7 ms·

Not the First Time We Tried (FSF, GNU, RMS, etc.)

44 points by aroberge 6y ago

HarryHirsch 6y ago
Where was Sumana when Jeffrey Epstein funded all sorts of centers at MIT? His proclivities and activities were well known since 2005, yet the social justice crowd stayed quiet. Epstein was in a position to cause damage, and he did. Prostitution, death threats, little black books, you name it. Donald Trump was sufficiently put out by his activities to ban him from Mar-do-Lago! But the woke crowd instead targets Stallman because he is an easy target, he looks like a vagrant and has disgusting habits. Can please someone point out what he did? (No, off-colour jokes don't count, only real-life troubles for another person). D & I much? Pass the bucket, I'm going to throw up.
- visarga 6y ago
  By going after RMS they want to demonstrate they can cancel anyone if they please.
- cjfd 6y ago
  I am quite sure the witch hunt is the actual goal of the woke crowd. Not much good to say about them. This morning I was listening to a radio program about a black woman making theater and podcasts and such things about the history of slavery. Of course, as such this is a topic worthy of attention. But the whole victim mentality in it was quite disgusting. She never quite went as far as literally saying that she hated white people but the implication was there multiple times.
- morelisp 6y ago
  > Where was Sumana when Jeffrey Epstein funded all sorts of centers at MIT? Uh, you mean when Joi Ito was intentionally obfuscating the source of funds because he knew the university wasn't supposed to accept donations from Epstein?
prepend 6y ago
I think this comes down to people having differences of opinion on what is important. I read these complaints and don’t think they are very important. Especially over a period of decades. If this is the worse that people can bring up, then I just don’t get it. In the future will we have two kinds of organizations, one where people file complaints about “ such as taking over sessions through loud disruptions” and one where people don’t care? I suppose that people care about different things, but then for people who don’t care will we all end up being in one end, and everyone who wants “ Safe Space Policy” I partially applied in other orgs. The challenge I face is that I don’t want the Postel’s law group full of only jerks. But I also don’t want to be part of an org that spends so much time on what I see as administrative bikeshedding. Of course people are free to do whatever they like, but I certainly won’t donate to FSF if they go the way I disagree with. And I don’t think a safe FSF will further free software in the best way.
- jpttsn 6y ago
  I don’t think we’ll see an (even) split. It’s more likely that all (most) orgs will have safe spaces. Like how all fruit juice is kosher: it makes no difference to people who don’t keep kosher.
  - prepend 6y ago
    I think that will lead to ineffectual orgs as these safe spaces seem to be in conflict with stuff like ejecting RMS. I don’t see myself stop supporting free software, but I’ll want some way to participate to fill that FSF shaped community hole.
  - logifail 6y ago
    > Like how all fruit juice is kosher: it makes no difference to people who don’t keep kosher I don't believe this approach has only positive outcomes. Taleb wrote[0] "It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences" To say this leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable would be putting it mildly. [0] The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
sildur 6y ago
Oh no, of course is not the first time you tried to take down the free software movement. First time was fifteen years ago with the (now a hollow shell) Open Source Initiative. For the record, there is also a list in support of Richard Stallman [1], which right now is signed by more people, but less organizations. Which comes to show the glaring disconnect between organizations and the user base. As the organizations are too busy showing each other how good and inclusive they are, while at the same time they give fat raises to their CEOs and fire their workers. [1] https://rms-support-letter.github.io/ https://rms-support-letter.github.io/
- morelisp 6y ago
  More helpful would be if both lists highlighted people who actually worked closely with RMS / occupied official positions within FSF / GNU / etc. For example, I will absolutely defer to Matthew Garrett and Benjamin Mako Hill and Bradley Kuhn over... uh, "agentOfChaos."
  - sildur 6y ago
    Well. I would absolutely defer to Eric S. Raymond over... uh, "Z" (signature number 2771 right now).
    - bigbillheck 6y ago
      I have no idea who "Z" is, but I would do the exact opposite.
    - morelisp 6y ago
      At this point I would not even defer to ESR over an issue concerning gun polyamory.
  - disposekinetics 6y ago
    Perhaps most people realize that attaching their real name to supporting RMS puts them at risk, while there is little to no risk behind the opposite?
asguy 6y ago
To coopt Bender, why not go start your own [software project] with [diversity] and [inclusion]? You could fork the entire FSF’s software suite, and mold a culture around it that matches your priorities. That’s the beauty of free software, you don’t need to ask permission. Or write petitions. You just go and do it.
- nikanj 6y ago
  Alas, good awareness of social justice issues does not automatically go hand-in-hand with good technical ability. The unpleasant neckbeards are often surprisingly good at actually writing code.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Not in this case, though.
