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Complete hogwash, but whatever. Stallman defenders would do well to not overstate his and the FSF's present (not historical) importance to the software communit

Complete hogwash, but whatever. Stallman defenders would do well to not overstate his and the FSF's present (not historical) importance to the software community in addition to understating his views and the things he did.

aokiji 6y ago
Nice arguments you provided. Are you part of the Marxist subversion web that is trying to shove "Code of Conduct" political witch-hunt tools into the software world? Trying to follow Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch's vision of controlling every aspect of human life?
basilgohar 6y ago
Say what you will about the man personally, but his prescience with regards to the trends of industry and its attacks on personal freedom with regards to software and hardware have been very accurate, oftentimes decades ahead of when the effects are widely understood. His disconnection from average people can sometimes be explained because of how differently he thinks about things – usually in an absolutist sense, which is very alienating. But his contributions to the software community, even if not directly through software commits, but through advocacy and ensuring the fundamental freedoms are preserved, are still being reaped to this day. The same thing goes for the FSF, which, having been founded by him, has a similar worldview. It may not be pragmatic towards startups that want to profit from artificial digital scarcity, but those same startups and other businesses have profited immeasurable through FSF's defense of software freedoms. Would the world really be better off if the Microsofts, Oracles, and others of their ilk still had the same grasp on the user experience of software? Neither Android, AWS, nor countless other staples of billions of peoples' lives and livelihoods would be a thing if not for the early and ongoing defense of software freedom that the FSF has provided.
ByTheBook 6y ago
What exactly did he do ? From what I've gathered he gave out cards which was basically an invitation to a date with him should anyone be interested, and he made a very ill-concieved statement regarding harm from children having sex with adults. A really stupid comment but hardly something that would warrant this kind of response, at least unless he doubled down on it. Is this all ?
- deleted 6y ago
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- Qub3d 6y ago
  The initial push that led to his resignation from the FSF board came down to some comments supporting Marvin Minsky, who was an associate of Jeffery Epstein. This, combined with anecdata about RMS having a history of crude and insensitive comments was too much for a lot of people. Note that I'm not taking a side here, I'm mostly summarizing the below article: https://itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-controversy/ https://itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-controversy/

aokiji 6y ago

Nice arguments you provided. Are you part of the Marxist subversion web that is trying to shove "Code of Conduct" political witch-hunt tools into the software world? Trying to follow Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch's vision of controlling every aspect of human life?

basilgohar 6y ago

Say what you will about the man personally, but his prescience with regards to the trends of industry and its attacks on personal freedom with regards to software and hardware have been very accurate, oftentimes decades ahead of when the effects are widely understood. His disconnection from average people can sometimes be explained because of how differently he thinks about things – usually in an absolutist sense, which is very alienating. But his contributions to the software community, even if not directly through software commits, but through advocacy and ensuring the fundamental freedoms are preserved, are still being reaped to this day. The same thing goes for the FSF, which, having been founded by him, has a similar worldview. It may not be pragmatic towards startups that want to profit from artificial digital scarcity, but those same startups and other businesses have profited immeasurable through FSF's defense of software freedoms. Would the world really be better off if the Microsofts, Oracles, and others of their ilk still had the same grasp on the user experience of software? Neither Android, AWS, nor countless other staples of billions of peoples' lives and livelihoods would be a thing if not for the early and ongoing defense of software freedom that the FSF has provided.

ByTheBook 6y ago

What exactly did he do ? From what I've gathered he gave out cards which was basically an invitation to a date with him should anyone be interested, and he made a very ill-concieved statement regarding harm from children having sex with adults. A really stupid comment but hardly something that would warrant this kind of response, at least unless he doubled down on it. Is this all ?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Qub3d 6y ago
The initial push that led to his resignation from the FSF board came down to some comments supporting Marvin Minsky, who was an associate of Jeffery Epstein. This, combined with anecdata about RMS having a history of crude and insensitive comments was too much for a lot of people. Note that I'm not taking a side here, I'm mostly summarizing the below article: https://itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-controversy/ https://itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-controversy/