I have worked in jobs where there have been very strange creepy people, both women and men. Some are angry and tense. Some are odd and talk restless or slightly disturbing stuff that make everyone uncomfortable. But if they do their work well they can stay. Others give them some room. It's called tolerance.
If RMS was just random superhacker doing his thing. I would defend him. His boss should find a position for him where he can contribute and other people should feel free to feel uncomfortable and avoid him.
But RMS is de facto leader and public figure in movement that is also political. He does not deserve the same level of consideration as normal HR headache would. Even if everything against him would be completely unjust, there is no requirement for just treatment for top leaders. They can be sacked for any reason whatsoever.
We don't have to tolerate people who make women feel unsafe and unwelcome in our (or any) industry.
You seem to be arguing the usual tired old thing: "but he's a genius and does such great work that we should tolerate the bad things he does". I really thought we'd started to move past that over the last few years.
What does this mean ? He is a leader of an organisation related to software freedom (or more pedantically, the choice of licences used for software). How is it relevant ? All you are saying is, "Famous people can't talk like that".
But, he resigned himself. This is moot.
It's just reasonable to remove him from those positions.
Independly I find it very weird what he was saying nonetheless and for this he falls under a category of humans which I don't think are worth it to give such amount of support.
There are other people out there which are worth it more.
I stopped working with people who might be technical good or very good but dicks. I hate working with dicks. There is no amount of brilliance which justifice being a dick.
I agree that there's a current climate that's even less amenable to open discussion than at other times. However, I disagree that words carrying perceived intent is something new. Any time you make an assertion about individual facts of a particular situation, people's first assumption is going to be that you're pushing the narrative best supported by that assertion. Telling people what you're not saying will continue to be important even if the current climate improves.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm stating a general principle, not saying anything about what RMS did or didn't say, or did or didn't intend to say. I don't have time to dig into all that.
If his past behavior was sufficient justification for his sacking, then that should be enough. However, that is not why he was sacked. He was sacked on the basis of false allegations, and as an attempt by MIT to deflect from their own complicity in the Epstein scandal.
This is not (only) about finding a place for weirdo super-hackers to contribute to society (without bothering people too much) but about the truth dammit.
The only people who deserve less consideration are those that pick and choose who to treat justly.
Really?
As someone actually autistic, he doesn't get to blame being a douchecanoe on being autistic.
> His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum.
Then _learn_. Also, we're not talking about not getting social cues about when it's okay to start talking, we're talking his considered and repeated position on issues such as sexual assault, and his _actual actions_ towards teenagers.
> But if they do their work well they can stay. Others give them some room. It's called tolerance.
Great tolerance for the people your creeps chase out or abuse, thanks. You actually do have to pick, and if you pick people like RMS, you pick against all the people that can't - and shouldn't have to - deal with an environment people like RMS create.
Normally, when someone engages in behavior seen as offensive, the procedure is to pressure the person to apologize and mend his ways, and only get rid of him if he refuses to do so.
But when a "scarlet letter" offence is involved, we jump straight to the punishment phase, removing the person outright with no judicial process. This is completely backwards, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom. It brings a chilling effect on everyone, because suddenly people start to realize that they're living under the Sword of Damocles, which could destroy them at any moment without warning. You can never be sure if something you say or do is going to get you publicly pilloried in future, and destroy your career, friendships, and reputation in the blink of an eye. Far better to just sit quiet and never say anything that might offend someone. Far better not to participate at all.
Mob justice always turns ugly in the end. That's why we have courts.
He has a long history of using forums meant for technology discussion to promote borderline (and that's generous) social opinions, and of being openly hostile to people who don't tow his line. In this instance he ridiculously downplayed the most egregious instances of sex trafficking of minors, by a horridly evil individual... who happened to donate almost a million dollars to him!
His previous comments about minors on his personal blog, which I don't even want to dignify with a description (you can do your own search), leads me to wonder what other connections than money he had with Epstein.
For all of us that don't worship Stallman - I consider him a net negative to the FOSS movement - this has been a long time coming. It would have been a deserved resignation in a normal social environment.
RMS chose to step down himself. That was his decision. Even if you think MIT told him to, that would ultimately be MIT's decision, not the work of some "mob".
Furthermore, stepping down from MIT is not destruction you're playing it up as being. People have done similar (and of course, worse!) things and, after being the subject of some number of embarrassing articles on the web and some larger number of angry tweets, are currently living their lives with new jobs just fine. RMS doesn't need us to feel bad for him. He's still free & healthy.
If you're worried about kangaroo courts and injustice, there's plenty to focus on somewhere where people's lives and livelihoods are actually at stake, like the US-Mexico border or Hong Kong.
While redemption is one of the themes in the book sadly the internet has not quite developed that level of sophistication so we are stuck with denouncement/punishment.
He is merely encountering actual consequences for saying absurd, indefensible things -- and, likely, also finally encountering consequences for being a well-known source of creepy behavior towards women for a very long time. People lose jobs all the time for less.
Yeah, he's done some good things. And maybe (MAYBE) he's actually not neurotypical. But that doesn't mean he gets a pass on being a creep forever.
This isn't a one off and he's one of the least likely people to mend his ways.
How many years and incidents is enough to move to removal?
Having the wrong opinion about certain topics is getting more expensive. Stay away from taboos or else... never mind the fact that what we regard as wrong changes across different societies over time.
Weirdly all the information technology is steering towards being more similar in our opinions and in what we can say without facing consequences.
Recently I started to thing about how in spite of having the ability to share, and change, and store information better and with more ease than ever, we seem to be going in the opposite direction. Instead of having more transparent institutions, everything is getting more "opaque" (so to speak) towards the public (even it this is happening due to overload).
does anyone remember "information wants to be free"? I don't think anybody says that anymore, but I remember reading that a bunch on slashdot in the early 00s
I don't really see how this is so hard. Don't treat women poorly, in person or online. Don't talk authoritatively about subjects you don't understand, especially when those subjects (like rape and human trafficking) cause people intense pain.
If you really do want to act this way, then you probably should exercise some self-censorship, and rethink your views, perhaps.
> ...in what we can say without facing consequences.
What you say should have consequences. No one should censor you (what you say should be up to you), but you don't live in a vacuum. What you say has a real effect on others, and if that effect is bad, you should be held accountable.
I think the trend's moving more quickly towards self-censorship than anyone realizes. How can we even quantify that? Those who censor just disappear?
What stands out for me is the obvious monoculture we're developing.
I miss custom PHPBB boards for every little interest and opinion.
There is also a history of controversial stuff related to his time at the FSF which meant that probably wouldn't settle for a simple apology either (not that RMS seemed willing to give one).
As organisations change over time, what they need in leadership also changes. In this case, they didn't need an ideologue with a history of generating controversy, they needed someone who can keep the ship going forward so that the projects they are overseeing don't lose enough talent that they become irrelevant.
If you or I said what Stallman said, but to a coworker or to the boss, we would get fired - justifiably. This is not a new concept unique to the digital age, nor is it a concept that should be done away with. The popularity of your comment depresses me deeply.
This is an excellent point. More and more, there is no middle ground in consequences. Nothing like a suspension? or leave of absence etc. I don't recall how things used to be but I really lament the lack of some sort of gradient scale for punishment.
Many fewer of my current associates hear any real thoughts of mine compared to 20 years ago. I used to get into all kinds of arguments like Stallman’s, on public email lists, which thankfully haven’t surfaced online (yet).
Patently that is false.