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    I think this estimation severely tests conventional wisdom around the quality of code in most of the GNU projects. Unless, of course, you meant good at writing large volumes of code, which the GNU projects have historically excelled at. But we all know the other bit of conventional wisdom about that.
- jpttsn 6y ago
  But if that’s true, then either whoever is behind this criticism doesn’t know it, or they have other goals.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  The primary flaw in that plan is indicated by following the first "in 2009 if not earlier" link. After fairly quoting Stallman, in context, the author says: "Do I believe that Richard is attempting to deliberately denigrate women? Not in the slightest. But I also don't believe that someone entirely gender-blind would have made the above joke." If the requirement to be in the WokeFSF is to be, and to always have been, entirely "gender-blind", everybody would be guilty and eligible for expulsion. As this requires selective enforcement, it becomes entirely political. If I can't have ever expressed the desire to have sex with even a hypothetical woman, even as a metaphor, or have ever said that I wanted to prioritize outreach towards women or minorities in some context, I'm not qualified to join. To be "gender-blind" I have to never have supported affirmative action or quotas, which I have, energetically. What I'm trying to say is that it isn't specifically that people capable of delivering wouldn't join a WokeFSF, it's that everyone joining a WokeFSF would be in a precarious position. People who remain in an FSF that tolerates it's leader joking about taking away people's Emacs virginity are not in a precarious position, even if they find those jokes gross and don't enjoy engaging with some of the leadership. Nobody is going to toss you out of the non-woke FSF for being too woke, but the opposite isn't true.
ecshafer 6y ago
The fact is with these "social justice" initiatives is that they are completely orthogonal issues to the organization and their goals. The FSF is about Free Software, Linux is about Linux. These people want to impose their own specific politics upon others, in this case using intimidation and shame. Of course some organizations will sign these letters, they are much more worried about being on the PR approved right side. These people should merely create their own organizations. This is what they would often say when for example a red team politician complains about being blocked from twitter.
- chx 6y ago
  This is a popular position but software does not rain from the heavens. It is written by people. And the rather convincing argument goes that this sort of behavior drives away many people who could've made valuable contributions. As far as I can see RMS is a neuroatypical person who just does not have any filters and also applies logic to such interpersonal matters where empathy would be better. I do not think he is malicious but you can't expect women who are constantly harassed to make this distinction -- harassment is just harassment at the end of the day. And this has been made clear to him so many times over the decades and he refuses to change and that's a problem. No matter how much one contributes, they can drive away enough people the lost potential total contribution overweighs that. Trust me, I know :(
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    When people on one hand want to not be harassed for wherever reason and then are harassing someone neuroatypical for neuroatypical behaviour they are not any better themselves.
    - chx 6y ago
      Your sentence is insidious. What you call "harassing someone neuroatypical" were requests by colleagues and friends to exhibit less behaviors perceived as harassment. You can not conflate the two. Is it harassment to ask to not put a mattress in your university office?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fsumana 6y ago
Oh, I know why I recognize this website. I have had the unpleasant experience of meeting Sumana. She is a bully. I'm a white hetero cis man who attended the Recurse Center before it was renamed from Hacker School (because Hacker wasn't inclusive enough) Sumana lives out the postmodern platitude that the accused shouldn't need to be educated about what he did wrong and went out of her way to shame me for behaving "incorrectly" according to her ideological standards on multiple occasions, going as far as to tattle multiple times and to tell me it wasn't her responsibility to explain the transgression I had made, that I to this day do not understand. I might have ASD; I'm kinda socially stupid. Figures she wouldn't like me. Anyway, I don't participate at Recurse anymore specifically because of Sumana and her clique. She's a bully and demands ideological conformity especially among white men. Fuck this post, and fuck Sumana.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drumhead 6y ago
My biggest worry is that these political fights will lead to a degradation in the quality of Free software products, a slowdown in code and software contributions from developers and coders and a general malaise in the whole Free software movement as the idealogical battles are fought out. I can only see the winners in the long run being those people or organisations that seek to gain from the FSF's weakness.
- akagusu 6y ago
  But this is what this letter is all about. They are not targeting RMS but the whole Free Software Movement. A lot of companies supporting this letter make millions with proprietary software, privacy invasion, user manipulation and planned obsolescence. They aren't targeting Stallman because they want Free Software Movement to succeed. They are targeting Stallman because it can cause a fracture in the movement.

