11 ms·

Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman

105 points by tjr 6y ago

fredgrott 6y ago
I will stop issuing any and all of my source code in all projects under all FSF licenses. An apology about comments about normalizing rape is just not enough of acceptable action at all.
underseacables 6y ago
That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so hard to organize a great event,” This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. I think compared with the totality of the evidence, the history of FSF, The importance of knowledge, and the betterment for the group as a whole, bringing RMS was the right decision. It’s great they’ve implemented changes, maybe this will be a roadmap for others canceled but still needed to atone and renter the public square.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  > look we need this guy The apocryphal Charles de Gaulle quote that applies here is "graveyards are full of indispensable men". RMS is one man, the FSF is an organization that is supposed to have aims that are bigger and larger reaching than one single person, which is why it's an org in the first place. If the FSF cannot get by without RMS now, they will not survive RMS himself in the long run. > This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. Again, RMS is really bad at this stuff. I genuinely have no idea why anyone wants to keep him. Especially having met him personally, he seems unpleasant to deal with on a constant basis. > I think compared with the totality of the evidence, the history of FSF, The importance of knowledge, and the betterment for the group as a whole, bringing RMS was the right decision. I'd argue that you are probably overweighting the early history of the FSF. In my professional lifetime it has been a complete non-entity, and all I've ever seen RMS do publicly is get into slap fights over "GNU/Linux" and create drama out of thin air. What has that org been doing for 20 years other than slowly lose ground to Apache and CNCF?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Mostly I'll grant the GNU Project and the GPL and associated philosophical underpinning. Whether you favor copyleft or not, it has almost certainly been useful to have that basis for FOSS--given that the permissive licenses were mostly about pragmatism. Having said that, one of my lawyer friends has pondered whether the FSF's focus on licensing as the primary software freedom tool hasn't led to some of the licensing debates going on today.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      That's all well and good, but it is completely orthogonal to whether or not he should be on the FSF board. The GPL was an important contribution he made to the community ... 30 years ago. The FSF has been fighting for the GPL over more permissive licenses for a while, and losing badly. Maybe it was a doomed fight from the get go, but it is certainly clear that he has not been successful. Obviously without him the FSF and GNU as we know it would not exist, but leadership is all about what you will do in the future, not what you did in the past. So the question is, why is he indispensable to the FSF today?
      - ghaff 6y ago
        He's not. And I'm not convinced the FSF as a whole is needed, certainly not with the current leadership. I was mostly responding to "I'd argue that you are probably overweighting the early history of the FSF." I'm just saying there were some important things in that early history but I agree much less since.
- sthomas1618 6y ago
  I could not disagree more. This whole statement is "sorry, not sorry". If someone is known to be a toxic person (and currently still is), you do not let them on to your team. Ever.
  - semitones 6y ago
    Toxicity isn't a binary thing - there's levels to it. If the benefits one can bring to a team outweigh their negative attributes, then you should let them on your team. As far as how to determine whether the good outweighs the bad, that's a different topic. He brings a lot to the table, and I don't think he should have his work and life "cancelled" because some people disagree with his opinions...
    - danpalmer 6y ago
      Cancellation isn't a binary thing either, and I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that RMS's past contributions to the FSF be dismantled or that no one should employ him, I don't think anyone seriously want's to cancel his life's work. The suggestions are that he shouldn't hold a leadership position in a community when he's shown an inability to lead a community safely.
      - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
        Alas, cancellation is binary. It's akin to bullying: once started things begin to go downhill really quick. There are always enough people willing to raise there self-esteem by kicking a dead lion.
        danpalmer 6y ago
        I disagree that it's binary. Brendan Eich seems to be doing pretty well running Brave after being "cancelled" for donating for anti-gay-marriage causes. I think people remember that but have mostly let him get on with his life because he a) apologised, and b) no longer runs something as visible as Mozilla.
- DasIch 6y ago
  What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.
  - pieter_mj 6y ago
    >this announcement should be extremely worrying. I agree it's slightly worrying, there's currently no replacement for RMS. The libre software movement risks falling apart if he is no longer there. FSF and RMS should make quick work of finding someone valuable.
    - DasIch 6y ago
      One person is not a movement. It's not enough to find someone else. The organization, the entire group of people it consists of, needs to be able to its job.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I'm not even sure what this libre software movement even is that would fall apart in the absence of RMS and the FSF.
      - solipsism 6y ago
        Yes.. please God someone tell me, which parts of the sky would fall if the entire FSF org disappeared tomorrow?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Exactly. So this >30 year old organization spends a paragraph to basically say they're crippled as an organization without RMS. Imagine a company welcoming back a founder who was forced out for some sort of highly questionable behavior and public statements--and the company to come out with a statement a year later that they just couldn't go on without their founder's wisdom. We would rightly say the board and senior management of that company wasn't doing their job.
- na85 6y ago