Given the sheer amount of ad revenue that youtube, twitter et al get from hosting stuff that if printed or broadcast, would be liable to fines. (at least in the UK)
Self censorship is what defines empathy. When your child has done something hilariously stupid and hurt themselves, you comfort them, you don't stand back and tell them how incredibly stupid they are.
99.999% of people would never Mock a grieving spouse in person, why should you be enabled to broadcast that to millions of people on the internet?
It's not. Take it from me, a guy who predates social media by decades.
If you go back and look at what Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 presidential race for, and compare it to what Donald Trump said on social media before, during, and after being elected President, there's just no comparison.
Racial, misogynistic, derogatory, offensive sentiments you can easily find being published on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or most other social media platforms would not have passed muster in any mass-media channel or public conversation 30 or even 20 years ago.
On the positive side, social media has been a tremendous boon to marginalized communities like gay/lesbian/bisexual, transgender, heck, even furries. It has allowed like minds to find and support each other, and allowed the rest of us normies to see these communities for the constructive, positive forces so many of them are. I am convinced that social media aided in their growing public acceptance.
In fact, I'd say that social media has opened up the discourse so much that even the resignation of a powerful figure over controversial remarks about pedophilia--an outcome which would have been expected and commonplace for at least the past 70 years of U.S. society--are taken as somehow problematic.
In other words, things are so de-censored now that even the most anodyne and obvious objections to gross statements by powerful figures is taken as censorship. The Overton Window has moved way over to one side, but people still complain when they hit the edge of it.
People can say that these platforms are privately-owned and freedom of speech is only about government censorship, but where do you speak when these platform are well established and chances of dethroning them with a decentralized and open alternative are slim to none?
Social media is not social, it's corporate.
You’re free to say what you want and I’m free to not want to associate with your or not want to do business with you and encourage others to do the same.
I don’t see how you have one without the other.
This Stallman case is edge-case fallout from a massive political movement. He could have probably discussed the age of consent in public pre-2013 and maybe get a few disgusted reactions but generally be fine. The political control of internet arguments is more obvious than ever, and the quest for advertising money.. but I'm fairly sure I can start and run a website/subreddit/blog for whatever niche idea and be left alone.
If you start expressing opinions about how sex with a sex-trafficked child should be legal, won't your friends and family raise some questions about your character?
Unless we're talking of morally flexible individuals. And at least parents should raise an eyebrow, since we have this natural reaction to protect our children.
> information wants to be free
Whomever said that was probably thinking of facts, of knowledge, s/he was probably not thinking of having opinions about pedophiles.
EDIT: don't get me wrong, I think there's a time and place to argue that consensual sex with teenagers might be ok and I think people should be free to make that argument, the problem in this case is that the sex couldn't have been consensual, in which case age becomes relevant, as that teenager isn't fully developed, therefore the harm done is amplified.
And also these opinions have been delivered by a very public figure, with a history of harassing women.
Words matter so the lesson here is don't be a jerk, as technology won't save you from that.
I was there, about 20 years ago, when he sent e-mail urging all free-software advocates to protest a bill under consideration in the US Congress. I asked him if he had read the bill. "No," he said, "I don't surf the Web." I saw that as a huge cop-out; how could someone claim any moral or leadership authority when he called for protests and a letter-writing campaign on a subject he didn't know about first hand?
It's certainly true that RMS has been remarkably consistent over the 30 years or so in which I've interacted with him -- starting when I was a reporter for the MIT student newspaper, and then maintained the Emacs FAQ, and then wrote for Linux Journal. (No, not GNU/Linux Journal. Sheesh.) He's an extremist. He's a purist. He indeed doesn't get the nuances of interpersonal communication.
But you know what? You can't both lead an organization and be tone deaf to people. You can't be a public figure, demanding respect, and then show such disrespect to others. You can't expect that people will pay attention to what you say when you have so little respect for what they say.
Stallman has long been difficult, obstinate, and rude to people in general -- and a general drag on the cause of open-source (or "free") software. But I had no idea that he was known to be so terrible to women.
But even if he had treated women well -- which doesn't seem to be the case -- it's pretty hard to imagine anyone, anywhere defending Jeffrey Epstein in any way, shape, or form. The guy was terrible, did horrible things, abused a huge number of women, and amassed wealth and power in the most disgusting ways possible. To defend Epstein, or the people who were associated with him, is unacceptable.
Again: You want to defend Epstein in your own personal life? Go for it; you won't have many friends or colleagues afterwards, but that's up to you. But if you do it as the public face of a well-known activist organization? You can't possibly stick around there.
Good riddance.
It is clear RMS was stunningly clueless to write anything about this, but surely we all know of similar engineers that would make a similar error? If everyone were held up to the same moral standard, we wouldn't have many people left in power! Just to be clear: I'm definitely not supporting hurting children (directly or indirectly) - I hope I'm not falling into the same tar pit.
I certainly respect RMS for what he created and his idealism (although last time I saw him talk he spent about half the time negatively pontificating about Linus and Linux, which seriously damaged his credibility IMHO).
It must be devastating to be on the receiving end of such ire.
He's discussed his views on pedophilia for a very long time, and this was just the latest on that. It's finally the last straw that was able to bring enough attention on him for action to be taken. It should have been taken decades ago.
Because it is a witch hunt, in an age where witch-hunting is the most popular sport on the internet.
Why does this feel like such a witch hunt?
How do you fell about James Damore?
Scroll down to the inline doc reader widget. Background: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
Earlier today the director of the GNOME Foundation requested that RMS resign from the FSF, and said severing ties with the FSF could happen if he didn't step down.
https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relations...
The technology industry is taking baby-steps towards actual inclusivity and diversity of thought -- and not this dumbass "I want to be free to say stupid offensive shit with impunity" flavor of "inclusivity" that people around here seem to champion. That is a Good Thing and organizations like MIT and the FSF need to be very careful about whom they let represent them.
As far as I'm aware Stallman has neither been arrested nor has his website been torn down, so he's welcomed to continue to make whatever good and bad points he feels like and the rest of us are welcomed to judge him as we wish: smart, stupid, ignorable, or maybe even abhorrent to the point where maybe he shouldn't be representing a place like MIT. Or the FSF.
It's a free country, after all.
edit: Additionally, because I think this isn't obvious here, Stallman opened up the knowledge about software to the whole world and put energy in keeping it that way. Anyone was able to profit from this.
There is not a defense for what RMS was writing or how he was trying to defend Minsky.
The prevalence of comments trying to turn this against "SJW"s or whatever "other" they can because they're a fan of RMS is disturbing.
This isn't us vs. them.
This is a man who said something wildly inappropriate in an MIT forum and got fired. He deserved it. Defending him by pointing towards people who overreact to things is a bit terrible.
The firing was appropriate and reasonable, not a response to extremists, zealots, or some other kind of witch.
I welcome anyone to provide a counter-argument.
The way this attack came suddenly out of the depths makes me suspect something coordinated. It's too similar to how Tor was seized, and how Linus was almost dethroned. There's something nasty afoot, and I don't like it one bit.
Howso? He's held back gcc development repeatedly. He regularly forbids the emacs developers and maintainers to use their own judgement. Glibc as well.
Independent of the current issue, this should have happened a long time ago.
The fact that this is a more friendly forum than the general public, and yet the majority of people who are sticking up for him here seem to be anonymous conspiracy theorists and people who want to advocate lowering the age of consent, seems to be pretty damning in itself for his prospects.
Freedom of speech means that people are free to defend what other people find morally objectionable. The idea that the "leaders" should be morally pure is understandable, but ultimately very elitist.
It also reminds me of this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/neurodiver...
