The Stallman Report

The man has weird views on non tech issues. Some are thought provoking, some are plain bad hills to die on. But I don't see how this is something I should be getting up in arms over.

The FSF has largely failed to garner political/public influence to prevent the enshittification of the digital world. What is there to be gained from a putsch like this? If these people truly cared about the mission RMS set out to achieve they would realize that further dividing the minuscule libre software community (which is already co-opted by corporate interests to a large degree) will only get us further away from making a difference in the areas that actually matter.

Like damn, we only narrowly avoided a future where I can't even browse the internet without a TPM attested bootchain deemed "trustworthy" by corporations, and somehow a 71 year old cancer patient is the hottest issue in the tech world right now? Get a fucking grip.

This all just seems like a toxic power grab by people who are blinded by their narcissistic self righteousness.

What is there to be gained you ask? Well, there is currently a creep in a position of power at FSF who is actively making women and other people feel unwelcome, effectively pushing them out of the community. By removing him from this position, making it clear that such behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, a much broader participation could be achieved. And then these "much bigger" issues you seem to care about have a better chance of being solved.

Unless of course your whole point was using whataboutism to defend your hero, because you think that past achievements always outweigh any harm he may be doing.

>Unless of course your whole point was using whataboutism to defend your hero,

No. My point is that replacing him with people who prioritize political grandstanding over fighting for the cause at hand are just as worse if not more.

The people who gave their signature on the previous failed deplatforming attempt were numerous enough to easily fund their own FSF that is not encumbered by the influence by rms. But they didn't. They didn't because that takes actual work unlike spewing vitriol like they do here. They can only destroy but not create.

If you look at the history of the NAACP trying to fight legal discrimination, one of the things they were quite focused on was ensuring that the cases involved people who are as clean as possible. The messenger matters as much as the message does; the more imperfect the messenger it is, the more it allows those against the message to turn the conversation from the message to the messenger.

Stallman, even without the stuff mentioned here, was already a pretty poor choice for messenger. His tendency to focus on semantic nitpicking gave his arguments a kind of tedious quality to them (GNU/Linux, anyone?). The outspoken political views can turn off people who are not politically aligned. And he's always given off this sort of skeevy vibe to me personally--and that sentiment has seemed to be shared by lots of other people. Long before any of the stuff being complained about here happened!

The negative influence of Stallman isn't purely theoretical anymore. We now have a couple of stories of people saying that he made them personally uncomfortable with unwanted seemingly sexual advances. Apparently, these have continued after being explicitly told by several people to knock it off. Several organizations have suspended their funding and involvement with the FSF over his reinstatement. Whatever you think of the accuracy of the accusations against him, the general perception of him is clearly negative, and to be frank, it doesn't seem like he brings any positive qualities that would make letting him go be a tough call (consider Elon Musk, who is obviously a pretty effective salesman for the future and props up Tesla's share price even as his outspoken political views are causing real problems for his companies).

> Whatever you think of the accuracy of the accusations against him, the general perception of him is clearly negative

Which is why we should support him even more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156

What is the goal: to promote free software or to stand for people's rights to have sexual relations with fourteen-year-olds?

If the former, having the movement spearheaded by someone who has pretty controversial views on the latter isn't really doing the movement any good. If FSF clings stubbornly to a thought-leader who people can't take seriously, they're canceling themselves.

I've seen the accusation leveraged in this topic that this anonymous piece could be FUD by Microsoft or a similar big-name software giant. I'd actually suggest the opposite: if I wanted to throw sand in the gears of free software, keeping Stallman in the leadership chair so that his opponents can point to him and say "You really want to listen to the guy who wants to sleep with your teenage daughter?" is the way I'd discredit the movement.

> or to stand for people's rights to have sexual relations with fourteen-year-olds?

Who are you talking about? This is completely misleading and not what Stallman was saying.

""" The law [UK sexual offences bill] would also prohibit encouraging a (so-called) child to take part in sexual activity. I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.) It is unnatural for humans to abstain from sex past puberty, and while I wouldn't try to pressure anyone to participate, I certainly encourage everyone to do so. """

There are more charitable interpretations, but "Stallman wants to sleep with your teenage daughter" is the less-charitable one that political opponents can continue to levy against the entire movement because the FSF won't let him go.

It doesn't mean that discussing it must result in a cancellation of a person though.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41848998

Without knowing more context, I interpret the quote to mean that 14-year-olds should be open to having sex with their peers (other 14-year-olds, give or take one year). Which seems like a position that is not bad enough to punish. It's a very weird thing for him to say, given that everyone knows him for being the president of the Free Software Foundation and not the Sexual Openness Foundation. He should stop commenting on this topic and focus on Free Software instead.

It is absolutely what he was saying.