  >look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore But he's not valuable any more, that's the thing. He hasn't written code in like 30 years and to the best of my knowledge all he does is go around giving the same tired lecture over and over. This pretend apology does nothing to address the very real concerns expressed by the people who have had to work with RMS. The guy is just generally an asshole, with the charisma of a wet towel. We give some assholes some slack if they continue to make valuable contributions (Torvalds, de Raadt), but RMS makes no valuable contributions.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Writing code isn't that valuable. Many people contribute to coreutils (& other GNU projects) but there is only one RMS. His position is an ideological one.
    - na85 6y ago
      To a first approximation, zero people at the global scale are proponents of Stallman's FSF. Free Software deserves a better figurehead.
    - DasIch 6y ago
      What political successes did the FSF have in the last 20 years and what role did RMS play in those?
- paulmd 6y ago
  > This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. > bringing RMS was the right decision The idea that he has such severe problems with social interactions that he almost torpedoed his chance at getting back his board seat suggests that he is not, in fact, the right person to be leading a large organization. I get the hacker ethos that this is "his" organization but if the guy can't even hold it together for a week without nearly blowing it, he's not going to be an effective advocate for his views and isn't the right person to lead a large organization. Long-term the organization needs to move past him anyway: he's 70, if the movement can't survive without him then it'd better figure out how that's going to work damned quickly because statistically they don't have that many more years.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  An organization in which one man is indispensable dies with that man. If FSF can't see a way to exist without Stallman at the helm, I wouldn't make any long-term bets on them sticking around as an organization of relevance.
danpalmer 6y ago
> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past people without them realising. Whether you support RMS or not, this is a poor statement from the FSF, and a poor statement from RMS, and speaks to why so many feel that the FSF no longer represent them.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Which is frustrating, because this really should be a circumstance where a genuinely sincere apology should be... acceptable. RMS isn't accused of trafficking here, after all. He jumped in to a heated discussion to defend Minsky (one of his heroes[1] who had been fingered as a john in the Epstein affair). And in the process he deployed a line of argument[2] that probably sounded reasonable to a spectrum personality working in an nearly-all-male tech environment but that REALLY grates to modern ears in a more cosmopolitan world. All that needed to happen was RMS coming out with something along the lines "I'm sorry. I let criticism of my hero cloud my judgement and found myself defending something that shouldn't ever be defended. I should have known better, and know now how much rhetoric like this hurts people. Please forgive me." And that really should have been enough for a community consensus to form around forgiveness. This isn't a Bill Cosby situation, at all. But... I guess he wouldn't. And the FSF couldn't or didn't want to make him. Which is deeply frustrating. [1] And mine, FWIW. [2] To wit: "Engaging with extremely young, presumptively-trafficked prostitutes isn't TECHNICALLY assault". It's... logically arguable, but in context it ends up defending a practice we've all finally decided to abhor.
  - danpalmer 6y ago
    I agree in principle. I think someone in RMS's postition could have apologised far better and been more effective at changing their behaviour. However I'm not sure that RMS himself could do this and at this point I think it's probably too late for the FSF to get him back without backlash because it has gone too far.
Splendor 6y ago
> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF. This line really misses the mark for me. When you defend a man who raped a 17 year-old girl, your biggest regret shouldn't be about how it harmed your reputation.
- semitones 6y ago
  This is the point that RMS is trying to make. His argument (iirc) is that "rape" might be an incorrect word used to describe what happened (was it proved to be rape? The only part proved iirc were the ages), and that immediately because the person was 17 instead of 18, that word is used to describe the situation without second thought. I don't think he was saying that there should be zero repercussions, or that we should forget all about it, or that we should condone relations with minors... Just saying, when I was 17, I was well mature enough to make my own choices and to be aware of my actions. There's a HUGE difference between 17/18 and 14/15. I think this is the point he was trying to make.
  - Splendor 6y ago
    What word or phrase would you used to describe sex between an old man and a 17 year-old girl?
    - BeetleB 6y ago
      Sex? This is a silly question, because you're not even bringing jurisdictions into it. In much of the US, this is perfectly legal and is neither rape nor statutory rape.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    This is essentially RMS' point, and it is pretty much a stupid technicality that even his deceitful 'I now know better' non-apology doesn't in fact contradict at all. Sure, the word 'rape' invites images of forcing yourself on someone through explicit violence, when what Minsky did is statutory rape, non-consensual sex with someone by virtue of them being unable to consent (since she was a minor). But it misses the point that Minsky was an old, intelligent, somehwat rich and powerful man (in his 70s? 80s?) having sex with a sex worker 60 years his junior. That he might not have known she was technically a minor and forced into sex work against her will doesn't entirely excuse his behavior, and his reputation is worth almost nothing compared to the hurt that he caused her, even if unkowingly. The fact that we don't (and won't ever) know for sure whether he had in fact been aware that she was a minor forced into this situation against her will makes the situation even worse.
WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
One can't deny, sadly, that a software freedom geek with consistency and integrity as applied to that philosophy and insight therein of RMS's caliber doesn't yet exist. I'm afraid, for this reason alone quite a few people get to think that if you consistently apply software freedom principles in all parts of your life where you use or produce software, it must come with the baggage of all other flaws of RMS's character, complete with questionable hygiene habits and abrasive personality. As if you just can't have the same principles, but bring in flaws of your own.
- blablabla123 6y ago