Stallman here was the one expressing the bad views, so he is Faurisson not Chomsky.
I've met him a few times, put him up on my sofa once. I'd say almost every 15-30 minutes in his presence I would stop myself from saying "that's not an appropriate way to behave" or "please don't say that in that way, you're being rude", for fear of insulting him. Perhaps if more people had done that rather than being in awe and reverence (and there are many people who treat him that way), or just looking for a quiet life (my excuse), we wouldn't be here now.
It is clear to me that he has very low EQ or at least empathy for other people. I have spoken to others who have interacted with him who have suggested he might be on the autistic spectrum, and whilst I am not qualified to make a diagnosis, should such a diagnosis be made it would not surprise me.
At the weekend whilst this was blowing up I suggested he needed help. I think he is genuinely completely unaware why any of these statements would cause others to question his values. Freedom of speech is not a right to be a jerk, and he is unaware that he is seen as a jerk by a lot of people because of the many things he has said and done over many years.
It seems there are many people here who likewise are blind-sided as to why suggesting an underage girl would be entirely willing to have sex with an adult and presented herself willingly would be nothing more than a 'controversial opinion'. There are also people who think this is the only thing he's done that has caused problems - it's not.
I think there are deeper issues at play here, and he would benefit from counselling or therapy of some sort. Most people could even without his behaviour, so I'm definitely going to suggest it would be useful in his case. At a minimum it would help him navigate having a huge chunk of his life disappear over the last 24 hours.
I wish him well, but like almost every ex-colleague of his I've spoken to or who has been outspoken on social media about this: the FSF and MIT/CSAIL will now be a better place to be for others, and I hope that RMS gets the help he has needed for a long time.
I wish him well, but I also know that a large number of people will breathe a sigh of relief now that they can go about their work and studies without having to navigate him.
As what he said is literally presented, it is a possible interpretation of the facts: that Minsky may not have known she was coerced because of Epstein's instructions. How much of Minsky's culpability this erases if Minsky did indeed have sex with her (which is disputed itself) is open to debate.
Buuuuuuut, that's a pretty nuanced point to make. It needs to be made more carefully and respectfully to not just descend into rape apologia. Epstein's (and maybe Minsky's) victims are still alive and have feelings. And we want to create a better culture.
And if you're the guy who has already gone on record for not knowing why "voluntary pedophilia" is OK--- maybe you're not the guy to make this point. Because, after all, there's plenty of evidence that you're not so good at it, and your history taints it all.
But this is not what he said. He clearly states coerced. I think the outrage should come only after a correct reading comprehension.
Thank you for bringing the FSF into the world, Richard.
Whatever comes out of this and whatever comes next, your philosophy on software freedom has influenced us in innumerable ways.
https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
> I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.
My personal takeaway is that it's important to understand the limitations of your own knowledge before succumbing to the urge to comment on something.
(And take a few minutes to be appalled at the quality of the arguments for that particular witch hunt.)
I had to scroll really deep in this page to understand some context. Because the link of this page goes just to say "Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board of directors."
The discussion on this page expresses many personal opinions, many interpretations and a very small amount of facts.
I personally had to go somewhere else to understand what happened [1] (in German only), yes it is a strong opinion, but at least with references to back the claims up.
For me Richard Stallman is a hero. Through his work he made me discover a lot about IT and his life showed me that there are still people that are fighting for their cause without compromise and personal corruption and are ready to give a lot for the society. I never did and never will do as much as he did for society - and therefore I am thankful that there are people like him to be inspired.
It's time for us to defend each other, and to hold contributions above outraged crowd's size.
--
[1] "Stallman was right", countless comments here on HN, on LWN, and all over the internet
[2] "Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs", http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
Linus eventually realised that his abuse of contributors was a negative contribution and agreed to change. RMS has .. not got to that point.
But he's a freethinker, and freethinkers necessarily exist outside the mainstream. So, despite not liking him, I also don't like this turn of events.
It does seem arbitrary to me that the same sexual encounter is classified as rape in Arizona and not rape in Virginia. I suppose we have to draw that line somewhere arbitrary. But I wonder if it was a mistake to classify what is called "statutory rape" as "rape" at all. We can make it illegal without calling it rape.
That said, to me, this doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on. But then Stallman is not known for being picky about hills. People like him (or loathe him) because he's principled, and therefore no hill is too small.
I don't think he saw it as a hill worth dying on, just a random hill he happened to be shot on. It's part of a random scattering of thoughts he makes public.
Either way, I'm cancelling my FSF donations for caving into this witch hunt. It's long demise will be helmed by people that stand for nothing less they offend someone.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...
RMS did a very stupid thing here, by attempting to defend his friend as though he had had sex with her he cemented that picture in the minds of whoever reads his (RMS's) screed without questioning whether or not the event took place in the first place. It is a pity that the deposition does not allow one to resolve this once and for all.
It speaks of her being directed to have sex with but fails to ask the follow up question (which I would think is very much material) of whether it actually happened in each of those cases. Pretty bad questioning.
- Someone who is less of a hardliner: Stallman's dedication to free software is a good thing but his absolutist style of expressing it might have put a lot of people off who would otherwise not be opposed to the idea of free software
- Someone who understands the problems of free/open source software (contributors not getting paid, corporate exploitation, ...) and has progressive solutions for it
- Someone who everyone can (at least kinda) sympathize with and/or relate to: I believe Stallman generally has no bad intent but a lot of his mannerisms are just plain awkward or offensive to a lot of people. Normally that wouldn't matter but the president of the FSF (especially Stallman) is kinda "the face of free software". So showing that the world of free software is a progressive and inclusive space here might just benefit everyone.
We should still honor Stallman for what he did for free software (I mean he basically invented it) and we should IMO continue to welcome him in this space (maybe even as some kind of executive in the FSF because after all he's obviously not incompetent). But maybe he isn't the best person for the role of the president anymore these days.
Where can I find what he said? Why is everyone talking about what he meant without quoting what he said so I can decide what makes sense for myself?
First, I admit little knowledge past what I just read. I do, however, see why people don't like what Stallman wrote.
That said, I think this went too far, and that many have misconstrued both what Stallman said and meant. I hope that's ok to say.
This situation stinks.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
See also:
https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
16 September 2019 (Resignation)
To the MIT community,
I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.
Richard Stallmanvice article summary: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
which has a link to this blog post (which is somehow central): https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
Doesn't anyone sleep on anything any more?
To be blunt, I’m not sure the FSF is worth having without someone as stubborn as RMS at the helm, but with any luck, they can still do a proper job of maintaining his legacy. Increasingly I find Stallman was right, and I hope he will continue to publicly do what he can to advance free software.
[1] https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html
[2] https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
1. It totally ignores the fact that it's possible to be highly respectable for some things and not for other things. Stallman has always been a jerk, but he's also always been trying to fight the good fight. Washington had slaves, that doesn't mean we should hate him.
2. You don't get to call out people for indicating that men are better at some things, and then point out that women are better at some things. Either you're allowed to believe in differences based on sex or you aren't.
I've never been a big fan of Stallman because I think he's a little to far into the realm of zealot. However, he is good for society as a whole because, in general, he's fighting for the right things. I don't think it's right to condemn him, throw the baby out with the bath water, because he's an idiot about some things.
What a horribly asinine point. If you’re an undergraduate student and unable to deal with uncomfortable opinions, you are too immature to be a university student. The further infantilization of college students, and worse, college staff, never ceases to amaze me.
[1]: https://philippineslifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/te3FQnP-...
