34
Condor
5y

Let's portray Stallman as a malevolent criminal, dying on the creepiest hill, shall we? Apparently there's even people that make statements such as "if you defend RMS, you're just as terrible as he is".

Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Do you have any idea what the case even is?
Richard Stallman has a controversial opinion about a rape case committed by someone else. Gee, what a shocker, people have opinions. Does that make Stallman a criminal himself?

Oh but he's representing open source software. That's why he can't be there.
Oh yeah. Shunning him (and erroneously so) as another Reiser is gonna make open source look so good, isn't it.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writer of Voltaire

People are entitled to any opinion they may have. Just because you disagree with it (and in this case I do too!) does not mean that it can be used to criminalize someone and to ruin their career. That is just wrong.

Comments
  • 5
    Open source is dead, killed by corporations.

    Edit:
    I followed two of those articles that made it happened.

    https://medium.com/@selamie/...
    https://medium.com/@selamie/...
  • 7
    It's interesting for how little he through FSF away though. Considering it was his life's work, I think something must have diverged from his ideology. It's weird.

    Never liked the guy, but I also don't like this sort of crowd behavior ermmm ..it's not butterfly effect, but it's not circlejerking either.. There is a term for this though.. damn. Anyway, I don't like it. I was kinda disappointed in a follow up that went like "now let's get rid off Linus".
  • 2
    @FrodoSwaggins this is in posts I linked in my comment. Fuck this world.
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins Emmm. Here for instance https://vice.com/en_us/article/...

    I was also thinking what you are thinking. Well maybe also check this out https://stallman.org/archives/...

    That's archive of his personal webpage, although why would he keep this is a mystery to me..
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins This one (https://vice.com/en_us/article/...) from Vice is where they were ostensibly leaked... But there seem to be no sources to MIT's lists.
    The links @vane posted are the Medium posts from what appears to be the person that started all this.
  • 3
    @Condor sorry what?
  • 1
    @stop it must be late for me, haha 😅
  • 2
    Segmentation fault (brain dumped)
  • 2
  • 3
    @FrodoSwaggins Stallman has never been afraid to say what he thinks, so him saying it is less strange than it being a strange thing to say.
  • 6
    @Pyjong Perhaps the term you're looking for is "lynch mob," where a bunch of people hear something about someone, usually egged on by some troublemakers with an agenda, and decide to do something about it on their own without careful evaluation or due process. (See also, social media culture.)
  • 5
    Having an opinion is ok.

    Shoving that opinion to others' throats is not okay.

    Having a matress at your work room in mit to sit naked women [students] on who come in with questions is also not ok.

    Sorry @Condor, this won't fly. The guy fucked up massively. The latest thing might not be the real thing, but that was just enough, the last drop in everyone's cup they had for the freak. He got kicked out of mit as a dark, shameful shadow. And he got kicked out of fsf prolly for the same reason.

    Only yesterday I read how shameful of a burden he was for the mit.

    I liked the guy at first for having a belief. For foss. For gnu. I don't mind him having an opinion. But acting on it for years, knowing how morally wrong it is seen by others - that's just low.

    I thank him for gnu. But if it were my will I'd remove him from the society as a cancerous mass.
  • 4
    i'm not really sure which side to pick.

    on one side you have the cancel culture movement, the meme of the moment.
    on the other side you have a very questionable character. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes a nutjob. But too many times a nutjob.

    @Condor
    > Shunning him as another reiser is gonna make open source look good, isn't it?

    oh yeah, him getting fired is what will damage open source, not all those dark, ignorant, alienating garbage he's been saying for DECADES.
  • 0
  • 3
    @FrodoSwaggins out of context? what? here's a nice little quote that this fucking PROGRAMMER said on the subject pedophilia (not his field of study ffs).

    "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

    and if you spend a couple of minutes you'll find a hot load of these, predating the current controversy by several years.

    i have a really hard time thinking this clown was taken out of context in most occasions.

    and i have a really hard time taking you seriously, considering you posted a 200 word ramble about the meta of cancel culture and immediately after posting "uh, so what did rms actually say tho?". like, couldn't you look it up before defending anything?
  • 4
    Stallman would turn over in his grave (if he was dead already), he is NOT the "open source" guy, he is the "free software" guy.

    You know, free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

    That is what he is fighting for most of his life, but even technical people still don't get the difference.
  • 1
    @jesustricks ok, fair enough. But why not take that up with him as inappropriate behavior in an educational setting? I don't know how things are done at MIT but I wouldn't treat Stallman as more than an MIT employee (paid or not, couldn't care less. He worked there).

    I do want to believe that he was very creepy towards the female students at MIT. But why didn't they tackle that issue from within the University? If that happened (I'd like to see proof of that - edit: to be clear I mean the internal resolution steps) and Stallman didn't change, by all means fire him just like that'd get any teacher fired. But there's way too many unknowns right now.

    Not to mention that this witch hunt all started from 2 Medium posts by 1 person... Stallman is a creep and a weirdo, don't get me wrong. And he doesn't deserve special treatment just like you and I don't deserve that either. But this destroyed this man's entire career. One that he's worked for half a century on. What would you do if that happened to you?
  • 2
    @powerfulparadox Yeah that sounds about right. Lynch sounds a bit harsh, but it is roughly that.
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins I dunno I guess let's hope for the best and this might be just a regular case of someone talking shit. Some attention is in place, this got a bit more since he resigned from an important position. If he didn't maybe we wouldn't even know what he said. Never read his archive before.
  • 2
    @Pyjong Nowadays we just keep it to opinion and reputation and pretend we've learned from the past because we're just ruining careers and reputations, not killing people, when those things are still necessary for life.
  • 0
    @netikras Having a mattress to sleep on after work is okay and that's everything he's done with it. Where is that bullshit from?
  • 1
    I know I am pretty late to the party but let me make some points clear.
    Everything that rms said is that sex is okay if everyone involved consents. That's not bad, is it?
    What the "journalists" (e.g. vice) on the other hand wrote is that he is a pedophile etc. See the difference?
    What is also important to know is that someone published an email of his from a private mailing list without asking the members first and nobody tries to find out how this person is. Sounds shady, right?
    Stallman meanwhile gets defended by famous feminists and tons of people who have actually read about what happened. So please guys stop acting as if he wasn't a incredibly admirable and inspiring programmer anymore.
  • 0
    @lucaIO from the link I have posted.
  • 0
    @netikras You are using a fucking google link as a source? The top link on google just says that he used to have a mattress in his office, nothing wrong about that. So stop spreading fake news about real people. Things like this can cause suicide so please just shut up if you have no idea if what you are talking about is wrong or right.
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