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What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there'

What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)? Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability since the main things that got him attention were: - Using his rights as GNU lead to veto the removal of a bad, outdated, US-centric, abortion joke from the glibc manual. This is after all other project maintainers agreed to remove it. - Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible). Even outside of that, there's also literal years of the following: - Many examples of Stallman being a creep to women and an insensitive dickhead in general is something that existed before but really came to a head. - The FSF maintaining a very egocentric approach to FOSS (thinking it's the sole relevant authority on advancing thoughts and ideas behind FOSS, as well as getting very cranky when projects don't want to join the GNU), something which seems near universally pushed by Stallman since every case of this somehow ended up involving him. - Consistently vetoing plugin framework support for GCC out of an ideological fear that seems to consistently be cited as the main cause for it being superseded by clang/llvm. > Fortunately, we are all equipped with the capacity to change even long ingrained habits and patterns. It does come at the prerequisite that the person in question actually wants to change. Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia) was wrong and he's never even bothered to address any of the others.

Roark66 6y ago
>What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)? For one he managed to keep the whole GNU project true to its values by being someone people listen on the subject. How many other people do you know you can guarantee not to "monetize" and sell out such a huge project to a highest bidder in the meantime? >Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability You do realise that his role is not so much being a coder nor even a manager, but being what in business is sometimes called "a visionary". Thankfully there are enough coders and managers involved to have GNU and Foss going. The value of Stallman in the 80s and earlier was not just in the code he wrote but the ideas he managed to implement in our collective consciousness by doing that. Now more than ever we need someone we can count on to offer advice and leadership that has no agenda other than the original values. >Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible). What is it that he actually said that was so "horrible"? Are you sure you are actually talking about what he said or have your opinions been formed by lies? Read this and tell me what is so horrible in his actual stance on the subject: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web >Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia) Please do enlighten me on what Stallman's stance on pedophilia is? But please use actual text written by him (not ripped out of context) rather than he said she said. I believe this lie that Stallman justifies pedophilia came from an opinion the previously linked article describes like this "(his point) is mainly that we overuse and distort the term child pornography to refer to any depiction of any minor in any context that is even vaguely sexual." Is that untrue? Have you not heard about cases where actual 17 year old people were prosecuted for pedophilia because they had their own photo on their phone that was deemed sexual in nature by some judge?
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Stallman's skill was as a visionary. His role wasn't limited to that unfortunately. Multiple FSF employees say they unionized because of Stallman's management.[1][2] And people have pointed out several examples of him overriding GNU project maintainers. Stallman said several times adults having sex with children was fine if the children consented.[3][4][5] He changed his mind in 2018 or 2019 apparently.[4][6] [1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 [3] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%202003%20%28%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20... [4] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20... [5] https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2013_(Pedophilia) https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2... [6] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
  - Roark66 6y ago
    Ok, I wasn't aware of this. I agree his point of view was narrow minded. I can't defend it. He did change it as he says (in 6th link) based on conversations with someone who explained to him the harm caused. People learn all their life. I'm glad he did. Should having that view before and understanding own error disqualify him from FSF? I don't know. At least we're talking about it based on fact not hearsay.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Bradley Kuhn said most of what I could say about Stallman better.[1] The bottom line is Stallman made himself a less effective Free Software advocate by spouting controversial opinions about things he had no expertise in. Not just adults having sex with children. It took many years to change Stallman's opinion on this 1 thing. He still didn't apologize for calling people prejudiced and narrow minded because they disagreed with him. Or mocking parents who he realized were right. And some people take issue with him not mentioning it until after he came under pressure to resign. [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
twic 6y ago
Stallman is completely useless, but then the FSF is also completely useless, so it seems quite unfair that he wouldn't be allowed to work there.

Roark66 6y ago

>What did he do in the past 15 years outside of starting petty feuds that nobody cares about (the Linux name debacle) and being a horrible public speaker (there's heaps of stories of him being a dickhead to convention organizers, other convention guests and in general not really keeping any check on what he's even getting hired for)? For one he managed to keep the whole GNU project true to its values by being someone people listen on the subject. How many other people do you know you can guarantee not to "monetize" and sell out such a huge project to a highest bidder in the meantime? >Like, I recognize that what he did back in the 80s matters, but somewhere around the turn of the millenium, he seems to have done very little of actual note and in the past 3 years or so seems to have become an active liability You do realise that his role is not so much being a coder nor even a manager, but being what in business is sometimes called "a visionary". Thankfully there are enough coders and managers involved to have GNU and Foss going. The value of Stallman in the 80s and earlier was not just in the code he wrote but the ideas he managed to implement in our collective consciousness by doing that. Now more than ever we need someone we can count on to offer advice and leadership that has no agenda other than the original values. >Made appalling comments about the Epstein case (yes the media spun the story badly, that doesn't change that what Stallman said was horrible). What is it that he actually said that was so "horrible"? Are you sure you are actually talking about what he said or have your opinions been formed by lies? Read this and tell me what is so horrible in his actual stance on the subject: https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web https://www.wetheweb.org/post/cancel-we-the-Web >Stallman is notoriously stubborn and it took him literally getting fired from the FSF to even admit that the most outstanding problem with his views (his stance on pedophilia) Please do enlighten me on what Stallman's stance on pedophilia is? But please use actual text written by him (not ripped out of context) rather than he said she said. I believe this lie that Stallman justifies pedophilia came from an opinion the previously linked article describes like this "(his point) is mainly that we overuse and distort the term child pornography to refer to any depiction of any minor in any context that is even vaguely sexual." Is that untrue? Have you not heard about cases where actual 17 year old people were prosecuted for pedophilia because they had their own photo on their phone that was deemed sexual in nature by some judge?

pseudalopex 6y ago
Stallman's skill was as a visionary. His role wasn't limited to that unfortunately. Multiple FSF employees say they unionized because of Stallman's management.[1][2] And people have pointed out several examples of him overriding GNU project maintainers. Stallman said several times adults having sex with children was fine if the children consented.[3][4][5] He changed his mind in 2018 or 2019 apparently.[4][6] [1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986 [2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505 [3] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%202003%20%28%29 https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20... [4] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20... [5] https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2013_(Pedophilia) https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2... [6] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
- Roark66 6y ago
  Ok, I wasn't aware of this. I agree his point of view was narrow minded. I can't defend it. He did change it as he says (in 6th link) based on conversations with someone who explained to him the harm caused. People learn all their life. I'm glad he did. Should having that view before and understanding own error disqualify him from FSF? I don't know. At least we're talking about it based on fact not hearsay.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Bradley Kuhn said most of what I could say about Stallman better.[1] The bottom line is Stallman made himself a less effective Free Software advocate by spouting controversial opinions about things he had no expertise in. Not just adults having sex with children. It took many years to change Stallman's opinion on this 1 thing. He still didn't apologize for calling people prejudiced and narrow minded because they disagreed with him. Or mocking parents who he realized were right. And some people take issue with him not mentioning it until after he came under pressure to resign. [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html

twic 6y ago

Stallman is completely useless, but then the FSF is also completely useless, so it seems quite unfair that he wouldn't be allowed to work there.