Living in a country where the age of consent is 16, the oddest thing I find in all of this is that people can hold a straight face while saying that sleeping with a 17 year old constitutes pedophilia but seem to completely ignore that their country tries 13 year olds as adults[1] when they deem it fitting.
[0] https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...
[1] https://oklahoman.com/article/5580060/13-year-old-boy-charge...
He should have thought carefully about that: no matter if one is right or wrong, talking about that stuff in public will expose an individual to remotely controllable public anger in a way that will harm all other good stuff he does through ad-hominem attacks ("he has such opinions about rape, therefore his software sucks as do his licensing model and his opinions on closed source"). I for one still think he's a kind of good extremist the IT world badly needs, I agree at least on principle with most of his ideas and recall listening to him at a conference then handshaking him about two decades ago. Still... yeah, it was stupid from him to comment on such sensitive topics; this could harm the Free Software world in many ways, regardless of him being right or wrong, and probably someone will attempt to use that weapon.
The twitter discussion[0] seemed to me to be very polarized and targeting rage with all the common traits of typical fake news/mass hysteria communication. Maybe it is just the way these things naturally come to daylight.
Controlling the language is key to controlling the discussion, and as usual Stallman just wanted to clarify the language. He's used to dealing with a more rational, less public crowd, and didn't realize he was poking a bed of hot coals.
It's very sad to see such backlash and support of deplatformization of someone who has done so much for us over one cluster of comments. Even if you disagree with him, surely we can be allowed more than one mistake in the public eye before the platform we helped create is ripped from our hands. This is quite the authoritarian mindset and it worries me to find it in such prevalence here on Hacker News.
That being said, the way that that happened is absolutely terrifying. Fact, that people rather crucify someone instead of argue, explain or prove him wrong is the sign of our times.
End of free speech is here. It’s free only if it doesn’t offend group powerful enough to destroy you, and it’s narrowing every single day. We’ve seen many instances of this happening both on personal, unpopular views and gossips and false accusations.
Want to keep your career? Best you can do is to steer out of the social media and don’t share your thoughts with anyone. Not only controversial ones, because what might not be controversial now, might be controversial in 10 years, and you will suffer because of it.
Stallman:
> the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.
Selam G.
> [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.
VICE:
> Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.
New York Post:
> MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was ‘entirely willing’
No, it's not.
There have always been consequences to speech. Before social media, the traditional media would be the method of choice of stirring up people into a mob demanding resignations. It's not new.
What is new, is that it is no longer a power centralized to owners of traditional media. It is now distributed, and thanks to Twitter specifically, in a way that promotes "tyrranny by the mob" which the founding fathers themselves abhorred.
This isn't the death of free speech. Instead, view it as tech kicking itself in the balls because the people making software didn't understand how humans would leverage it at a society level scale.
It's why many of us are working of federated but social public forms of media, like the 90s and early 2000's, because that worked at scale without a "tyrranny of the mob".
All that being said, it is hard to be all "free speech is over" doom-sayer when the person in question has repeatedly (and we're talking decades) said creepy things that cumulatively sets up a pattern of behavior. This isn't Joe Shmoe hopping onto the internet the first time and losing his job. It's disingenuous to try to spin this event that way.
"We will, as always, be treated to much examination of the precise nature and mass of the last straw, with observations that it would not by itself be sufficient to cause spinal damage in camels, and is therefore utterly harmless."
I'm frankly surprised that his arguments haven't cost him his position earlier.
Recently I have been reading Sapiens, it the book Homo Sapiens is singled out about its ability to function in groups of up to 150 people. Other humanoids were not able to do that.
I think, however, that discussing thigs on Twitter/Reddit is the same thing as discussing things with thousands and even millions of people that are gathered in a single place. Our species does have the tools to make this possible(the internet) but lacks methods to make it functional. The only thing we have is to detect an idea that somewhat sounds band and oppress it before bad things happen. That way we have some wrongfully vilified people but at the same time, we are able to stop the creation of a group of extremists(some people will not understand the discussion, mistook it for a validation of their sick ideas and if no vilification happens they will take action).
Anyway, that's why we need privacy. We should be able to discuss things in small enough groups without fear of being vilified, in a group with no outsiders we would know if someone is up to something bad or and take an appropriate action instead of overreacting and mislabeling. High-quality public discussions are beyond our capability.
The government isn't telling him that he can't share these views, so take your free speech bullshit somewhere else. You're free to say things, and we as a society are free to show you the fucking door. He shared his awful views (and was an active abuser) for decades, and finally we're showing him the door.
But this is nothing to cheer about.
Regardless of what low regard the man might be held as a person, he's being persecuted for having expressing ideas, demanding proof of claims, advocating for objective standards, and asking questions. These are all hallmarks of scientific inquiry.
It sets a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship on a topic that really requires the disinfecting power of sunshine.
This strengthens the power of those who have no use for scientific inquiry and are more interested in inquisition.
That said, I think Stallman's position really is fundamentally wrong and problematic.
Legally, sex with underaged people is rape regardless of consent. Morally, that stance really is justified in the most common circumstance - when the non-underaged person has more power and experience than the underaged person. In the case under discussion, you have that in spades, double spades.
The sad thing is that individuals interested in freedom, who make serious contributions to some things called free, don't notice that the massive imbalances of wealth today have produced a situation where simple "free choice" is made a mockery of.
And yeah, the thing about inquisition atmosphere, imo, is that it doesn't reveal the rot behind all the "mere" abuse of power.
You also lend Stallman more weight than he deserves. His resignation will go unnoticed by all outside of our specific tech sphere and certainly will not "set a precedent that will absolutely lead to self-censorship" (???).
Should we cheer his resignation? It's undoubtedly a sad moment for him and his supporters, but Stallman's behavior quite likely has held back the FSF for some time. He's an ideologue, not a leader.
Many people will acknowledge the value of Stallman's stubborn, iconoclastic opinions. I'd count myself among them, and it's a little sad to see Stallman go from his pulpits. But on the other hand, I'm relieved: it might be in Stallman's constitution to be at all times a rational reasoning machine, impervious to emotion and sentiment, but this is not how most people are, and on many occasions Stallman has shown that he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about this. There are times when one should refrain from saying something that is merely correct because of the symbolic meaning it would have, or the emotional responses it would elicit.
Also what he said is fully public, so I don't understand what you, or he, is objecting to.
We pretty conclusively decided that race based chattel slavery was wrong a while ago. But why? Can we keep expressing ideas and demanding proof of these claims? Can we do it forever? Can we do it while holding positions of power at institutions that are attended by black students?
RMS's de facto role in the FSF has been spokesperson and public figure. This isn't the first time he's put his foot in his mouth [1][2][3] (figuratively or literally, according to some accounts). That's simply not a role to which he is suited, and that at least should be an argument most can agree with, if reluctantly.
We all make allowances for bad behavior from our favorite people, as long as that bad behavior isn't too repugnant or doesn't undermine the role we appreciate them for.
In RMS's case, at the very least his behavior keeps distracting people from the issues that the FSF was formed to address.
Let RMS return to roles for which he is better suited, and like Eric S Raymond's frequent bouts of insanity, we can all go back to appreciating that at least he manages to stay out of the news cycle.
[1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-sta...
[2]: https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-...
[3]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
This incident doesn't change anything since much more chilling precedents have been set so many times before. RMS's position is way too extreme here, 99.9% of people would probably find it despicable. Meanwhile, lives (including at least one Nobel laureate's) have been destroyed for contentious, merely politically incorrect statements (or less). The ship has long sailed, RMS just didn't get the memo, maybe due to the peculiar way he uses the Internet.