  I mean for years it has been an open secret that organizations and also people are okay with certain degrees of problematic behaviours. I cannot remember how often I read blog articles linked on HN about HR departments ignoring reasonable complaints. At some point it is then also necessary to have direct words every now and then. Otherwise this system is just passed on and never improved. I also have serious doubts that toxic behaviour is supposed to be particularly bad in IT orgs. (What about investment banks or construction businesses?) At the same time the sentiment towards IT is "traditionally" really bad. That said, as long as RMS didn't do anything outside of the law, it might be positive to give him another chance in the FSF world. This would set also an example for a possible way out for other orgs beyond canceling. Although I still think they should put a new person on the top and put RMS next to that person. Also to make the FSF as open as it wants to appear.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    > That said, as long as RMS didn't do anything outside of the law. I always balk at the introduction of "the law" into these discussions. Inherently there are all kinds of behavior that is legal but can and should get you fired. Talking about the law here is just setting the bar unreasonably high.
    - einpoklum 6y ago
      > I always balk at the introduction of "the law" into these discussions. Me too, but > Inherently there are all kinds of behavior that is legal but can and should get you fired. The thing is, employers are typically not acceptable judges of morality and legitimacy of actions. They have inherent biases in general, and specific ones have a bunch of specific interests of the specific company owners or NGO factions. Which is why it is problematic to move from a moral judgement of someone's actions to a n expectation of them getting fired. -- ... regardless, Stallman is not being hired as an employee, but elected to be a board member, which is something very different.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
burnte 6y ago
I read this and RMS's statement. I've been saying Stallman needs to go for adecade or more, I believe his fanaticism holds back the organization and movement. However, after reading his statement, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt IF he not only sees now that he's been ofensive, but is more willing to listen to criticism in the future. If he TRULY recognizes he's got social issues and communication problems, then he MUST be more willing to give and take, and not be so rigid. I can truly believe he didn't understand the allegations against Minsky because I truly believe RMS frequently takes stances on issues where he has minimal knowledge of the facts. The problem is I don't see that concession in his apology or the FSF statement. I think this is preobably a bad move. I think RMS is not only not-irreplaceble, I think there people who could be much more effective in that role.
- gaws 6y ago
  > he not only sees now that he's been ofensive, but is more willing to listen to criticism in the future. Spoiler alert: He won't. He's been problematic for decades, and it's extremely difficult for someone like him to change at the drop of a hat.
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    He's been willing to listen to criticism for 30 years alright. He just doesn't change or learn anything as a result.
kmeisthax 6y ago
This past month has completely destroyed my confidence in FSF leadership. I hope they can earn it back. Say what you want about the open letter - and it is an inaccurate open letter - the fact is that most people who had legitimate criticisms of RMS's leadership decided to sign onto it anyway. You might argue that this is malice. I'd argue that the open letter's ultimate conclusion - wipe the FSF management slate clean - was still warranted. Remember: the FSF did not attempt to defend, explain, or rehabilitate Stallman's behavior or character. That was individuals within the community doing that - and themselves making the mistake of, say, ignoring other, better criticisms of RMS's behavior than misreading his personal quirks as inherently sexist. I find it hard not to read the FSF's conduct as anything but "let's just quietly bring RMS back once the mainstream media gets off our case". They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. The Minsky e-mail was just a catalyst, like putting a spoon in superheated water. If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then actually toning it down, this could have worked. It's possible for the FSF to actually still do this, despite having been apparently(!?) caught on the backfoot... but that's going to be far harder than if they had actually messaged this properly. Since nobody's head is actually going to roll for this terrible PR nightmare, I can only hope that the organization tries to tone down RMS's toxic behavior, and maybe we'll get something useful out of deliberately reopening year-old (or for some, decade-old) wounds. Still, I feel like this is akin to Mozilla's crippling Google dependency - it's not like RMS is going to live forever, he's pushing 70. His number will come up sooner or later. His remaining tenure with the FSF should be wholly dedicated towards making the organization relevant to those who aren't already "in the know" so that we have suitable replacements when we lose RMS.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  > They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. Then you should have hounded him for those things, and not twisted the words he actually wrote (which was even more blatant since both what rms said and what Vice said is there in the public) and then tried to pin it onto him. Do you really think everyone is going to have a short memory about how this all was handled? Regardless of whether you like rms or not, would you like to have this kind of due diligence to be applied to you one day? > If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then actually toning it down, this could have worked. So, what you're saying is... people expect a show. It doesn't have to be sincere, it just has to be the right kind of a show, maybe jerking a tear or two. And they know full well it's just a show. But they still are going to make a decision based on the quality of that show. Right? "Extremely superficial" and "infantile" are words that immediately come to mind to describe this kind of behavior, and frankly speaking, this is not the kind of people that should be let within a mile of any kind of decision making.
chx 6y ago