44 points by aroberge 6y ago

Where was Sumana when Jeffrey Epstein funded all sorts of centers at MIT? His proclivities and activities were well known since 2005, yet the social justice crowd stayed quiet. Epstein was in a position to cause damage, and he did. Prostitution, death threats, little black books, you name it. Donald Trump was sufficiently put out by his activities to ban him from Mar-do-Lago! But the woke crowd instead targets Stallman because he is an easy target, he looks like a vagrant and has disgusting habits. Can please someone point out what he did? (No, off-colour jokes don't count, only real-life troubles for another person). D & I much? Pass the bucket, I'm going to throw up.

visarga 6y ago
By going after RMS they want to demonstrate they can cancel anyone if they please.
cjfd 6y ago
I am quite sure the witch hunt is the actual goal of the woke crowd. Not much good to say about them. This morning I was listening to a radio program about a black woman making theater and podcasts and such things about the history of slavery. Of course, as such this is a topic worthy of attention. But the whole victim mentality in it was quite disgusting. She never quite went as far as literally saying that she hated white people but the implication was there multiple times.
morelisp 6y ago
> Where was Sumana when Jeffrey Epstein funded all sorts of centers at MIT? Uh, you mean when Joi Ito was intentionally obfuscating the source of funds because he knew the university wasn't supposed to accept donations from Epstein?

prepend 6y ago

I think this comes down to people having differences of opinion on what is important. I read these complaints and don’t think they are very important. Especially over a period of decades. If this is the worse that people can bring up, then I just don’t get it. In the future will we have two kinds of organizations, one where people file complaints about “ such as taking over sessions through loud disruptions” and one where people don’t care? I suppose that people care about different things, but then for people who don’t care will we all end up being in one end, and everyone who wants “ Safe Space Policy” I partially applied in other orgs. The challenge I face is that I don’t want the Postel’s law group full of only jerks. But I also don’t want to be part of an org that spends so much time on what I see as administrative bikeshedding. Of course people are free to do whatever they like, but I certainly won’t donate to FSF if they go the way I disagree with. And I don’t think a safe FSF will further free software in the best way.

jpttsn 6y ago
I don’t think we’ll see an (even) split. It’s more likely that all (most) orgs will have safe spaces. Like how all fruit juice is kosher: it makes no difference to people who don’t keep kosher.
- prepend 6y ago
  I think that will lead to ineffectual orgs as these safe spaces seem to be in conflict with stuff like ejecting RMS. I don’t see myself stop supporting free software, but I’ll want some way to participate to fill that FSF shaped community hole.
- logifail 6y ago
  > Like how all fruit juice is kosher: it makes no difference to people who don’t keep kosher I don't believe this approach has only positive outcomes. Taleb wrote[0] "It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences" To say this leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable would be putting it mildly. [0] The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

sildur 6y ago

Oh no, of course is not the first time you tried to take down the free software movement. First time was fifteen years ago with the (now a hollow shell) Open Source Initiative. For the record, there is also a list in support of Richard Stallman [1], which right now is signed by more people, but less organizations. Which comes to show the glaring disconnect between organizations and the user base. As the organizations are too busy showing each other how good and inclusive they are, while at the same time they give fat raises to their CEOs and fire their workers. [1] https://rms-support-letter.github.io/ https://rms-support-letter.github.io/

morelisp 6y ago
More helpful would be if both lists highlighted people who actually worked closely with RMS / occupied official positions within FSF / GNU / etc. For example, I will absolutely defer to Matthew Garrett and Benjamin Mako Hill and Bradley Kuhn over... uh, "agentOfChaos."
- sildur 6y ago
  Well. I would absolutely defer to Eric S. Raymond over... uh, "Z" (signature number 2771 right now).
  - bigbillheck 6y ago
    I have no idea who "Z" is, but I would do the exact opposite.
  - morelisp 6y ago
    At this point I would not even defer to ESR over an issue concerning gun polyamory.
- disposekinetics 6y ago
  Perhaps most people realize that attaching their real name to supporting RMS puts them at risk, while there is little to no risk behind the opposite?

asguy 6y ago

To coopt Bender, why not go start your own [software project] with [diversity] and [inclusion]? You could fork the entire FSF’s software suite, and mold a culture around it that matches your priorities. That’s the beauty of free software, you don’t need to ask permission. Or write petitions. You just go and do it.