I am dumbfounded anew every time I see a smart and analytical person twist themselves around to the point that they become too smart to believe in analysis. Saying Stallman was persecuted for "expressing ideas" is about as sophisticated as "my program crashed because the electrons were in the wrong place". You wouldn't be satisfied with an understanding that shallow in any other circumstance.
Meaning. Words have it. Questions have it. Ideas have it. "Etsy for houseplants" is an idea, as is "figuring out your home address from information available online and breaking in to your house tonight while you're sleeping". Why is one of them creepier than the other? I can't believe I'm being persecuted for just having ideas!
The meaning of Stallman's argument is that he doesn't think Minsky did anything wrong. Why doesn't he think Minsky did anything wrong? Probably because he was a friend, a good guy, a peer, who knows. Because of these entirely scientific feelings, he makes a series of arguments:
1. She only said she was directed to have sex with Minsky, not that she actually did
2. Even if she did say she had sex with Minsky, she may have been confused and answering the wrong question
3. Even if she did actually have sex with Minsky, she probably made it appear consensual
4. Even if she was not legally capable of consent, that is not morally equivalent to rape
5. Thus, it is "injustice" and "wrong" to say Minsky is accused of sexual assault
Is this your science? Is this the altar of rationality you're worried will be torn down by the rabid inquisitors of the new dark age? Because to me it sounds a lot more like The Dragon in My Garage. How far must our credulity stretch to believe that Minsky foresaw most of modern AI, only to fall for "hot willing 17-year-olds in your area"?
And how does a man like Stallman look at open source and see politics, look at dynamic linking and see politics, look at javascript and see politics – and look at science and see nothing but science? Like you, I do not believe Stallman is malicious. I believe he is naive. That is a fine quality in a revolutionary, but not in a leader.
> “I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
Is this really a topic that "requires the disinfecting power of sunshine"? Do we really think we've gotten the topic of statutory rape so wrong that we need to rethink it from first principles?
The next thing that happened was that the news picked it up, but got most of the details wrong, taking the problematic statement out of context, mischaracterizing his relationship with MIT, mischaracterizing what he did exactly, etc and as a result whipping up an angry mob demanding his firing.
Now, of course many people have wanted Stallman gone for all sorts of reasons of his general unpleasantness for many years, so this seems to have been as much a convenient excuse to rally those efforts as anything else. Nevertheless, one must ask at what cost - the blade of public outrage is sharp and hard to control. At no point at no point in this process was their any room for fact finding or reasoned debate among the people aggrieved and affected by this.
We've let Stallman spam csail-related for many years to the point that it was a common joke for it to be called stallman-related in the lab ("Where'd you find your aparment?" "Oh, I posted on stallman-related - I half expected to get a moral lecture from him about the immorality of private ownership of real estate, but looks like he was busy"). Was it a mistake to let that happen so long on a list that everybody at CSAIL is automatically subscribed to, especially the new incoming students? Probably. Because of aforementioned rhetoric challenges his emails are not the best first impression of the lab community. I think banning Stallman from csail-related could have been a perfectly proportionate response here (as well as making him take down that stupid door tag). This all-or-nothing witch hunt, deeply concerns me.
Defending the rape of trafficked children is not a "hallmark of scientific inquiry".
The situation with Brendan Eich shows that if you have the wrong political views, you are not considered fit to serve as the leader of any open-source organization or project. especially not one with corporate backing. It's too much of a risk of PR disaster.
So be careful. Coraline Ada Ehmke and Sage Sharp are watching you. They will find and expose your crimes.
Linus is probably next.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Most likely, the real issue is he failed to know when to shut up about a sensitive topic after being basically told to shut up.
A crux of the issue is that men expect to be deferred to. They expect to have privilege and rights. They expect their views to be respected. They expect to have a right to express themselves.
And women generally cannot expect the same. Which is a foundation stone of what gets called "rape culture."
There are a lot of subtleties here and I'm sympathetic to some of Stallman's points, but I suspect the thing that people are bristling at is that his failure to shut up is a failure to genuinely respect the feelings and boundaries of women.
This is the real problem women face in life. This is the essence of the disregard that culminates in sexual harassment and rape.
Without that baseline fundamental respect, women have no choice but to quibble about bullshit details like legal age. Because it's all we've got to say "He shouldn't have done that to me" in a world that seems hell-bent on utterly ignoring baseline respect for women, especially when trying to demand it from a powerful and wealthy man.
Good luck with that sister. The exceptions are very few and far between.
"So much depends on your reputation. Guard it with your life."
> The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky: “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])” The injustice is in the word “assaulting”.
Saying that sexual assault isn't assault is scientific inquiry?
What determines whether you're advocating for scientific inquiry is whether you're arguing in good faith for positions that are in genuine need of inquiry, not whether you have the trappings of scientific research.
Found the word I was looking for: DISGUSTED.
I think that's a fair definition.
He also argues that 17 years old has ability to consent.
Since I'm from a country of consent age of 13 years, I agree.
RMS don't encourage to violate the law, merely presenting the opinion. This opinion isn't blaming certain group like James Watson and his comment on race and intelligence.
I guess some people aren't civil enough to discuss theoretical problems.
We are not talking just about sex with a 17 year old.
> Looking through the article again reportedly points to the deposition itself. I visited that URL and got a blank window. It is on Google Drive, which demands running nonfree software in order to see it. See https://gnu.org/philos2phy/javascript-trap.html > > Would you (not anyone else!) like to email me a copy of the part that pertains to Minsky? say "not anyone else" to avoid getting 20 copies.
Lol even in the middle of this discussion he sneaks some JavaScript hatred in there!
I myself was sexually assaulted some time ago. I was in an ordinary nightclub, I went to the mens room, and on walking out of the mens room some a-hole decided to slap my ass on the way out. I gave him a dirty look, maybe I should have had him kicked out of the club, but I don't think it was necessary to have him fired from his job or ruin his career.
Because that's what it's about: he said, "But is it really?" — literally, in fact — about something which, for legal purposes, his opinion is irrelevant. To wit:
> Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.
Stallman said that. He went there. He quibbled over whether something constituted rape, as if the Virgin Islands cares one whit what rms thinks of their laws. That's where he screwed up, and people in the thread said so at the time, too. So people now can try to make this shit-show about his being quoted out of context about "entirely willing" — which, again, it was — as much as they want, but that just won't make it so.
This is entirely about Stallman having quibbled over rape, not whether he was selectively quoted in the course of quibbling over rape.
EDIT: Phrasing
Hell yes he did. Wouldn't you? If I made my own country where "rape" was defined as "sex without first doing twenty jumping jacks," wouldn't you "quibble"?
>everyone admits knowingly slept with an woman of an age in a jurisdiction where that constituted rape.
So what? I drove 37 in a 35 today, who cares? You can't outsource your morality to the legal system like that.
If Minsky did something bad, say he did something bad. But don't launder your outrage through the VI's laws.
This is where you jump to conclusions and become a part of this charade. All we have are unsubstantiated allegations that do not even say definitively that sex took place. And just based on that, your and the mob's conclusion is "we have reason to believe" ?
I agree with Stallman and everyone else who is extremely skeptical and advises caution. Alas, the mob is out for blood.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
A woman, testified that Epstein told her to offer sex to Minsky.
What it DIDN'T said:
That Minsky accepted the offer.
Also there are a witness (someone that was present, Greg Benford) that claims that Minsky didn't accepted the offer.
But this is a good move for FSF. RMS must have realized (or been made to realize) that he is now a net-negative contribution to FSF.