This basically refuses to acknowledge the problem. It links RMS' statement > Occasionally I learned something about relationships and social skills, so over the years I've found ways to get better at these situations. When people help me understand an aspect of what went wrong, and that shows me a way of treating people better, I teach myself to recognize when I should act that way. I keep making this effort, and over time, I improve. This, alas, is not true. This has been refuted by FSF staff: he has been saying and doing sexist shit over the decades. A report was made about the sexism at MIT CSAIL in 1983. If that's not enough time to change, nothing is. He has been defending raping of children for, I do not even know how long. https://archive.is/P0Rvb https://archive.is/P0Rvb 2003? at least that's the earliest this article dug up. The very problem is that he does not improve over more than thirty years.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  He changed his mind eventually about children being able to consent to sex. But he does make himself sound more receptive to feedback than Bradley Kuhn and other people who worked with him say.[1] [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
wrs 6y ago
Don’t miss the followup post by RMS [0]. [0] https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-com...
- seoaeu 6y ago
  It took him weeks to make a public statement and that is what he came up with?!
  - NaturalPhallacy 6y ago
    Sounds like his priorities are in order. This woke-cult witch hunt doesn't deserve the attention its already been given.
biddit 6y ago
To those playing catch up and wanting to form an opinion outside of editorialized content, here is the original leak on RMS's comments about Epstein, Minsky, and the definition of rape/assault: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420... I realize he has been accused of a lot of other controversial behavior - would love to see more unedited source material of RMS's behavior.
genderismadeup 6y ago
Aka “We missed his wisdom”, forgot that other things matter, and invited toxicity to poison our organization and refuse to admit how wrong we were regardless of community outrage and boycotts of us
xxxxxxx12 6y ago
It's hard to see this in any other way but the standard bend-the-knee campaign to make every single person subservient to woke-ism. It doesn't matter who. Everyone must be made to pledge allegiance with the usual creeds, and repeat the platitudes. It's authoritarianism plain and simple.
selfishgene 6y ago
Both MIT and Harvard have admitted to helping Jeffrey Epstein avoid prosecution on federal racketeering charges for the sex-trafficking of minors after they were exposed by whistle-blowers at both of these institutions. I'm still not sure why people consider it appropriate to exclude someone like Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while continuing to allow Mr. Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei... Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus with just a slap on the wrist: https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op... Or Mr. Martin Nowak for that matter either: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio... On the subject of Nowak's role in aiding and abetting a child rapist, this hacker news thread is worth reading again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 So why has nobody drafted petitions to cancel Rafael "Thank You So Much Mr. Epstein -- And Don't Forget to Show My Letter to Federal Prosecutors" Reif, Benedict "Epstein is an Ideal Donor for Harvard" Gross, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, Martin "Punishment Serves No Noble Purpose" Nowak, Steven "Using the Internet to Entice a Minor into Prostitution is A-Okay" Pinker, Seth "So What If I Make Female Undergraduates at MIT Feel Uncomfortable" Lloyd, Neri "Epstein was Always a Reliable Supporter of Israel" Oxman, Frank "I Never Saw any Girls that were Underage" Wilczek, and all of the other pedophilia-tolerating two-faced phonies that attended EDGE Foundation dinners hosted by the convicted child rapist and/or visited him on "Pedophile Isle," where FBI reportedly found instruction manuals that Mr. Epstein had ordered on Amazon that describe how to create a so-called "sex slave," in addition to video tapes containing child pornography that he allegedly recorded using secret cameras that were installed throughout his various residences? Mr. Stallman blaming his "being on the spectrum" for all of the troubling statements cataloged on the website cited below may not entirely excuse him for making them since there is no evidence that someone on the spectrum is more likely than the general population to hold similar views on child rape: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman But the most important question today that Mr. Stallman still needs to address directly, because many of his critics on this issue continue to hold him in the highest regard for his role in advancing the free software movement, is a very frank one: Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, and Leon Black, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is a professor? I'm not entirely convinced by the naysayers on this one yet, but Stallman is most deserving of the benefit of doubt thus far, and not because of his autism, but rather because of all of his contributions to free software in spite of it. On the other hand, many of the other Epstein co-conspirators cited above who directly accepted money from the convicted child-rapist as a form of reputation laundering for an individual who they knew, or should have known, was about to face racketeering charges in federal court for the sex-trafficking of hundreds of underage girls over the past 30 years deserve to spend some serious time in the same jail cell where Mr. Epstein (allegedly) killed himself because he was too much of a coward to stand trial for all of the crimes that he knew he had committed.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
When you're a star, you can get away with anything. That's basically it. Zero surprise. Same reason Linus got away with bullying for so long. Some people are just born-followers, NPCs, and will lie to themselves to block away the shame. If it was me who did this same shit, I'd be exiled. No one would be there to defend me. Where's all the brave white knights then?
jangid 6y ago
My frustration is for the stupid people in the GCC mailing list who think that those individuals are bigger than the ideological cause. They even started contemplating that GCC should fork away from FSF.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  I'm sure you mean "stupid people who believe in equality" so it is hilarious that you think one individual, RMS, is more important than the ideas of copyleft. The best compliment that you can pay RMS is to say that his ideas were greater than the man, and they they deserve to outlive him. GCC is already separate from RMS/FSF, effectively from the late 1990s with the EGCS fork, and officially now. I expect they will move further away due to the recent debacle.
  - jangid 6y ago
    I have not named RMS. FSF and the cause is bigger than RMS.

