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Sure, but remember that the Stallman situation started with a highly clumsy Minsky/Epstein mail on an MIT mailing list. The Epstein coverup was bipartisan and n

Sure, but remember that the Stallman situation started with a highly clumsy Minsky/Epstein mail on an MIT mailing list. The Epstein coverup was bipartisan and now all tech companies are ostensibly on Trump's side and even finance his ballroom. Are there any protests or demands for the cancellation of Trump, Clinton, Wexner, Black, Barak? I have not seen any. The cancel tech people only go after those who they perceive as weak.

inglor_cz 1y ago
Cancellation of Stallman was the low point of that period, at least within tech, but it also made quite a lot of people aware that this monster of a practice must be resisted, or it will devour everyone unchecked. (Or, at least, anyone.)
- wizzwizz4 1y ago
  You're forgetting the "second cancellation", where people brought legitimate (and often long-standing) criticisms against Richard Stallman. Cancelling a philosopher for having bad takes on age of consent, but otherwise drawing the line between "rape" and "not rape" in a sensible place, is not a good idea; but removing a community leader for a long history of applied misogyny is much more appropriate.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    > the "second cancellation", where people brought legitimate (and often long-standing) criticisms against Richard Stallman. No, the reason why this "second cancellation" is vague is because it was the typical feeding frenzy that happens after a successful cancellation, where people hop on to paint previously uninteresting slanders in a new light. Stallman, before saying something goofy about Epstein, was constantly slandered by people who hated what he stood for and by people that were jealous of him. After he said the goofy thing, they all piled in to say "you should have listened to me." The "second cancellation" is when "he asked me out once at a conference" becomes redolent of sexual assault. None of them seem to like the politics of Free Software, either. They attempt to taint the entire philosophy with the false taint of Stallman saying that sleeping with older teenagers that seemed to be consenting isn't the worst crime in the world. The people who attacked him for that would defend any number of intimately Epstein-related people to the death; the goal imo was to break (or to take over and steer into a perversion of itself) Free Software. Every one of them was the "it's not fair to say that about Apple" type.
    - wizzwizz4 1y ago
      > it was the typical feeding frenzy that happens after a successful cancellation It was actually a few years later, prompted by Richard Stallman's reinstatement by the board. I don't know what you mean by "feeding frenzy", but I habitually ignore the unreasonable voices in such cases: it's safe to assume I'm not talking about those. > "he asked me out once at a conference" That wasn't the main focus of the criticism I saw. However, there is an important difference between an attendee asking someone out at a conference, and an invited speaker (or organiser) asking someone out at a conference. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be aware of power dynamics. That's a running theme throughout all of the criticism of Richard Stallman, if you choose to abstract it that way: for all he's written on the subject, he doesn't understand power dynamics in social interactions. He's fully capable of understanding it, but I think he prefers the simpler idea of (right-)libertarian freedom. (And by assuming he expects others to believe he'll behave according to his respect of the (right-)libertarian freedom of others, you can paint a very sympathetic picture of the man. That doesn't mean he should be in a leadership position for an organisation as important as the FSF, behaving as he does.) > None of them seem to like the politics of Free Software, either. Several of them are involved in other Free Software projects. To the extent those people have criticisms of the politics of Free Software, it's that it doesn't go far enough to protect user freedoms. (I suspect I shouldn't have got involved in this argument, since I'm clearly missing context you take for granted.)
