5 ms·

He's mistreated many FSF staff members, many LibrePlanet attendees, many GNU project contributors, etc. The fact that the public discourse is focused on the Ep

He's mistreated many FSF staff members, many LibrePlanet attendees, many GNU project contributors, etc. The fact that the public discourse is focused on the Epstein-related comments does RMS and the FSF a huge favor by pointing the spotlight away from the real issue which has been happening for decades.

rbanffy 6y ago
It makes painfully obvious the point they don't get it. They really, willingly or not, refuse to understand what the issues here are.
craigsmansion 6y ago
It's a bit rich that you accuse those who didn't take the initial smear campaign at face value of moving the goal posts. First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false. Then it was predatory behaviour at MIT with three quotes from over 3 decades, a sign on his door, and a mattress doused in implications. Then it was simply "making some people uncomfortable", which is sort of a given if you talk about free software to groups of people who are in the proprietary software industry, and says nothing at all. If you want the "real issues" addressed, stop drowning them in fabrications.
- davexunit 6y ago
  Until you've been as close to rms as the people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately, whatever silly argument you are trying to make doesn't have a leg to stand on.
  - craigsmansion 6y ago
    > people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1]. Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2]. I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the matter at hand (say, Don Knuth), but there's nothing wrong with politely declining their opinions when it comes to "issues" or how to become a "better" person. Again, no disrespect to Bushnell, who I'm sure did a fine job, but I'm not willing to take his assessment of the personality of an avouched atheist at face value. [1]https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... [2] well, working for Google can be debatable depending on what you do there.
    - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
      > Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell It doesn't have to be. I've known over a dozen people working at the FSF over the years, and they _all_ had the same stories about trying to avoid RMS as much as physically possible because of his behavior and how he treated people. At some point we have to stop looking for excuses and start listening to the people who are actually there. > First it was the Epstein connection Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
      - craigsmansion 6y ago
        > start listening to the people who are actually there. I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets. > Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws. Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. In all of MIT, the only person you can trust not to have any sort of connection to Epstein would be rms, but yeah, let's blame him and the dead guy, and take it from there.
        BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
        > and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don't mind. Because Stallman _did_ say he believed that Minsky had sex with a 17 year old on a billionaire's small private island and saw nothing wrong with it, and Minsky _did_ host a conference on Epstein's island after Epstein's crimes became public. > I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would... I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences instead of venting to their friends and then trying to forget. The two sides here are people who work at or with the FSF (or who have close friends who work at or with the FSF) and people whose only exposure is shit blogs that come up on google. And the people who work at or with the FSF are like "RMS is a nightmare for me or for a close friend of mine", and the people who google shit blogs are like "I don't find these shit blogs to be compelling enough to notice the fact that the people saying that RMS has been a nightmare are all the people who have to work with him". Everyone gets to pick their side though.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  > First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false. This didn't prove false. The article we're commenting on is literally RMS defending Minsky who was credibly accused of raping a minor provided by Epstein. RMS is still connecting himself to Epstein.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    We used to have a word for defending the accused, "Justice". Accusation by a single terrified and led witness does not give license to treat someone like a convict.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      He's not providing "justice", he's tainting open source software. You can read the victim's own thoughts on Stallman: https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1174108999039406080 https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1174108999039406080
      - africanboy 6y ago
        what exactly this has to do with what happened to Giuffre and why should we care if it's Giuffre quoting something we have known for years? Is Giuffre some kind of higher being whose words are to be taken as divine thruths, just because she's a victim of something completely unrelated? Has Stallman ever did anything remotely similar to a crime? BTW in my country sex at the age of consent would be considered statutory rape in USA (it's 14 years old here). Does that make all of us rapers of children? That was what Stallman was arguing about.
        solosoyokaze 6y ago
        I was responding to the parent comment that claimed Giuffre was a "terrified and led" witness.
        africanboy 6y ago
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It seems to me that the discourse was very deliberately focused on the Epstein-related comments by people who felt that'd be a good way to achieve the outcome they wanted. It's undoubtedly true that RMS is often rude and offensive, but this has long been widely known and publicly discussed, so a pressure campaign on those grounds would almost certainly have flopped.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  It seems to me the discussion of his Epstein related comments encouraged other people to come forward with their own grievances. I don't think most people knew he defended adults having sex with children. Or he hit on much younger women at conferences. Or the FSF unionized because of him.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I really think they did. The first two were some of the only things I knew about RMS before the current controversy prompted me to learn more.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Only a handful of HN comments mentioned Stallman and pedophilia before the Epstein controversy.[1] [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=rms%20pedophilia&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

rbanffy 6y ago

It makes painfully obvious the point they don't get it. They really, willingly or not, refuse to understand what the issues here are.