105 points by tjr 6y ago

I will stop issuing any and all of my source code in all projects under all FSF licenses. An apology about comments about normalizing rape is just not enough of acceptable action at all.

underseacables 6y ago

That is a really well written statement in my humble opinion. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell people “look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore“ I was intrigued at “ The announcement by RMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked so hard to organize a great event,” This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. I think compared with the totality of the evidence, the history of FSF, The importance of knowledge, and the betterment for the group as a whole, bringing RMS was the right decision. It’s great they’ve implemented changes, maybe this will be a roadmap for others canceled but still needed to atone and renter the public square.

ashtonkem 6y ago
> look we need this guy The apocryphal Charles de Gaulle quote that applies here is "graveyards are full of indispensable men". RMS is one man, the FSF is an organization that is supposed to have aims that are bigger and larger reaching than one single person, which is why it's an org in the first place. If the FSF cannot get by without RMS now, they will not survive RMS himself in the long run. > This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. Again, RMS is really bad at this stuff. I genuinely have no idea why anyone wants to keep him. Especially having met him personally, he seems unpleasant to deal with on a constant basis. > I think compared with the totality of the evidence, the history of FSF, The importance of knowledge, and the betterment for the group as a whole, bringing RMS was the right decision. I'd argue that you are probably overweighting the early history of the FSF. In my professional lifetime it has been a complete non-entity, and all I've ever seen RMS do publicly is get into slap fights over "GNU/Linux" and create drama out of thin air. What has that org been doing for 20 years other than slowly lose ground to Apache and CNCF?
- ghaff 6y ago
  Mostly I'll grant the GNU Project and the GPL and associated philosophical underpinning. Whether you favor copyleft or not, it has almost certainly been useful to have that basis for FOSS--given that the permissive licenses were mostly about pragmatism. Having said that, one of my lawyer friends has pondered whether the FSF's focus on licensing as the primary software freedom tool hasn't led to some of the licensing debates going on today.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That's all well and good, but it is completely orthogonal to whether or not he should be on the FSF board. The GPL was an important contribution he made to the community ... 30 years ago. The FSF has been fighting for the GPL over more permissive licenses for a while, and losing badly. Maybe it was a doomed fight from the get go, but it is certainly clear that he has not been successful. Obviously without him the FSF and GNU as we know it would not exist, but leadership is all about what you will do in the future, not what you did in the past. So the question is, why is he indispensable to the FSF today?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      He's not. And I'm not convinced the FSF as a whole is needed, certainly not with the current leadership. I was mostly responding to "I'd argue that you are probably overweighting the early history of the FSF." I'm just saying there were some important things in that early history but I agree much less since.
sthomas1618 6y ago
I could not disagree more. This whole statement is "sorry, not sorry". If someone is known to be a toxic person (and currently still is), you do not let them on to your team. Ever.
- semitones 6y ago
  Toxicity isn't a binary thing - there's levels to it. If the benefits one can bring to a team outweigh their negative attributes, then you should let them on your team. As far as how to determine whether the good outweighs the bad, that's a different topic. He brings a lot to the table, and I don't think he should have his work and life "cancelled" because some people disagree with his opinions...
  - danpalmer 6y ago
    Cancellation isn't a binary thing either, and I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that RMS's past contributions to the FSF be dismantled or that no one should employ him, I don't think anyone seriously want's to cancel his life's work. The suggestions are that he shouldn't hold a leadership position in a community when he's shown an inability to lead a community safely.
    - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
      Alas, cancellation is binary. It's akin to bullying: once started things begin to go downhill really quick. There are always enough people willing to raise there self-esteem by kicking a dead lion.
      - danpalmer 6y ago
        I disagree that it's binary. Brendan Eich seems to be doing pretty well running Brave after being "cancelled" for donating for anti-gay-marriage causes. I think people remember that but have mostly let him get on with his life because he a) apologised, and b) no longer runs something as visible as Mozilla.
DasIch 6y ago
What if, RMS is hit by a bus tomorrow? The FSF is not a new organization. That it cannot function without RMS means it's failing to stand on its own. That may be acceptable for a new organization but in case of the FSF that's just a massive failure to build a sustainable organization. If you care about the work the FSF is doing (I don't), this announcement should be extremely worrying.
- pieter_mj 6y ago
  >this announcement should be extremely worrying. I agree it's slightly worrying, there's currently no replacement for RMS. The libre software movement risks falling apart if he is no longer there. FSF and RMS should make quick work of finding someone valuable.
  - DasIch 6y ago
    One person is not a movement. It's not enough to find someone else. The organization, the entire group of people it consists of, needs to be able to its job.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I'm not even sure what this libre software movement even is that would fall apart in the absence of RMS and the FSF.
    - solipsism 6y ago
      Yes.. please God someone tell me, which parts of the sky would fall if the entire FSF org disappeared tomorrow?
- ghaff 6y ago
  Exactly. So this >30 year old organization spends a paragraph to basically say they're crippled as an organization without RMS. Imagine a company welcoming back a founder who was forced out for some sort of highly questionable behavior and public statements--and the company to come out with a statement a year later that they just couldn't go on without their founder's wisdom. We would rightly say the board and senior management of that company wasn't doing their job.
na85 6y ago
>look we need this guy, and yeah for many it sucks, but for the betterment of the mission and the future of free software, we have to come together because he is simply too valuable to ignore But he's not valuable any more, that's the thing. He hasn't written code in like 30 years and to the best of my knowledge all he does is go around giving the same tired lecture over and over. This pretend apology does nothing to address the very real concerns expressed by the people who have had to work with RMS. The guy is just generally an asshole, with the charisma of a wet towel. We give some assholes some slack if they continue to make valuable contributions (Torvalds, de Raadt), but RMS makes no valuable contributions.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Writing code isn't that valuable. Many people contribute to coreutils (& other GNU projects) but there is only one RMS. His position is an ideological one.
  - na85 6y ago
    To a first approximation, zero people at the global scale are proponents of Stallman's FSF. Free Software deserves a better figurehead.
  - DasIch 6y ago
    What political successes did the FSF have in the last 20 years and what role did RMS play in those?
paulmd 6y ago
> This sounds like RMS almost torpedoed his own board seat by announcing it on his own. > bringing RMS was the right decision The idea that he has such severe problems with social interactions that he almost torpedoed his chance at getting back his board seat suggests that he is not, in fact, the right person to be leading a large organization. I get the hacker ethos that this is "his" organization but if the guy can't even hold it together for a week without nearly blowing it, he's not going to be an effective advocate for his views and isn't the right person to lead a large organization. Long-term the organization needs to move past him anyway: he's 70, if the movement can't survive without him then it'd better figure out how that's going to work damned quickly because statistically they don't have that many more years.
shadowgovt 6y ago
An organization in which one man is indispensable dies with that man. If FSF can't see a way to exist without Stallman at the helm, I wouldn't make any long-term bets on them sticking around as an organization of relevance.

