4 ms·

Punishments should have limits, but the point of removing a toxic member of a team is not to punish the individual. If I hang out with a group of friends, and o

Punishments should have limits, but the point of removing a toxic member of a team is not to punish the individual. If I hang out with a group of friends, and one of those friends repeatedly makes some of the rest of us uncomfortable, I will stop inviting that person to our gatherings. This is not meant as a rehabilitory or a punitive measure. It's simply a group of people who aren't comfortable with someone else's presence asking that person to leave. Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. Having removed him, that remains the case. In addition to being poorly reasoned, this article is also somewhat contradictory. First, it argues that shunning should be temporary because the shunned must be given a chance to prove that they have reformed their behavior. Then it argues that Mr. Stallman's behavior is clearly based in his handicap and accommodations must be made for it. These two arguments don't work together. If he can control his behavior, his handicap need not be accommodated. If he cannot, there is no point to reassessing whether he has reformed.

logicchains 6y ago
>Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. Were any of these people actually contributing in any meaningful sense, or just "participating"?
- geofft 6y ago
  Yes, many of them were. Here's the lead developer of the HURD: https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF, including as executive director, and won the FSF's award for contributions to free software on the same day that RMS announced his return: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers, publishing a statement on gnu.org: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors: https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235096.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235096.html
  - craigsmansion 6y ago
    > Here's the lead developer of the HURD Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google. > Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach. > Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers Guix has been in disagreement with rms since he didn't want to adopt a CoC for GNU because it was "too punitive" in intent, and suggested using GNU's Kind Communications Guidelines instead. > Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. After the committee did so for technical reasons, he accused them of not being punitive enough towards rms and proceeded to tally various personal suspicions against rms. https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html
    - enriquto 6y ago
      > Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. > https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html Today I learned the name of one of the first toxic people who seriously suggested to write gcc in C++. And they are admitting it themselves! What a tragedy. Of course, RMS was, rightfully again, the main opposing force. We live in sad, sad times. Quoting this person's message: > Interactions I've had with the SC, beyond maintainer appointment, seem to run into RMS. Sounds like a feature to me! The main purpose of RMS's presence is precisely to keep away idiotic proposals like those of Nathan Sidwell.
      - geofft 6y ago
        What is your reason for believing that the proposal to write gcc in C++ is idiotic?
        enriquto 6y ago
        Paraphrasing Torvalds, to keep people like Nathan out. Being serious, the world needs an easily bootstrappable C compiler. It's a crucial pillar of our society, and we lost it a few years ago. That is a shame.
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
> Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. If someone decided not to participate in Free Software because they couldn't stand Stallman, then they don't have a strong urge to do so anyway. It is likely that they didn't even participate at all, but were seeking some attention and did virtue signalling. Does anyone really believe Sara Mei would have contributed to GNU 20 years ago?
- neilk 6y ago
  You seem to be new to this argument. Are you aware that we have had a bifurcated Open Source / Free Software movement since the 1990s? And how that came to be? There were real philosophical disagreements, and I'm not even saying RMS had the wrong side of the argument. But he definitely gave everyone a huge incentive to go off and do something different because at least you wouldn't be working with RMS. I can think of several people off the top of my head who attempted to work with RMS, were immediately repelled, and then went off to do other things with freely distributed software.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    Why would anyone working on Free Software would need to work with rms personally? It is not like it's some weird cult where you need to be initiated into it by the high priest. We have created our software and released it under GNU GPL / AGPL licences without ever meeting anyone. As for 'bifurcation': it happened because different people have different goals when they release their software. Some are driven by some idealistic values, others do it because it fits in their business plan for whatever reasons. Thus different groups of people might have different requirements to freedoms they grant to their code.
- watwut 6y ago
  Actually healthy adults put boundaries on how they allow themselves to be treated fairly often. That includes selection of environments to work in. In turn, desperate people who cling at the position for emotional reasons are not all that great.

logicchains 6y ago

>Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. Were any of these people actually contributing in any meaningful sense, or just "participating"?

geofft 6y ago
Yes, many of them were. Here's the lead developer of the HURD: https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF, including as executive director, and won the FSF's award for contributions to free software on the same day that RMS announced his return: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers, publishing a statement on gnu.org: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr... Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors: https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235091.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235096.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235096.html
- craigsmansion 6y ago
  > Here's the lead developer of the HURD Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google. > Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach. > Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers Guix has been in disagreement with rms since he didn't want to adopt a CoC for GNU because it was "too punitive" in intent, and suggested using GNU's Kind Communications Guidelines instead. > Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. After the committee did so for technical reasons, he accused them of not being punitive enough towards rms and proceeded to tally various personal suspicions against rms. https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. > https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html Today I learned the name of one of the first toxic people who seriously suggested to write gcc in C++. And they are admitting it themselves! What a tragedy. Of course, RMS was, rightfully again, the main opposing force. We live in sad, sad times. Quoting this person's message: > Interactions I've had with the SC, beyond maintainer appointment, seem to run into RMS. Sounds like a feature to me! The main purpose of RMS's presence is precisely to keep away idiotic proposals like those of Nathan Sidwell.
    - geofft 6y ago
      What is your reason for believing that the proposal to write gcc in C++ is idiotic?
      - enriquto 6y ago
        Paraphrasing Torvalds, to keep people like Nathan out. Being serious, the world needs an easily bootstrappable C compiler. It's a crucial pillar of our society, and we lost it a few years ago. That is a shame.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

> Stallman was removed because many found his presence unacceptable to their continued participation. If someone decided not to participate in Free Software because they couldn't stand Stallman, then they don't have a strong urge to do so anyway. It is likely that they didn't even participate at all, but were seeking some attention and did virtue signalling. Does anyone really believe Sara Mei would have contributed to GNU 20 years ago?

neilk 6y ago
You seem to be new to this argument. Are you aware that we have had a bifurcated Open Source / Free Software movement since the 1990s? And how that came to be? There were real philosophical disagreements, and I'm not even saying RMS had the wrong side of the argument. But he definitely gave everyone a huge incentive to go off and do something different because at least you wouldn't be working with RMS. I can think of several people off the top of my head who attempted to work with RMS, were immediately repelled, and then went off to do other things with freely distributed software.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Why would anyone working on Free Software would need to work with rms personally? It is not like it's some weird cult where you need to be initiated into it by the high priest. We have created our software and released it under GNU GPL / AGPL licences without ever meeting anyone. As for 'bifurcation': it happened because different people have different goals when they release their software. Some are driven by some idealistic values, others do it because it fits in their business plan for whatever reasons. Thus different groups of people might have different requirements to freedoms they grant to their code.
watwut 6y ago
Actually healthy adults put boundaries on how they allow themselves to be treated fairly often. That includes selection of environments to work in. In turn, desperate people who cling at the position for emotional reasons are not all that great.