      - serf 1y ago
        >there is an important difference between an attendee asking someone out at a conference, and an invited speaker (or organiser) asking someone out at a conference. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be aware of power dynamics. so one side of social messaging is "Don't bother trying to look for a date if you're not a CEO, worth millions, have a home, an education, a plan, a yacht and a summer home" , and the other side is "If you're powerful you'd better know that any kind of question needs to be re-framed with the concept of a power dynamic involvement, and that if you're sufficiently powerful there is essentially no way to pursue a relationship with a lesser mortal without essentially raping them through the power dynamics of the question itself and the un-deniability of a question asked by such a powerful God." ... and you say birth rates are declining precipitously? Pretty ridiculous. It used to be that we used conventions as the one and only time to flatten the social hierarchy -- it was the one moment where you could talk and have a slice of pizza with a billionaire CEO or actor or whatever. Re-substantiating the classism within conventions just pushes them furthest into corporate product marketing and employment fairs -- in other words it turns it into shit no one wants to attend without being paid to sit in a booth. But all of that isn't the problem : the problem lies with personal sovereignty. If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior. There is a major problem when we as a society have decided "No, the problem is with the underlying pressure of what a no 'may mean' for their future." 'May' being the operative word. We have turned this into a witch-hunt, but for maybe-witches or those who may turn into witches without any real evidence of witch craft that prompted the chase. 'Power dynamics's is shorthand for "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    These measures are not applied equally though. Deb Nicholson, PSF "Executive Director", won an FSF award in 2018, handed to her by Stallman himself. Note that at that time at least one of Stallman's embarrassing blog posts was absolutely already known: https://www.fsf.org/news/openstreetmap-and-deborah-nicholson-win-2018-fsf-awards https://www.fsf.org/news/openstreetmap-and-deborah-nicholson... In 2021 Deb Nicholson then worked to cancel Stallman: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ In 2025 Deb Nicholson's PSF takes money from all new Trump allies, including from those that finance the ballroom and the destruction of the historical East Wing like Google and Microsoft. Will Deb Nicholson sign a cancellation petition for the above named figures?
    - wizzwizz4 1y ago
      I don't think Deb Nicholson values many of the ideas that those people stand for. What would be the point of trying to reform the organisations they're a part of?
      - bgwalter 1y ago
        The PSF could reject donations from Microsoft and Google. Deb Nicholson was previously at the OSI, which is widely thought to be ... industry friendly, so that is unlikely to happen. They could also have done research in 2018 before accepting the award, which is standard procedure for politicians etc. But of course they wanted the award for their career.
        wizzwizz4 1y ago
        And before that, she was at the Software Freedom Conservancy, who are not industry friendly. I don't see why you're focusing on this one person.
        bgwalter 1y ago
        For one, I cannot examine all signatories of the Stallman cancellation petition here. Then, given the cancel and defamation happiness of the PSF, this is an excellent example for double standards.
duped 1y ago
Millions of people have been trying for a decade to
- bgwalter 1y ago
  The tech people have never tried to cancel Bill Clinton or Ehud Barak. They were vocal about Trump when it was politically expedient during Trump's first term and from 2020-2024. They are entirely silent since January 2025.