danpalmer 6y ago

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF In my opinion, "I'm sorry you were offended enough to stop supporting me" is not a sincere apology. In fact this whole announcement is one big "I'm sorry you were offended" statement. It doesn't apologise for the problem, it "apologises" for not managing to sneak the announcements past people without them realising. Whether you support RMS or not, this is a poor statement from the FSF, and a poor statement from RMS, and speaks to why so many feel that the FSF no longer represent them.

newacct583 6y ago
Which is frustrating, because this really should be a circumstance where a genuinely sincere apology should be... acceptable. RMS isn't accused of trafficking here, after all. He jumped in to a heated discussion to defend Minsky (one of his heroes[1] who had been fingered as a john in the Epstein affair). And in the process he deployed a line of argument[2] that probably sounded reasonable to a spectrum personality working in an nearly-all-male tech environment but that REALLY grates to modern ears in a more cosmopolitan world. All that needed to happen was RMS coming out with something along the lines "I'm sorry. I let criticism of my hero cloud my judgement and found myself defending something that shouldn't ever be defended. I should have known better, and know now how much rhetoric like this hurts people. Please forgive me." And that really should have been enough for a community consensus to form around forgiveness. This isn't a Bill Cosby situation, at all. But... I guess he wouldn't. And the FSF couldn't or didn't want to make him. Which is deeply frustrating. [1] And mine, FWIW. [2] To wit: "Engaging with extremely young, presumptively-trafficked prostitutes isn't TECHNICALLY assault". It's... logically arguable, but in context it ends up defending a practice we've all finally decided to abhor.
- danpalmer 6y ago
  I agree in principle. I think someone in RMS's postition could have apologised far better and been more effective at changing their behaviour. However I'm not sure that RMS himself could do this and at this point I think it's probably too late for the FSF to get him back without backlash because it has gone too far.

Splendor 6y ago

> He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF. This line really misses the mark for me. When you defend a man who raped a 17 year-old girl, your biggest regret shouldn't be about how it harmed your reputation.

semitones 6y ago
This is the point that RMS is trying to make. His argument (iirc) is that "rape" might be an incorrect word used to describe what happened (was it proved to be rape? The only part proved iirc were the ages), and that immediately because the person was 17 instead of 18, that word is used to describe the situation without second thought. I don't think he was saying that there should be zero repercussions, or that we should forget all about it, or that we should condone relations with minors... Just saying, when I was 17, I was well mature enough to make my own choices and to be aware of my actions. There's a HUGE difference between 17/18 and 14/15. I think this is the point he was trying to make.
- Splendor 6y ago
  What word or phrase would you used to describe sex between an old man and a 17 year-old girl?
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    Sex? This is a silly question, because you're not even bringing jurisdictions into it. In much of the US, this is perfectly legal and is neither rape nor statutory rape.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  This is essentially RMS' point, and it is pretty much a stupid technicality that even his deceitful 'I now know better' non-apology doesn't in fact contradict at all. Sure, the word 'rape' invites images of forcing yourself on someone through explicit violence, when what Minsky did is statutory rape, non-consensual sex with someone by virtue of them being unable to consent (since she was a minor). But it misses the point that Minsky was an old, intelligent, somehwat rich and powerful man (in his 70s? 80s?) having sex with a sex worker 60 years his junior. That he might not have known she was technically a minor and forced into sex work against her will doesn't entirely excuse his behavior, and his reputation is worth almost nothing compared to the hurt that he caused her, even if unkowingly. The fact that we don't (and won't ever) know for sure whether he had in fact been aware that she was a minor forced into this situation against her will makes the situation even worse.

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago

One can't deny, sadly, that a software freedom geek with consistency and integrity as applied to that philosophy and insight therein of RMS's caliber doesn't yet exist. I'm afraid, for this reason alone quite a few people get to think that if you consistently apply software freedom principles in all parts of your life where you use or produce software, it must come with the baggage of all other flaws of RMS's character, complete with questionable hygiene habits and abrasive personality. As if you just can't have the same principles, but bring in flaws of your own.

