for women[1], and specific pieces of writing that lived on his site for decades that were in favour of child abuse. I'm not sure how meditating on it is supposed to negate the latter. Nor how that is supposed to provide a space in which software is free of the shackles of the misogyny of the popular. [1]: Literally just listen to the women who have had to work along side him on the MIT campus for decades. The fact that it was a known fact in the whisper network on campus and that they had developed tactics for "dealing with it" shows you pretty much everything you need to know.
- posix_me_less 6y ago
  > pieces of writing that lived on his site for decades that were in favour of child abuse. Come on, that is very hard to believe.
  - fao_ 6y ago
    Literally just look at the citations from the Ars Technica article. Which link to Stallman's own writing.
    - posix_me_less 6y ago
      Not sure which Ars Technica article. Please give a link and citation and explain why that shows Stallman is in favour of child abuse. I don't think you will be able to do that.

jcelerier 6y ago

Do you need to "be somewhere" to put your software under GPL ? I have missed the memo.

jamienicol 6y ago
I'll continue to put my software under the GPL until I'm convinced a different license would be better. But along with many others I certainly won't be contributing to an FSF project.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  I mean, sure, but the FSF / GNU projects are a very small drop in a very large bucket of GPL / free software projects anyways.
  - jamienicol 6y ago
    Agreed. I thank them for their license, but they're largely and increasingly irrelevant nowadays. Which is a shame, under better leadership they could effect more positive change on the world.

squarefoot 6y ago

"but are appalled that RMS was reappointed to the board" That's the problem. RMS did never harass a woman in his entire life; he may have expressed comments that today, especially in the post #metoo era, appear as inconvenient, but that's it; does he deserve to be painted like he was a sexual assaulter (which he is not, has never been, not even close) by multiple sides at the same time? Why all that negative press? Doesn't this raise some warning flags? The reason looks very clear to me: he is stubbornly inflexible in his concept of what Free Software means, which is an extremely good thing; he kept the helm straight no matter the external pressure to stop, where others would have sold themselves and the community for 30 pieces of silver. There are huge interests in "killing" him publicly, which would mean destroying the Free Software movement, sell out the Foundation and giving full powers to whomever has to gain big money from that. Just follow the money trail.

tibbetts 6y ago
RMS never harassed women? Have you spent any time around MIT or other RMS haunts? Dude was well established as a serial harasser. When I was a grad student in 2002 it was common knowledge that he was afraid of spider plants and many women at LCS had spider plants in their offices to keep him away.
- ianai 6y ago
  Is there any easy catalog of these harassments somewhere? Preferably outside of social media-I can’t view the stuff.
  - properdine 6y ago
    I would say this is a pretty good run-down - https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... .
- radmuzom 6y ago
  As someone who is fat and socially awkward, I am generally greeted with scorn if I smile at an attractive woman. But that does not mean I want to harass or assault them. It does not also mean I don’t have the right to smile - if you are uncomfortable with my smile, the problem is with you, not me.

ianai 6y ago

Way I remember it, mathematics has accepted contributions from any walks of life over its history. “Mathematics is so beautiful to transcend whole societies and be for the ages.” Or something. More practically, mathematics is just so hard that people who are willing to spend significant time with it are rare. People who find significant mathematical ideas are very much more rare. For these reasons, it’s a practical thing to accept mathematical contributions from anyone regardless of their other proclivities. Writing good software is hard. I’d recon it’s similar to mathematics in difficulty often. It’s worth it to consider someone can both be awful in other factors of their life but still make meaningful contributions to society through things like math or software. It helps that he’s always willing to show you his code for audit purposes.

ianai 6y ago
Also, I’d add that a feeling of having contributed something meaningful to the world is something like a basic human need. You won’t die if you’re fed, sheltered, and have access to clean water. But if that’s literally all you do in a day you will soon be fiddling for something to do. So instead of rushing to exclude people from society, society needs to provide people enough room to be themselves to keep from dangerous fiddling. Further, forgiveness is a more critical tool to the forgiver than the forgiven. To forgive a grievance isn’t to forget it. It’s to put an end to the part of your resources devoted to punishing your opponent or thinking ill. That frees up those resources for more positive uses. The forgiven never needed to expend resources to earn your forgiveness and thus doesn’t have the same resource commitments - hence forgiveness offers less to the forgiven than the forgiver.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  In this situation forgiveness has has offered a board seat to the forgiven, which is something of considerable value.
- jamienicol 6y ago
  I can confidently say I've devoted zero resources to punishing Stallman, other than a few comments on this thread. Yet his benefit from the board's forgiveness is quite clearly large. There's a big difference between excluding someone from society or even contributing to a project, and appointing them to the board.

moistbar 6y ago

>Where should we go? If you're so disgusted by RMS that you refuse to use any of his software, I'd suggest therapy.

jamienicol 6y ago
So much projection in so few words. I use plenty of GNU software and will continue to do so. I just believe neither he nor the FSF are fit for purpose, and the free software community is better led by others