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0 pointspseudalopex5y ago0 comments

Stallman's skill was as a visionary. His role wasn't limited to that unfortunately. Multiple FSF employees say they unionized because of Stallman's management.[1][2] And people have pointed out several examples of him overriding GNU project maintainers.

Stallman said several times adults having sex with children was fine if the children consented.[3][4][5] He changed his mind in 2018 or 2019 apparently.[4][6]

[1] https://twitter.com/paulnivin/status/1374499598853545986

[2] https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505

[3] https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html#28%20June%20...

[4] https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%20...

[5] https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2...

[6] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

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Roark665y ago· 1 in thread

Ok, I wasn't aware of this. I agree his point of view was narrow minded. I can't defend it. He did change it as he says (in 6th link) based on conversations with someone who explained to him the harm caused.

People learn all their life. I'm glad he did. Should having that view before and understanding own error disqualify him from FSF? I don't know. At least we're talking about it based on fact not hearsay.

pseudalopexOP5y ago

Bradley Kuhn said most of what I could say about Stallman better.[1] The bottom line is Stallman made himself a less effective Free Software advocate by spouting controversial opinions about things he had no expertise in. Not just adults having sex with children.

It took many years to change Stallman's opinion on this 1 thing. He still didn't apologize for calling people prejudiced and narrow minded because they disagreed with him. Or mocking parents who he realized were right. And some people take issue with him not mentioning it until after he came under pressure to resign.

[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html