blablabla123 6y ago
I mean for years it has been an open secret that organizations and also people are okay with certain degrees of problematic behaviours. I cannot remember how often I read blog articles linked on HN about HR departments ignoring reasonable complaints. At some point it is then also necessary to have direct words every now and then. Otherwise this system is just passed on and never improved. I also have serious doubts that toxic behaviour is supposed to be particularly bad in IT orgs. (What about investment banks or construction businesses?) At the same time the sentiment towards IT is "traditionally" really bad. That said, as long as RMS didn't do anything outside of the law, it might be positive to give him another chance in the FSF world. This would set also an example for a possible way out for other orgs beyond canceling. Although I still think they should put a new person on the top and put RMS next to that person. Also to make the FSF as open as it wants to appear.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  > That said, as long as RMS didn't do anything outside of the law. I always balk at the introduction of "the law" into these discussions. Inherently there are all kinds of behavior that is legal but can and should get you fired. Talking about the law here is just setting the bar unreasonably high.
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    > I always balk at the introduction of "the law" into these discussions. Me too, but > Inherently there are all kinds of behavior that is legal but can and should get you fired. The thing is, employers are typically not acceptable judges of morality and legitimacy of actions. They have inherent biases in general, and specific ones have a bunch of specific interests of the specific company owners or NGO factions. Which is why it is problematic to move from a moral judgement of someone's actions to a n expectation of them getting fired. -- ... regardless, Stallman is not being hired as an employee, but elected to be a board member, which is something very different.

deleted 6y ago

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burnte 6y ago

I read this and RMS's statement. I've been saying Stallman needs to go for adecade or more, I believe his fanaticism holds back the organization and movement. However, after reading his statement, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt IF he not only sees now that he's been ofensive, but is more willing to listen to criticism in the future. If he TRULY recognizes he's got social issues and communication problems, then he MUST be more willing to give and take, and not be so rigid. I can truly believe he didn't understand the allegations against Minsky because I truly believe RMS frequently takes stances on issues where he has minimal knowledge of the facts. The problem is I don't see that concession in his apology or the FSF statement. I think this is preobably a bad move. I think RMS is not only not-irreplaceble, I think there people who could be much more effective in that role.

gaws 6y ago
> he not only sees now that he's been ofensive, but is more willing to listen to criticism in the future. Spoiler alert: He won't. He's been problematic for decades, and it's extremely difficult for someone like him to change at the drop of a hat.
- marcan_42 6y ago
  He's been willing to listen to criticism for 30 years alright. He just doesn't change or learn anything as a result.

kmeisthax 6y ago

This past month has completely destroyed my confidence in FSF leadership. I hope they can earn it back. Say what you want about the open letter - and it is an inaccurate open letter - the fact is that most people who had legitimate criticisms of RMS's leadership decided to sign onto it anyway. You might argue that this is malice. I'd argue that the open letter's ultimate conclusion - wipe the FSF management slate clean - was still warranted. Remember: the FSF did not attempt to defend, explain, or rehabilitate Stallman's behavior or character. That was individuals within the community doing that - and themselves making the mistake of, say, ignoring other, better criticisms of RMS's behavior than misreading his personal quirks as inherently sexist. I find it hard not to read the FSF's conduct as anything but "let's just quietly bring RMS back once the mainstream media gets off our case". They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. The Minsky e-mail was just a catalyst, like putting a spoon in superheated water. If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then actually toning it down, this could have worked. It's possible for the FSF to actually still do this, despite having been apparently(!?) caught on the backfoot... but that's going to be far harder than if they had actually messaged this properly. Since nobody's head is actually going to roll for this terrible PR nightmare, I can only hope that the organization tries to tone down RMS's toxic behavior, and maybe we'll get something useful out of deliberately reopening year-old (or for some, decade-old) wounds. Still, I feel like this is akin to Mozilla's crippling Google dependency - it's not like RMS is going to live forever, he's pushing 70. His number will come up sooner or later. His remaining tenure with the FSF should be wholly dedicated towards making the organization relevant to those who aren't already "in the know" so that we have suitable replacements when we lose RMS.

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
> They ignored the fact that people within the community had significant problems with his conduct, completely unrelated to the Epstein thing. Then you should have hounded him for those things, and not twisted the words he actually wrote (which was even more blatant since both what rms said and what Vice said is there in the public) and then tried to pin it onto him. Do you really think everyone is going to have a short memory about how this all was handled? Regardless of whether you like rms or not, would you like to have this kind of due diligence to be applied to you one day? > If they had handled this the way Linus Torvalds did - i.e. making a show out of toning down his toxic behavior, and then actually toning it down, this could have worked. So, what you're saying is... people expect a show. It doesn't have to be sincere, it just has to be the right kind of a show, maybe jerking a tear or two. And they know full well it's just a show. But they still are going to make a decision based on the quality of that show. Right? "Extremely superficial" and "infantile" are words that immediately come to mind to describe this kind of behavior, and frankly speaking, this is not the kind of people that should be let within a mile of any kind of decision making.

chx 6y ago

This basically refuses to acknowledge the problem. It links RMS' statement > Occasionally I learned something about relationships and social skills, so over the years I've found ways to get better at these situations. When people help me understand an aspect of what went wrong, and that shows me a way of treating people better, I teach myself to recognize when I should act that way. I keep making this effort, and over time, I improve. This, alas, is not true. This has been refuted by FSF staff: he has been saying and doing sexist shit over the decades. A report was made about the sexism at MIT CSAIL in 1983. If that's not enough time to change, nothing is. He has been defending raping of children for, I do not even know how long. https://archive.is/P0Rvb https://archive.is/P0Rvb 2003? at least that's the earliest this article dug up. The very problem is that he does not improve over more than thirty years.