inglor_cz 1y ago

Cancellation of Stallman was the low point of that period, at least within tech, but it also made quite a lot of people aware that this monster of a practice must be resisted, or it will devour everyone unchecked. (Or, at least, anyone.)

wizzwizz4 1y ago
You're forgetting the "second cancellation", where people brought legitimate (and often long-standing) criticisms against Richard Stallman. Cancelling a philosopher for having bad takes on age of consent, but otherwise drawing the line between "rape" and "not rape" in a sensible place, is not a good idea; but removing a community leader for a long history of applied misogyny is much more appropriate.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  > the "second cancellation", where people brought legitimate (and often long-standing) criticisms against Richard Stallman. No, the reason why this "second cancellation" is vague is because it was the typical feeding frenzy that happens after a successful cancellation, where people hop on to paint previously uninteresting slanders in a new light. Stallman, before saying something goofy about Epstein, was constantly slandered by people who hated what he stood for and by people that were jealous of him. After he said the goofy thing, they all piled in to say "you should have listened to me." The "second cancellation" is when "he asked me out once at a conference" becomes redolent of sexual assault. None of them seem to like the politics of Free Software, either. They attempt to taint the entire philosophy with the false taint of Stallman saying that sleeping with older teenagers that seemed to be consenting isn't the worst crime in the world. The people who attacked him for that would defend any number of intimately Epstein-related people to the death; the goal imo was to break (or to take over and steer into a perversion of itself) Free Software. Every one of them was the "it's not fair to say that about Apple" type.
  - wizzwizz4 1y ago
    > it was the typical feeding frenzy that happens after a successful cancellation It was actually a few years later, prompted by Richard Stallman's reinstatement by the board. I don't know what you mean by "feeding frenzy", but I habitually ignore the unreasonable voices in such cases: it's safe to assume I'm not talking about those. > "he asked me out once at a conference" That wasn't the main focus of the criticism I saw. However, there is an important difference between an attendee asking someone out at a conference, and an invited speaker (or organiser) asking someone out at a conference. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be aware of power dynamics. That's a running theme throughout all of the criticism of Richard Stallman, if you choose to abstract it that way: for all he's written on the subject, he doesn't understand power dynamics in social interactions. He's fully capable of understanding it, but I think he prefers the simpler idea of (right-)libertarian freedom. (And by assuming he expects others to believe he'll behave according to his respect of the (right-)libertarian freedom of others, you can paint a very sympathetic picture of the man. That doesn't mean he should be in a leadership position for an organisation as important as the FSF, behaving as he does.) > None of them seem to like the politics of Free Software, either. Several of them are involved in other Free Software projects. To the extent those people have criticisms of the politics of Free Software, it's that it doesn't go far enough to protect user freedoms. (I suspect I shouldn't have got involved in this argument, since I'm clearly missing context you take for granted.)
    - serf 1y ago
      >there is an important difference between an attendee asking someone out at a conference, and an invited speaker (or organiser) asking someone out at a conference. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be aware of power dynamics. so one side of social messaging is "Don't bother trying to look for a date if you're not a CEO, worth millions, have a home, an education, a plan, a yacht and a summer home" , and the other side is "If you're powerful you'd better know that any kind of question needs to be re-framed with the concept of a power dynamic involvement, and that if you're sufficiently powerful there is essentially no way to pursue a relationship with a lesser mortal without essentially raping them through the power dynamics of the question itself and the un-deniability of a question asked by such a powerful God." ... and you say birth rates are declining precipitously? Pretty ridiculous. It used to be that we used conventions as the one and only time to flatten the social hierarchy -- it was the one moment where you could talk and have a slice of pizza with a billionaire CEO or actor or whatever. Re-substantiating the classism within conventions just pushes them furthest into corporate product marketing and employment fairs -- in other words it turns it into shit no one wants to attend without being paid to sit in a booth. But all of that isn't the problem : the problem lies with personal sovereignty. If someone doesn't want to do something, they say no. If they receive retribution because of that no we then investigate the retribution and as a society we turn the ne'er-do-well into a social pariah until they have better behavior. There is a major problem when we as a society have decided "No, the problem is with the underlying pressure of what a no 'may mean' for their future." 'May' being the operative word. We have turned this into a witch-hunt, but for maybe-witches or those who may turn into witches without any real evidence of witch craft that prompted the chase. 'Power dynamics's is shorthand for "I was afraid i'd be fired if I denied Stallman." ; did anything resembling this ever occur?
- bgwalter 1y ago
  These measures are not applied equally though. Deb Nicholson, PSF "Executive Director", won an FSF award in 2018, handed to her by Stallman himself. Note that at that time at least one of Stallman's embarrassing blog posts was absolutely already known: https://www.fsf.org/news/openstreetmap-and-deborah-nicholson-win-2018-fsf-awards https://www.fsf.org/news/openstreetmap-and-deborah-nicholson... In 2021 Deb Nicholson then worked to cancel Stallman: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ In 2025 Deb Nicholson's PSF takes money from all new Trump allies, including from those that finance the ballroom and the destruction of the historical East Wing like Google and Microsoft. Will Deb Nicholson sign a cancellation petition for the above named figures?
  - wizzwizz4 1y ago
    I don't think Deb Nicholson values many of the ideas that those people stand for. What would be the point of trying to reform the organisations they're a part of?
    - bgwalter 1y ago
      The PSF could reject donations from Microsoft and Google. Deb Nicholson was previously at the OSI, which is widely thought to be ... industry friendly, so that is unlikely to happen. They could also have done research in 2018 before accepting the award, which is standard procedure for politicians etc. But of course they wanted the award for their career.
      - wizzwizz4 1y ago
        And before that, she was at the Software Freedom Conservancy, who are not industry friendly. I don't see why you're focusing on this one person.
        bgwalter 1y ago
        For one, I cannot examine all signatories of the Stallman cancellation petition here. Then, given the cancel and defamation happiness of the PSF, this is an excellent example for double standards.

duped 1y ago

Millions of people have been trying for a decade to

bgwalter 1y ago
The tech people have never tried to cancel Bill Clinton or Ehud Barak. They were vocal about Trump when it was politically expedient during Trump's first term and from 2020-2024. They are entirely silent since January 2025.