craigsmansion 6y ago

It's a bit rich that you accuse those who didn't take the initial smear campaign at face value of moving the goal posts. First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false. Then it was predatory behaviour at MIT with three quotes from over 3 decades, a sign on his door, and a mattress doused in implications. Then it was simply "making some people uncomfortable", which is sort of a given if you talk about free software to groups of people who are in the proprietary software industry, and says nothing at all. If you want the "real issues" addressed, stop drowning them in fabrications.

davexunit 6y ago
Until you've been as close to rms as the people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately, whatever silly argument you are trying to make doesn't have a leg to stand on.
- craigsmansion 6y ago
  > people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1]. Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2]. I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the matter at hand (say, Don Knuth), but there's nothing wrong with politely declining their opinions when it comes to "issues" or how to become a "better" person. Again, no disrespect to Bushnell, who I'm sure did a fine job, but I'm not willing to take his assessment of the personality of an avouched atheist at face value. [1]https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84 https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa... [2] well, working for Google can be debatable depending on what you do there.
  - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
    > Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell It doesn't have to be. I've known over a dozen people working at the FSF over the years, and they _all_ had the same stories about trying to avoid RMS as much as physically possible because of his behavior and how he treated people. At some point we have to stop looking for excuses and start listening to the people who are actually there. > First it was the Epstein connection Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
    - craigsmansion 6y ago
      > start listening to the people who are actually there. I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets. > Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws. Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. In all of MIT, the only person you can trust not to have any sort of connection to Epstein would be rms, but yeah, let's blame him and the dead guy, and take it from there.
      - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
        > and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don't mind. Because Stallman _did_ say he believed that Minsky had sex with a 17 year old on a billionaire's small private island and saw nothing wrong with it, and Minsky _did_ host a conference on Epstein's island after Epstein's crimes became public. > I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would... I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences instead of venting to their friends and then trying to forget. The two sides here are people who work at or with the FSF (or who have close friends who work at or with the FSF) and people whose only exposure is shit blogs that come up on google. And the people who work at or with the FSF are like "RMS is a nightmare for me or for a close friend of mine", and the people who google shit blogs are like "I don't find these shit blogs to be compelling enough to notice the fact that the people saying that RMS has been a nightmare are all the people who have to work with him". Everyone gets to pick their side though.
solosoyokaze 6y ago
> First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false. This didn't prove false. The article we're commenting on is literally RMS defending Minsky who was credibly accused of raping a minor provided by Epstein. RMS is still connecting himself to Epstein.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  We used to have a word for defending the accused, "Justice". Accusation by a single terrified and led witness does not give license to treat someone like a convict.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    He's not providing "justice", he's tainting open source software. You can read the victim's own thoughts on Stallman: https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1174108999039406080 https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1174108999039406080
    - africanboy 6y ago
      what exactly this has to do with what happened to Giuffre and why should we care if it's Giuffre quoting something we have known for years? Is Giuffre some kind of higher being whose words are to be taken as divine thruths, just because she's a victim of something completely unrelated? Has Stallman ever did anything remotely similar to a crime? BTW in my country sex at the age of consent would be considered statutory rape in USA (it's 14 years old here). Does that make all of us rapers of children? That was what Stallman was arguing about.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        I was responding to the parent comment that claimed Giuffre was a "terrified and led" witness.
        africanboy 6y ago

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

It seems to me that the discourse was very deliberately focused on the Epstein-related comments by people who felt that'd be a good way to achieve the outcome they wanted. It's undoubtedly true that RMS is often rude and offensive, but this has long been widely known and publicly discussed, so a pressure campaign on those grounds would almost certainly have flopped.

pseudalopex 6y ago
It seems to me the discussion of his Epstein related comments encouraged other people to come forward with their own grievances. I don't think most people knew he defended adults having sex with children. Or he hit on much younger women at conferences. Or the FSF unionized because of him.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I really think they did. The first two were some of the only things I knew about RMS before the current controversy prompted me to learn more.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Only a handful of HN comments mentioned Stallman and pedophilia before the Epstein controversy.[1] [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=rms%20pedophilia&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...