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What significant, tangible accomplishments does Stallmann have in the past 15 years? Because even before the controversy, it seems like he: * Presided over an

What significant, tangible accomplishments does Stallmann have in the past 15 years? Because even before the controversy, it seems like he: * Presided over and actively contributed to the decline of GCC and gave up the world of compiler-based-tools and compiler research to LLVM by insisting on making it impossible to use GCC as a library. Pissed off the emacs maintainers in the process. * Pissed off the glibc maintainers by trying to veto the removal of an abortion joke from the manual, even though he's had no involvement in glibc for years and "veto" is not a reasonable power for him to have nor one that he has ever had. On this basis a lot of other maintainers got pissed off about the level of control he was demanding over details that have nothing to do with software freedom * Has done absolutely nothing to address any threat to free software since 2005, or otherwise adapt to the changing needs of developers to keep FSF/GNU relevant. RMS has no idea what those needs even are because the man reads his email with curl. And now he's been back for a while, and nothing continues to happen, and the FSF is increasingly irrelevant year over year without even taking optics into consideration.

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amno 4y ago
> What significant, tangible accomplishments does Stallmann have in the past 15 years? You believe you will never grow old? Do you wish your family and friends to turn back on you because you are old and don't have the same energy as you had when you were 20? The question is how the landscape would look like today and if there even would be "open source" in the broader sense as we see it today, with permissive licenses, if it wasn't for him. Sure, you can look at a person's mistakes only, but you could also look at all the good a person has done. Do you yourself ever do mistakes? You never made a bad decision in your entire life? C'mon. To err is human. How would world look like if everyone was thrown out from the job and the society when they do a mistake, and if everything in the world would be judged by mistakes and not by the value it adds. Reflect over yourself first, are you sure you are qualified to throw a rock?
- dralley 4y ago
  What is more important, the mission of Free Software, or making him President for life?
  - amno 4y ago
    President is Geoffrey Knauth; not RMS; you should have probably looked up the facts before sending unnecessary comment: https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Knauth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Knauth Nobody claims RMS should be president for life, or anyone else, I just dislike the rhetoric the Op uses.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  The FSF is a public organization with a mission to change the world. That's literally the purpose of its existence, not to be Stallman's group of friends. Also every day it fails to be effective makes fulfilling its mission harder, because the rest of the world doesn't wait for it to catch up. Sure, we can recognize that Stallman had very significant achievements that merit recognition, and accept that not everyone can keep on producing amazing work until they keel over. But that's in the context that's outside of being an active leader. That he did a good job before doesn't mean there's not a job now that still needs doing well.
  - amno 4y ago
    > not to be Stallman's group of friends Nobody said that, either. > That he did a good job before doesn't mean there's not a job now that still needs doing well. And you personally know he can't help doing this job further on, and he is on his own entire board in FSF? You are free to nominate and show the world what you can do!
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      > Nobody said that, either. I was referencing your "Do you wish your family and friends to turn back on you" part. > And you personally know he can't help doing this job further on, and he is on his own entire board in FSF? It looks to me like he's got an outsized influence in the FSF and even if he might be a board member among 7. But that is a good point, it may be the case that the problem is bigger than just Stallman. > You are free to nominate and show the world what you can do! I'm not an US citizen nor have any interest in being one, employed full time, and on a non-profit already, so my agenda is full. That said given how things have gone the last few decades, I do think I could do a better job at this point. I don't doubt there are people far better suited than I, but I'm pretty confident I could do better than the current state.

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amno 4y ago

> What significant, tangible accomplishments does Stallmann have in the past 15 years? You believe you will never grow old? Do you wish your family and friends to turn back on you because you are old and don't have the same energy as you had when you were 20? The question is how the landscape would look like today and if there even would be "open source" in the broader sense as we see it today, with permissive licenses, if it wasn't for him. Sure, you can look at a person's mistakes only, but you could also look at all the good a person has done. Do you yourself ever do mistakes? You never made a bad decision in your entire life? C'mon. To err is human. How would world look like if everyone was thrown out from the job and the society when they do a mistake, and if everything in the world would be judged by mistakes and not by the value it adds. Reflect over yourself first, are you sure you are qualified to throw a rock?

dralley 4y ago
What is more important, the mission of Free Software, or making him President for life?
- amno 4y ago
  President is Geoffrey Knauth; not RMS; you should have probably looked up the facts before sending unnecessary comment: https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Knauth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Knauth Nobody claims RMS should be president for life, or anyone else, I just dislike the rhetoric the Op uses.
dale_glass 4y ago
The FSF is a public organization with a mission to change the world. That's literally the purpose of its existence, not to be Stallman's group of friends. Also every day it fails to be effective makes fulfilling its mission harder, because the rest of the world doesn't wait for it to catch up. Sure, we can recognize that Stallman had very significant achievements that merit recognition, and accept that not everyone can keep on producing amazing work until they keel over. But that's in the context that's outside of being an active leader. That he did a good job before doesn't mean there's not a job now that still needs doing well.
- amno 4y ago
  > not to be Stallman's group of friends Nobody said that, either. > That he did a good job before doesn't mean there's not a job now that still needs doing well. And you personally know he can't help doing this job further on, and he is on his own entire board in FSF? You are free to nominate and show the world what you can do!
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    > Nobody said that, either. I was referencing your "Do you wish your family and friends to turn back on you" part. > And you personally know he can't help doing this job further on, and he is on his own entire board in FSF? It looks to me like he's got an outsized influence in the FSF and even if he might be a board member among 7. But that is a good point, it may be the case that the problem is bigger than just Stallman. > You are free to nominate and show the world what you can do! I'm not an US citizen nor have any interest in being one, employed full time, and on a non-profit already, so my agenda is full. That said given how things have gone the last few decades, I do think I could do a better job at this point. I don't doubt there are people far better suited than I, but I'm pretty confident I could do better than the current state.