4 ms·

If one did, they would most likely keep it quiet as to not be the next target or seen as a stallman supporter. Anyone that speaks up for RMS under their real na

If one did, they would most likely keep it quiet as to not be the next target or seen as a stallman supporter. Anyone that speaks up for RMS under their real name will be blasted all over twitter.

meowface 6y ago
Yeah, this is a worthy consideration. Anyone on the steering committee expressing support for him would probably be next to be voted out (or, more likely, privately encouraged to step down or harassed until they decide to themselves). It'd be interesting to see the results of a totally anonymous vote among them. The majority would probably still vote him out, but not sure how close it'd be.
- temp-dude-87844 6y ago
  A totally anonymous vote is not possible, because at some point they must reveal the aggregate result, and this will allow the voters to reason about the way others must have voted. The minimum number of voters who must have taken a position is known. If the total pool of voters is small, they can talk among themselves, and this will reveal either impassioned people being publicly outspoken about their position, or people being deferential about their position. Irrespective of whether anyone is lying about how they voted, the deferential people will be under suspicion of having voted the way they're less likely to admit in public. This incentivizes people to seem more publicly impassioned about the position that's least likely to result in their condemnation.
  - meowface 6y ago
    This is true, but if they're convincing enough when acting publicly impassioned, it might be hard to identify all of the dissenters, at least. Voting would still be a major risk, but slightly less so than a non-anonymous vote.
tptacek 6y ago
Ok, but, respectfully, "non-falsifiable argument is non-falsifiable". At any rate, I'm mostly just here to say that contra the nerd-popular argument that Stallman's "cancellation" is perpetrated by people "outside" of free software, here it's pretty clearly the reverse: the people most vigorously advocating for Stallman's removal from the project have unimpeachable GCC credentials.
- d_tr 6y ago
  People with unimpeachable credentials are still human beings with flaws like all of us. This is about the removal of a listing, i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not? It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter contains several blatant lies and there is no way around the fact. Every single person or organization that signed that letter is (unintentionally or not) supporting these lies because, well, they put their signature on them. I am finding this really hard to swallow. Sane discussion within the community to get some things straight is probably too time-consuming and fussy, so it was probably easier to just remove a listing and throw some generic reassuring copypasta at the end.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    No, SC committee members spoke at length about the practical issues with Stallman's involvement with the GCC project.
    - d_tr 6y ago
      Just to make it clear, I did read the whole thread in the mailing list before writing the above comment.

If one did, they would most likely keep it quiet as to not be the next target or seen as a stallman supporter. Anyone that speaks up for RMS under their real name will be blasted all over twitter.

meowface 6y ago

Yeah, this is a worthy consideration. Anyone on the steering committee expressing support for him would probably be next to be voted out (or, more likely, privately encouraged to step down or harassed until they decide to themselves). It'd be interesting to see the results of a totally anonymous vote among them. The majority would probably still vote him out, but not sure how close it'd be.

temp-dude-87844 6y ago
A totally anonymous vote is not possible, because at some point they must reveal the aggregate result, and this will allow the voters to reason about the way others must have voted. The minimum number of voters who must have taken a position is known. If the total pool of voters is small, they can talk among themselves, and this will reveal either impassioned people being publicly outspoken about their position, or people being deferential about their position. Irrespective of whether anyone is lying about how they voted, the deferential people will be under suspicion of having voted the way they're less likely to admit in public. This incentivizes people to seem more publicly impassioned about the position that's least likely to result in their condemnation.
- meowface 6y ago
  This is true, but if they're convincing enough when acting publicly impassioned, it might be hard to identify all of the dissenters, at least. Voting would still be a major risk, but slightly less so than a non-anonymous vote.

tptacek 6y ago

Ok, but, respectfully, "non-falsifiable argument is non-falsifiable". At any rate, I'm mostly just here to say that contra the nerd-popular argument that Stallman's "cancellation" is perpetrated by people "outside" of free software, here it's pretty clearly the reverse: the people most vigorously advocating for Stallman's removal from the project have unimpeachable GCC credentials.

d_tr 6y ago
People with unimpeachable credentials are still human beings with flaws like all of us. This is about the removal of a listing, i.e. it is all about considerations regarding the public image and does not have anything to do with the project's current day-to-day work. Is this true or not? It also coincides with a campaign against Richard Stallman which is built around an open letter. It turns out that that letter contains several blatant lies and there is no way around the fact. Every single person or organization that signed that letter is (unintentionally or not) supporting these lies because, well, they put their signature on them. I am finding this really hard to swallow. Sane discussion within the community to get some things straight is probably too time-consuming and fussy, so it was probably easier to just remove a listing and throw some generic reassuring copypasta at the end.
- tptacek 6y ago
  No, SC committee members spoke at length about the practical issues with Stallman's involvement with the GCC project.
  - d_tr 6y ago
    Just to make it clear, I did read the whole thread in the mailing list before writing the above comment.