pseudalopex 6y ago
He changed his mind eventually about children being able to consent to sex. But he does make himself sound more receptive to feedback than Bradley Kuhn and other people who worked with him say.[1] [1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html

wrs 6y ago

Don’t miss the followup post by RMS [0]. [0] https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-com...

seoaeu 6y ago
It took him weeks to make a public statement and that is what he came up with?!
- NaturalPhallacy 6y ago
  Sounds like his priorities are in order. This woke-cult witch hunt doesn't deserve the attention its already been given.

biddit 6y ago

To those playing catch up and wanting to form an opinion outside of editorialized content, here is the original leak on RMS's comments about Epstein, Minsky, and the definition of rape/assault: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420... I realize he has been accused of a lot of other controversial behavior - would love to see more unedited source material of RMS's behavior.

genderismadeup 6y ago

Aka “We missed his wisdom”, forgot that other things matter, and invited toxicity to poison our organization and refuse to admit how wrong we were regardless of community outrage and boycotts of us

xxxxxxx12 6y ago

It's hard to see this in any other way but the standard bend-the-knee campaign to make every single person subservient to woke-ism. It doesn't matter who. Everyone must be made to pledge allegiance with the usual creeds, and repeat the platitudes. It's authoritarianism plain and simple.

selfishgene 6y ago

Both MIT and Harvard have admitted to helping Jeffrey Epstein avoid prosecution on federal racketeering charges for the sex-trafficking of minors after they were exposed by whistle-blowers at both of these institutions. I'm still not sure why people consider it appropriate to exclude someone like Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while continuing to allow Mr. Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei... Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus with just a slap on the wrist: https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op... Or Mr. Martin Nowak for that matter either: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/metro/harvard-sanctio... On the subject of Nowak's role in aiding and abetting a child rapist, this hacker news thread is worth reading again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 So why has nobody drafted petitions to cancel Rafael "Thank You So Much Mr. Epstein -- And Don't Forget to Show My Letter to Federal Prosecutors" Reif, Benedict "Epstein is an Ideal Donor for Harvard" Gross, Alan "Dershbag" Dershowitz, Martin "Punishment Serves No Noble Purpose" Nowak, Steven "Using the Internet to Entice a Minor into Prostitution is A-Okay" Pinker, Seth "So What If I Make Female Undergraduates at MIT Feel Uncomfortable" Lloyd, Neri "Epstein was Always a Reliable Supporter of Israel" Oxman, Frank "I Never Saw any Girls that were Underage" Wilczek, and all of the other pedophilia-tolerating two-faced phonies that attended EDGE Foundation dinners hosted by the convicted child rapist and/or visited him on "Pedophile Isle," where FBI reportedly found instruction manuals that Mr. Epstein had ordered on Amazon that describe how to create a so-called "sex slave," in addition to video tapes containing child pornography that he allegedly recorded using secret cameras that were installed throughout his various residences? Mr. Stallman blaming his "being on the spectrum" for all of the troubling statements cataloged on the website cited below may not entirely excuse him for making them since there is no evidence that someone on the spectrum is more likely than the general population to hold similar views on child rape: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman But the most important question today that Mr. Stallman still needs to address directly, because many of his critics on this issue continue to hold him in the highest regard for his role in advancing the free software movement, is a very frank one: Were his remarks in support of pedophilia designed to persuade Mr. Epstein to donate part of his $500 million estate to the Free Software Foundation, much like he observed role-models such as MIT president Rafael Reif do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Reif sent Mr. Epstein a personally signed thank-you note for his donation to the Media Lab, or colleagues like Martin Nowak do for Mr. Epstein when Dr. Nowak created a web page on a university website and an office in his department for a convicted child-rapist in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in donations that were promised to his academic program at Harvard and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, often laundered through Epstein's fellow billionaire pedophile friends like Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, and Leon Black, to Harvard University, where Mr. Nowak is a professor? I'm not entirely convinced by the naysayers on this one yet, but Stallman is most deserving of the benefit of doubt thus far, and not because of his autism, but rather because of all of his contributions to free software in spite of it. On the other hand, many of the other Epstein co-conspirators cited above who directly accepted money from the convicted child-rapist as a form of reputation laundering for an individual who they knew, or should have known, was about to face racketeering charges in federal court for the sex-trafficking of hundreds of underage girls over the past 30 years deserve to spend some serious time in the same jail cell where Mr. Epstein (allegedly) killed himself because he was too much of a coward to stand trial for all of the crimes that he knew he had committed.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago

When you're a star, you can get away with anything. That's basically it. Zero surprise. Same reason Linus got away with bullying for so long. Some people are just born-followers, NPCs, and will lie to themselves to block away the shame. If it was me who did this same shit, I'd be exiled. No one would be there to defend me. Where's all the brave white knights then?

jangid 6y ago

My frustration is for the stupid people in the GCC mailing list who think that those individuals are bigger than the ideological cause. They even started contemplating that GCC should fork away from FSF.

angry_octet 6y ago
I'm sure you mean "stupid people who believe in equality" so it is hilarious that you think one individual, RMS, is more important than the ideas of copyleft. The best compliment that you can pay RMS is to say that his ideas were greater than the man, and they they deserve to outlive him. GCC is already separate from RMS/FSF, effectively from the late 1990s with the EGCS fork, and officially now. I expect they will move further away due to the recent debacle.
- jangid 6y ago
  I have not named RMS. FSF and the cause is bigger than RMS.