I wonder what this means for the influence of the FSF in general. And will RMS stop working on emacs and other software?
Has he still been contributing code? My impression was always that he wrote the first versions of emacs,gcc,... many years ago, and many other people have taken over in the intervening decades. I'm quite confident he isn't working on gcc anymore.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...
Things we take for granted today wouldn't exist without this man. To name just one thing, gcc. Yet people are more eager to punish him for what he said than to praise him for what he did.
Surely there's an ideal-driven programmer iconoclast out there who doesn't pick stuff off his feet in the middle of a Q&A and then eat it.
There is a high chance that FSF will be taken over by some people-pleaser that compromises FSF into oblivion.
There aren't that many people out there who would take as strong and opinionated stances.
People will seriously have to reconsider these arbitrary rules when every single word we all say is recorded from birth. That day is not far away.
How Orwellian the situation we have built for ourselves.
The person Sarah Mei seems to be leading this fight against Stallman even going so far as renouncing the concept of free software and the GPL because of the association with Stallman.
This is entirely wrongheaded, you can agree with the concept of free software and the GPL and disagree with the political views of Stallman. Personally I don't agree with Stallman's political views but he is right on the issues of software freedom and without that I don't think we would be where we are today, having legally protected operating systems, compilers and so forth free for anyone to use, study, or improve upon.
It's an utterly disproportionate consequence for Richard's missteps which amount to nothing more than a discussion in a mailing list.
- Minsky is accused, by a credible victim of a non-credible, convicted pedophile, of receiving sexual contact with a woman who was underage at the time, and who was dispatched to him as part of her employment.
- RMS says the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to Minsky as entirely willing. He also says that the difference between 17 and 18 is a minor detail and it's an injustice to refer to it as a sexual assault.
- RMS fails to understand that an adult with a teenager is unacceptable creeping due to the imbalance of power in several different ways, in this context he's right that 17/18 is a minor detail because both are unacceptable. But 17 is also illegal. What if he didn't know she was 17? Irrelevant because he surely knew she was a very young woman, and by implication relished the power imbalance rather than properly backing away. In fact, Minsky should never have accepted friendship with Epstein who was clearly creeping on teenagers in a completely overt way. And RMS shouldn't be defending it.
- RMS also fails to understand how the employer-employee relationship compounds this with yet another axis of undue power, and how these together make the presentation of being "entirely willing" impossible to tell apart from having no choice. This impossibility is why age of consent laws exist even though teenagers can speak and express their opinion. They don't have the structural power to speak freely. To be honest, 18-year-olds don't either. When someone has sexual contact with someone who has no power to say no, that's sexual assault, or it's rape.
- By taking the side of a man he knows, who was doing wrong, over a woman who was vulnerable, and by brushing off the implied possibility of coercion, RMS shows that he is part of the systemic problem of sexist, exploiter-friendly men in tech which the Epstein scandal has uncovered.
There are various few occasions that you see RMS bending. Like plane travels (which require IDs), that he just does when he needs to cross oceans. So to him, a person that dd something because of a power relation with an employer is just weird.
…Remove everyone, if we must, and let something much better be built from the ashes.
Salem, Robotics student who started Remove Stallman campaign
If this isn't literally "revolution [of free speech and thought in cyberspace] devouring its' children", then I don't know, what it is.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...
Someone tried to intimidate him saying this exchange will be leaked to the press. Stallman answered people at MIT should seek the truth without being afraid.
What sad times we live in! First Linus, now Stallman...
I've read the email chain that's been circulated but it does not go back far enough. It's the "comments about comments" discussion.
The concern for me is has been the accounts of far more directly-relevant behaviour, such as (iirc):
* repeated phone calls to someone from different phone numbers
* leering
* breaking the ground rules for an event, and justifying it on the basis that he's personally exempt from any rules
* singling out a teenage girl attending one of his talks (as in "oh wow, a GIRL")
* single her out again while telling his questionable 'EMACS virgins' joke
* saying in an interview that he didn't know any women who have contributed to GCC, when there had been at least 4
Personally, I think this is a good thing, and I'm glad that he's made the decision to step aside (even if under pressure) rather than fight bitterly and see the community divide along these lines.
It also seems like a good opportunity for him to pass the torch and see what happens, or at least take a long hiatus to get some caring advice and to sort himself out, like Linus did last year. The FSF will eventually need to become an institution that can carry on its mission without him, and this will be a good test of that. If things go off the rails, he can pen another manifesto and I'm sure a bunch of us will read it.
I also think the FSF will be hugely better off without him around, and it's insane that it took this long.
We should be all concerned that media witch hunts like this can in act such results. It is abhorrent that any discussion that triggers a progressive dominated media can destroy people's lives.
> our movement will only be successful if it includes everyone. With these as our values and goals > We call for Stallman to step down
[0] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-spea...
Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked. Stallman goes on to argue about the definition of “sexual assault,” “rape,” and whether they apply to Minsky and Giuffre’s deposition statement that she was forced to have sex with him.
In response to a student pointing out that Giuffre was 17 when she was forced to have sex with Minsky in the Virgin Islands, Stallman said “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
>>Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it in the Virgin Islands.
>Does it really? I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17'.
>I think the existence of a dispute about that supports my point that the term "sexual assault" is slippery, so we ought to use more concrete terms when accusing anyone.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-sci...
For what it's worth, I think it is a tragedy.
The man is an idealist who has stubbornly managed to hold on and thrive in a pragmatist's world.
There are too many claims to which he is a shining counterexample to the assertion that "Nobody really does that!"
So what if he's a bit of an odd duck? Show me a good programmer who doesn't have quirks! MIT is, in fact, famous for their tradition of living with, and embracing unconventional behavior, while still furthering the State-of-the-Art.
The Free Software Foundation, which has accrued greater and greater entrenchment and influence by non-free software makers and projects alike has always owed to Stallman at least a degree of toleration and begrudging due considering the movement basically started with him last I checked.
I read through the email chain in the Verge articles. It's enough even redacted to give me a solid enough basis from which to say there was nothing untoward about Stallman's posts. I got out of it a caution to read only into what was actually written down, and to avoid letting an unproven narrative whisk the entirety of a man's career away until all the facts were in. At a later point he even states he's read that poster's sources and was unable to locate any evidence conclusively saying that Minsky did anything against her knowingly, and if anything happened, while still being a crime, characterizing it as assault adds a layer of meaning to the accusation that is not immediately obvious from the presented evidence. He's even open to the possibility he hasn't seen something the emailed had, tried to find it, and asked if they'd be willing to send him a copy due to hos commitment to not trafficking services dependent on abusive practices.
If that gets you foisted on the stake these days, I think the Spirit of Salem must be blowing through Massachusets, and it's discovered the fires of the Internet burn hotter than any mere log.
I do not see a malicious intent or an attempt to defend/justify what may have happened to those women. Only an exhortation to not get ahead of what results the System has actually managed to discover as fact.
As the last poster in the email thread the Verge decided to post mentions, as Scientists, we must ask those pesky inconvenient questions which seem to so stifle the actions and catharsis of following our passions, and seek only to know the truth.
And from what I was able to read in the minutes I can dedicate,it is far from a sure thing, but misrepresentation off the character and context of the conversation has already spread like wildfire.
I hesitate to even post this, because to be honest, if people can turn Stallman of all people into a Pariah over just those two emails, heavens above, I'm not sure there are many others behind the cause who can say as honestly to have practiced what they preach to the degrees he has. What chance do the rest of us have? That is exactly the type of chilling effect that this type of behavior and manufactured outrage, combined with the uncertainty of knowing from whence it may come is so adept at propagating.
There is a point where hysteria, and the flames of the passions must stop. Ruining a person's life and reputation for anything more than what can be proven is one of them. That doesn't mean I'm trying to cover up harm, or protect pedophiles. It means I'm committed to the System, due process, and the tenets of rational scientific inquiry.
It is not appropriate that any person should be hung by any segment of the population for endorsing letting the chips fall where they will, or asking to have more compelling physical evidence provided.
The world post 1980 has seen more than anyone would like of wrongdoings not punished as thoroughly as they may needs be, but it is not in anyone's interest that the System be any looser in the Standard of Evidence to be met before officially taking action against someone. No one should want to let slip the Dogs of War in that regard, especially given the number of lives that have been given in ensuring a country existed where that was explicitly prevented at great effort from being possible.
Good luck, Richard. I pray you and the movement survive this without irreparable damage...but I'm not even sure the damage isn't already done.
I may agree with his political positions regarding free software, but his talents are otherwise rather run of the mill at this point.
This is the free market. Thanks for your contributions. But you’ve since lost first mover advantage.
If the aim of HN is to run a better forum for discussion then lying in a defamatory way about people should not be tolerated as part of civil discourse.
He did not transfer the guilt to the victim nor defended anything wrong that Minsky may have done.
This scenario seems entirely plausible for me. The deceased is not here to defend himself, so I guess it's up to his friends/family/coworkers to defend his reputation.
Also, about the age of consent, I find it ludicrous that a number of people do not know the age of consent on most of the western world is usually 16 or less. Some are even saying "some european countries still have 16 or 14 y/o as age of consent..." as if the age of consent is going to increase in the short term.
Spoiler alert: USA is the odd one out, and it's more in line with Turkey than Western Europe. Let this information sink in for a moment.
I have a hard time even imagining how you reach the conclusion that he might be evil. Even the worst out of context headlines on his recent quotes just put him in the "gross" category.
I say this, and I'm very glad he stepped down. I've argued for years that he should have stepped down a long time ago.
Not saying it is or is not true. But these are powerful claims to be marking with no sources.
First on the list: This guy: https://blog.halon.org.uk/2019/09/gnome-foundation-relations...
The FSF could use a shakeup.
About time, man!
I just don't think we can discuss this issue sensibly, even on HN.
Yay for throwaway accounts, I guess.
Some sources with the backstory:
Nowadays most developers seem to prefer permissive licenses and distributing proprietary software for android/ios. They couldn't care less about RMS.
Just look at how little response Purism Librem 5 update threads get on HN. They're practically dead, and this device is the only modernish GNU/GNOME/Linux smartphone to speak of.
RMS is a great man but sadly has difficulties communicating with the wider world. This has been true of many great minds throughout history. It's sad to see it happen to one of my own heroes but I believe history will do him justice if we continue to fight for free software.
I wish somebody would have simply advised him not to speak on such matters because nothing good could become of it. Maybe he needed a PR manager. That sounds awful, but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.
But look past that into what was happening.
Stallman was trying to defend Minsky who had sex with someone, a teenager, nearly 60 years younger than him on a billionaire's private island. There isn't an imaginable circumstance where what happened there was not, even in the best possible light, incredibly creepy.
His intellectual arguments were understandable in a way, but in the context of defending Minsky and in the venue they were wildly inappropriate and indefensible.
It doesn't matter how "great" you are or how socially awkward, any institution should fire you for doing something like that.
Apart from a very few, every accomplished technologist have started using Twitter and their followers to attack others. This is nothing but the witch hunt from medieval times done differently.
I have interacted with RMS in Emacs developer list, he has a strong opinion and nothing more, nothing less. He is not trying to create a mob and nor is he starting an upraising. If you have an opinion, voice it and leave it. Yes, I agree RMS needed a PR to tread the land mine ridden modern life.
Overall, it is sad to see RMS and his work getting trivialized for totally unrelated reasons.
Stallman:
> the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.
Selam G.
> [Stallman] says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.
VICE:
> Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.
New York Post:
> MIT scientist says Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was ‘entirely willing’
As we know, rms is a very dear person to most of the Computer Science and programmer community.
Through the years, he's said many shocking things. We've often disagreed with him. He's been extremely stubborn.
At some points it's been comical.
Yet we still see him as a technology treasure, and we should keep this in mind before judging him harshly based on a single e-mail.
rms is actually reacting logically here, yet also emotionally as he's wanting to protect his friend - the late Marvin Minsky. Seemingly by letting go of common sense, and sure enough this is just cause for harsh criticism.
But by simply removing a living legend from his position because he's not able to be politically correct, is far worse in my opinion. (I assume he was asked to leave).
This same lack of political correctness also happens to be one of his strengths. It built his character. It's not perfect.
I don't know what more to write at this point. It's ridiculous and turning into a witch hunt against someone we actually owe a great deal of gratitude.
No one really needed media sensationalism to draw a pattern of behavior unbefitting the leadership of the FSF. That some random people overstated some aspects of his Epstein thoughts isn't really why this happened.
It's also a bit ironic you've decided to call it a witch hunt. Witch hunts happened when folks decided to start blaming women for everything without even a veneer of logic or civility. And here we are with a man, having possessed a long history of specific behaviors, being called to account for exactly those behaviors. It's ironic simply because the privileges RMS was exercising are so ingrained in your worldview that demanding he stop treating women like lesser beings is–to you, at least fundamentally irrational and unfair demand.
RMS had hundreds of other controversial opinions. Uttering them did not result in this. In fact, no single act of sexism got him here either. So suggesting that this is merely society punishing a misunderstood outsider on a whim is itself pretty uncalled for.
The world needs everyone to speak about every topic. If we all self censor then only the extremists will be speaking.
If he had cared about his political movement more than his dick we wouldn’t be here, but here we are.
There is a new religion forming among those who have largely rejected religions of the past and Stallman is guilty of blasphemy. If he only loses his job he will be far luckier than others who are guilty of similar blasphemy.
No, it is sufficient already to not blurt out controversial things at bat-shit-insanely-bad timings. Similar to how people would be mad at Einstein if he pulled a non-ironic "Yeah, but to be honest he wasn't THAT great" a friends funeral.
I don't like mobs and I lament the fact that one such important figure in computing has such difficulties making himself understood. But that does not mean that the world has a problem somehow. It just happens to be a world that is not fine-tuned to Stallman-communication and that values reducing sexism higher than technical accuracy. Some people don't work that way, some people get therapy to allign themselves, some withdraw from society, some manage to get by. Stallman happened to fall on the friction side of things this time.
Words have consequences, and while you are free to say whatever, others are free to react to it too. You don’t get a free pass for saying ridiculous things just because free speech | difficulties communicating | you’ve done great things or whatever.
I don’t want a world where everything is filtered but I do want people to think about the impact of what they say before they say it.
I also prefer weirdos to Pearl Clutchers. A segment of the world may want homogeneity, but I don’t. I don’t particularly like Stallman, but I also appreciate his weirdness.
No... he needed a PR manager desperately and I'm very surprised that the FSF or MIT never even considered nor assigned one to him. I know he's a grown man and is responsible for what he says, but he is, was, whatever, a figure to the CS community and as such should have had his public comments vetted more.
He's been speaking on these topics for long enough to have heard thousands of people consoling him to stop.
Funny that you evoke misogyny at this point, given how RMS is primarily a godawful human being to women, the vast majority of which your comment is ignorant of, willfully or otherwise.
This has been his godawful personality and behaviour at MIT for decades. It hasn't gone unreported. It hasn't gone unnoticed. But few appear to have ever acted on it appropriately, and the appropriate action here is removing him from any and all communities where he can do damage. It's occurring years too late, but at least it's occurring. It's sad that it took his association with a worldwide pedophilia/human trafficking ring to accomplish this, given his decades of ghastly abuse of peers/colleagues/students.
Even more sad that after this association has been revealed, communities like this one are significantly in self-defense mode.
If your response to this story is to get defensive, or to use keywords like "free speech," you have questions you need to ask yourself. Very serious questions. Questions that I guarantee your various communities want answers to before you engage with them further.
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d59r46/richard...
Everything good that came out of RMS is exactly because he didn't listen to those advising him to stay quiet.
"Context: In a recently unsealed deposition a woman testified that, at the age of 17, Epstein told her to have sex with Marvin Minsky. Minsky was a founder of the MIT Media Lab and pioneer in A.I. who died in 2016. Stallman argued on a mailing list (in response to a statement from a protest organizer accusing Minsky of sexual assault) that, while he condemned Epstein, Minsky likely did not know she was being coerced:
> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
Some SJW responded by writing a Medium post called "Remove Richard Stallman". Media outlets like Vice and The Daily Beast then lied and misquoted Stallman as saying that the woman was likely "entirely willing" and as "defending Epstein". He has now been pressured to resign from MIT
Furthermore the deposition doesn't say she had sex with Minsky, only that Epstein told her to do so, and according to physicist Greg Benford she propositioned Minsky and he turned her down:
> I know; I was there. Minsky turned her down. Told me about it. She saw us talking and didn’t approach me.
This seems like a complete validation of the distinction Stallman was making. If what Minsky knew doesn't matter, if there's no difference between "Minsky sexually assaulted a woman" and "Epstein told a 17-year-old to have sex with Minsky without his knowledge or consent", then why did he turn her down?
Edit: He has also resigned from the Free Software Foundation, which he founded. Grim news for free software, since I think true-believing purists like Stallman are vital to prevent various kinds of co-option."
source: https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/d5axzu/why_...
Counterpoint: yes it does.
Judging Washington by the standards of his time and his peers, slavery was abhorrent. Take the case of Quock Walker, who sued for his freedom in 1781, for instance. The chief justice of Massachusetts (and later Washington's own nominee for chief justice of the US) wrote:
> As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle [...] nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage -- a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government [...] sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal [...] and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature [...]
As recorded by Washington's contemporary James Madison, Washington's contemporary Gouverneur Morris denounced the three-fifths compromise during the 1787 constitutional convention:
> He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich & noble cultivation marks the prosperity & happiness of the people, with the misery & poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Va. Maryd. & the other States having slaves. [...] Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and let them vote. [...] The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and S. C. who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. or N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice.
We should not so facilely dismiss the difficult challenge that Washington is seen as the father of this nation and yet owned slaves. Other founding fathers understood that the American norm of liberty was clearly incompatible with holding slavery in anything other than contempt. Other founding fathers called his behavior "repugnant" and "nefarious" - why should we shy away from criticizing him? It seems far more sensible to me to worry that Washington (along with many others) led our nation into believing a compromised, twisted view of liberty and the natural rights of man, with lasting consequences for the country which hardly ended in the Civil War.
Always nice to see a few angry people on the 'net with out-sized voices manage to bring down an icon of computer science. No one should have his life ruined by a kangaroo trial in the court of public opinion. People don't make good decisions when they try to react and "do something"; it would make more sense to let things die down a little and get the facts on what actually happened. Then make a decision on how best to go forward.
the chips fly"
--Joseph Stalin
Stallman's views were a variety of American libertarianism. While there are a few good points within that tradition regarding personal freedom, it's kind of sad that he carried some of the other baggage with his obsession with age of consent laws.
It seems to be a bit of a far fetched theory to me that this guy would meet a 17 year old through Epstein and not really be aware of what Epstein was doing, but it doesn’t really seem to be a defense of sexual trafficking, pedophilia or rape.
That being said this is from my reading of the above thread so maybe I’m not getting the full picture here.
Stallman has been a liability as a figurehead for a long time, and software freedom deserves better standard-bearers.
I saw Stallman once at a public lecture. He was incredibly rude, but is seemingly oblivious to how obnoxious he is being (he struck me as somebody heavily on the spectrum).
I hate to think how many people have written off the cause of software freedom as a joke because of his conduct.
People around him ought to be telling him in stronger terms that his views and general manner are unacceptable.
Stallman on the other side came across as a nutjob. And it wasn’t because of his principles (which if you think about it are great and something to actually aspire to - at least in connection to software) but because of his behavior. Being antisocial or making a claim without paying attention to the social context or the setting the way he managed to do leads me to believe that he may have some sort of mental health issues. again: all respect for his work and principles when it comes to software dissolved by anti-social behavior.
> The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin Minsky:
> “deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims [2])”
> The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault”is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
> The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. (See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jef...) Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
> The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.
> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.
> I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.
> Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
You can (and we must) acknowledge Stallman's contributions to the field while not condoning his pattern of bad behavior. because if we let a leading figure in the industry act this way publicly, it reflects bad on all of us. We cannot claim to be an industry that accepts and welcomes diverse viewpoints and experiences while still holding up a man who has such a long laundry list of reprehensible behavior as a leader and respected figure in the industry.
It goes both ways - Stallman's words seem pretty accurate to me, and it's totally alien to me that you would find them reprehensible. In particular, I cannot understand how you came to the conclusion that he "victim-blames" Giuffre - even though he writes that she "was being coerced into sex" and "She was harmed".
Also tech bros: “I can’t believe RMS got forced out just for going on a crazy rant about rape on a CS mailing list. Why, any one of us could be next!”
But as soon as he dared to veer a little from the party line in one particular question, he has been unpersoned in literally couple of days, despite all apologies and attempts to explain he didn't really mean any heresy. I guess that shows who you can disagree with and who would really hurt you if they even suspect you might disagree (even though you don't).
Kicking him out of FSF and MIT seems quite excessive for somebody saying something and then apologizing for it. Whether they are Stallman, a student, or anyone really.
Do the people involved at FSF and MIT hold themselves to the same standard they're holding Stallman to? We'll surely find out because humans tend to say a lot of stupid shit over the course of their lifetime.
MIT doesn't have to give Richard Stallman a do-nothing job. The FSF doesn't have to give Richard Stallman a (nearly) do-nothing job. Everybody makes mistakes, sure. You make up for those mistakes by doing good and doing right and if Stallman wants redemption, literally nobody is stopping him from going after it. They're just not bankrolling it. There's a difference here.
On top of that he does Minsky a huge disservice:
Minsky can't defend himself anymore and RMS has now made a direct connection between Minsky and having sex with underage girls when in fact this may never have happened at all.
The deposition is unfortunately ambiguous about this fact:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZOEKwoBnDKUFI1hLbFJH5nsUFx...
Page 204, the question is 'Where did you go to have sex with Marvin Minsky?'; then further down that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her to have sex with him but crucially never asks her whether or not it actually happened, and at least one person is on record that Minsky turned her down:
RMS is a figure in the hacker/tech community so the hacker/tech community has done most of the excusing for his behavior.
It's sad. There's room for argument in how much backlash he should receive, but if you're arguing that what said is fine, I would argue that you may be fooling yourself.
Consider some public figure you dislike (politician, celebrity, etc). Now pretend that person said these things. Would you be so forgiving? Maybe you would. But if you find the answer to be no, then you're just protecting your own. Quit that.