nikanj 6y ago
Alas, good awareness of social justice issues does not automatically go hand-in-hand with good technical ability. The unpleasant neckbeards are often surprisingly good at actually writing code.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Not in this case, though.
- woodruffw 6y ago
  I think this estimation severely tests conventional wisdom around the quality of code in most of the GNU projects. Unless, of course, you meant good at writing large volumes of code, which the GNU projects have historically excelled at. But we all know the other bit of conventional wisdom about that.
jpttsn 6y ago
But if that’s true, then either whoever is behind this criticism doesn’t know it, or they have other goals.
pessimizer 6y ago
The primary flaw in that plan is indicated by following the first "in 2009 if not earlier" link. After fairly quoting Stallman, in context, the author says: "Do I believe that Richard is attempting to deliberately denigrate women? Not in the slightest. But I also don't believe that someone entirely gender-blind would have made the above joke." If the requirement to be in the WokeFSF is to be, and to always have been, entirely "gender-blind", everybody would be guilty and eligible for expulsion. As this requires selective enforcement, it becomes entirely political. If I can't have ever expressed the desire to have sex with even a hypothetical woman, even as a metaphor, or have ever said that I wanted to prioritize outreach towards women or minorities in some context, I'm not qualified to join. To be "gender-blind" I have to never have supported affirmative action or quotas, which I have, energetically. What I'm trying to say is that it isn't specifically that people capable of delivering wouldn't join a WokeFSF, it's that everyone joining a WokeFSF would be in a precarious position. People who remain in an FSF that tolerates it's leader joking about taking away people's Emacs virginity are not in a precarious position, even if they find those jokes gross and don't enjoy engaging with some of the leadership. Nobody is going to toss you out of the non-woke FSF for being too woke, but the opposite isn't true.

ecshafer 6y ago

The fact is with these "social justice" initiatives is that they are completely orthogonal issues to the organization and their goals. The FSF is about Free Software, Linux is about Linux. These people want to impose their own specific politics upon others, in this case using intimidation and shame. Of course some organizations will sign these letters, they are much more worried about being on the PR approved right side. These people should merely create their own organizations. This is what they would often say when for example a red team politician complains about being blocked from twitter.

chx 6y ago
This is a popular position but software does not rain from the heavens. It is written by people. And the rather convincing argument goes that this sort of behavior drives away many people who could've made valuable contributions. As far as I can see RMS is a neuroatypical person who just does not have any filters and also applies logic to such interpersonal matters where empathy would be better. I do not think he is malicious but you can't expect women who are constantly harassed to make this distinction -- harassment is just harassment at the end of the day. And this has been made clear to him so many times over the decades and he refuses to change and that's a problem. No matter how much one contributes, they can drive away enough people the lost potential total contribution overweighs that. Trust me, I know :(
- Daho0n 6y ago
  When people on one hand want to not be harassed for wherever reason and then are harassing someone neuroatypical for neuroatypical behaviour they are not any better themselves.
  - chx 6y ago
    Your sentence is insidious. What you call "harassing someone neuroatypical" were requests by colleagues and friends to exhibit less behaviors perceived as harassment. You can not conflate the two. Is it harassment to ask to not put a mattress in your university office?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fsumana 6y ago

Oh, I know why I recognize this website. I have had the unpleasant experience of meeting Sumana. She is a bully. I'm a white hetero cis man who attended the Recurse Center before it was renamed from Hacker School (because Hacker wasn't inclusive enough) Sumana lives out the postmodern platitude that the accused shouldn't need to be educated about what he did wrong and went out of her way to shame me for behaving "incorrectly" according to her ideological standards on multiple occasions, going as far as to tattle multiple times and to tell me it wasn't her responsibility to explain the transgression I had made, that I to this day do not understand. I might have ASD; I'm kinda socially stupid. Figures she wouldn't like me. Anyway, I don't participate at Recurse anymore specifically because of Sumana and her clique. She's a bully and demands ideological conformity especially among white men. Fuck this post, and fuck Sumana.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

drumhead 6y ago

My biggest worry is that these political fights will lead to a degradation in the quality of Free software products, a slowdown in code and software contributions from developers and coders and a general malaise in the whole Free software movement as the idealogical battles are fought out. I can only see the winners in the long run being those people or organisations that seek to gain from the FSF's weakness.

akagusu 6y ago
But this is what this letter is all about. They are not targeting RMS but the whole Free Software Movement. A lot of companies supporting this letter make millions with proprietary software, privacy invasion, user manipulation and planned obsolescence. They aren't targeting Stallman because they want Free Software Movement to succeed. They are targeting Stallman because it can cause a fracture in the movement.