3 ms·

Ignoring the questions of whether Stallman's persona is good, bad, or irrelevant this kind of thing shouldn't still be happening. Stallman's personality is not

by olliej 3y ago

Ignoring the questions of whether Stallman's persona is good, bad, or irrelevant this kind of thing shouldn't still be happening. Stallman's personality is not new, and has not changed since the 80s, and nothing newly controversial has come out in like a decade at this point. It's inexcusable at this point to keep inviting him to give talks and then cancelling them. Either you're ok with hosting him regardless and any of his many prior statements - and I get he has made some super questionable ones - or you're not. Either is ok, but this BS where you pretend that some comment that you don't want to be associated with is new or different or you were unaware of has got to stop.

jzb 3y ago
Believe it or not, a lot of people still don’t know much beyond RMS being the founder of gnu. I have certainly found that plenty of people are not aware of any controversies until they’re pointed out. Whether these organizers had any clue I don’t know. I do think if you’re inviting someone to give a talk, you probably should do some homework to make sure that you’re comfortable with their persona. And if not, don’t invite them. But it’s less common knowledge than you might think.
- olliej 3y ago
  > I do think if you’re inviting someone to give a talk, you probably should do some homework to make sure that you’re comfortable with their persona Exactly. > But it’s less common knowledge than you might think. I don't think it's necessarily "common knowledge" - and there are a bunch of comments in these surrounding threads I wasn't immediately familiar with - but if you're inviting someone to talk you should be doing some basic due diligence which should turn up all of these issues.
mindslight 3y ago
I'd guess that he was earnestly invited by people who respected his contributions to software despite his social obtuseness. Then when the event was publicized, various "groups" got wind of it, threatened to kick up a public relations shitstorm for the institution, and the people who invited him found themselves overruled by "management".
jeroenhd 3y ago
There's a good chance the people who arranged the meeting and the people who canceled the meeting rarely ever speak to each other. Stallman has definitely been a massive driving force behind many of the technological developments and philosophies that back the thriving open source ecosystem we have today. On the other hand, he has also stated some pretty controversial opinions regarding children and sexual relationships that I remember reading and disagreeing with in context. If the tech folks arrange a nice meeting with the guy to discuss open source/GNU/etc. and the PR people are only informed later (after the first complaints of his haters undoubtably came in), the cancelation may have come to a surprise to those who set up the meeting. It can be easy for technically minded people to brush aside politics and old statements when one wants to focus on discussions around technology, but it can also be easy to forget that most engineers and philosophers don't exist in a vacuum. The text itself very much reads like "we wanted an in-depth discussion about open source but the organisation decided inviting Stallman was not such a good idea". Perhaps the people who invited him were naive, but I too learned about the controversies surrounding the man years later than many others. The committee that decided to retract the invitation has clearly not done their homework when they approved the invitation, or lacks the necessary vetting procedures for guests. This is a mistake on the side of the people that canceled the invitation, but I wouldn't necessarily throw the people who sent the invitation in the frost place under the bus.
nemo 3y ago
>nothing newly controversial has come out in like a decade at this point. This was in 2019, and in all likelihood is also why he was uninvited from this event. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman-resigns-mit-free-software-foundation-epstein https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman...

by olliej 3y ago

jzb 3y ago

Believe it or not, a lot of people still don’t know much beyond RMS being the founder of gnu. I have certainly found that plenty of people are not aware of any controversies until they’re pointed out. Whether these organizers had any clue I don’t know. I do think if you’re inviting someone to give a talk, you probably should do some homework to make sure that you’re comfortable with their persona. And if not, don’t invite them. But it’s less common knowledge than you might think.

olliej 3y ago
> I do think if you’re inviting someone to give a talk, you probably should do some homework to make sure that you’re comfortable with their persona Exactly. > But it’s less common knowledge than you might think. I don't think it's necessarily "common knowledge" - and there are a bunch of comments in these surrounding threads I wasn't immediately familiar with - but if you're inviting someone to talk you should be doing some basic due diligence which should turn up all of these issues.

mindslight 3y ago

I'd guess that he was earnestly invited by people who respected his contributions to software despite his social obtuseness. Then when the event was publicized, various "groups" got wind of it, threatened to kick up a public relations shitstorm for the institution, and the people who invited him found themselves overruled by "management".

jeroenhd 3y ago

There's a good chance the people who arranged the meeting and the people who canceled the meeting rarely ever speak to each other. Stallman has definitely been a massive driving force behind many of the technological developments and philosophies that back the thriving open source ecosystem we have today. On the other hand, he has also stated some pretty controversial opinions regarding children and sexual relationships that I remember reading and disagreeing with in context. If the tech folks arrange a nice meeting with the guy to discuss open source/GNU/etc. and the PR people are only informed later (after the first complaints of his haters undoubtably came in), the cancelation may have come to a surprise to those who set up the meeting. It can be easy for technically minded people to brush aside politics and old statements when one wants to focus on discussions around technology, but it can also be easy to forget that most engineers and philosophers don't exist in a vacuum. The text itself very much reads like "we wanted an in-depth discussion about open source but the organisation decided inviting Stallman was not such a good idea". Perhaps the people who invited him were naive, but I too learned about the controversies surrounding the man years later than many others. The committee that decided to retract the invitation has clearly not done their homework when they approved the invitation, or lacks the necessary vetting procedures for guests. This is a mistake on the side of the people that canceled the invitation, but I wouldn't necessarily throw the people who sent the invitation in the frost place under the bus.

nemo 3y ago

>nothing newly controversial has come out in like a decade at this point. This was in 2019, and in all likelihood is also why he was uninvited from this event. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman-resigns-mit-free-software-foundation-epstein https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman...