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Comment by jcastro | Hacker News Reader

Have you not ever met the guy? Yeesh.

I agree that Stallman is probably not the best PR person for the FSF, but that's not what this is about. This is about canceling Stallman due to his "problematic opinions". It's a modern day witch hunt. Notice how all of the evidence against him[0] is just about his controversial opinions rather than his behavior.

[0] https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

Stallman is the public face of the FSF, by him being in the position that he is in, everything he says is representative of what the FSF stands for. It is precisely about whether he is a good PR person.

The open letter goes much further than that:

> These sorts of beliefs have no place in the free software, digital rights, and tech communities.

It's not: we need someone a bit less weird to be our PR person. It's: we need to cancel this person completely out of tech due to their "problematic opinions".

Have you looked at the appendix[0]? They seem a bit more than just "problematic".

2013: "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children."

2015: "I wish an attractive woman had "abused" me that way when I was 14. I would have learned many important things and had a much happier life."

2016, on Down's syndrome: "If you'd like to love and care for a pet that doesn't have normal human mental capacity, don't create a handicapped human being to be your pet."

2017: "[..] together with the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as "rape" even if they are willing, [..]"

To be honest, the parts on transphobia seem a bit overblown; he does seem to be accepting of different gender identities (and even plurality), but still doesn't like the use of they as a singular specific pronoun. However, I just really don't think it's necessary to re-admit someone with those ^ views to the board of an organization.

[0]: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix

Stallman is still, and always will be, Stallman. An independent agent with his own thoughts, opinions, dreams, desires, and life. And ya know what? That's okay. Foundations aren't their Founders and Founders aren't their Foundations. Both should be focused on their missions, but both are a cumulative sum of their parts plus a bit more.

Given a choice of leader, I'll stick with the one eccentric who from the start knew exactly the direction industry and politics would go. I'll take the guy with 40 year success streak of being able to say "Called it!", who refuses to give one inch on the principles behind free software to the point he's inconenienced himself to stay true to them in a world being increasingly eaten by proprietary software, over the wannabe social media influencers who can't even successfully comprehend the content of an email, or understand the difference between caring about concise language and adherence to consistent internal principles and transphobia.

Also, to be quite frank, given the cancel movement's continual habit on getting called out for being fast and loose with facts, I think they need to reconsider their PR strategy. Talk out the side of your mouth is cheap. Lies and misinformation even more so. At least what Stallman says is backed by his actions, and his continued steadfast support of the organization that threw him out unjustly.

I really don't think most people understand just what level of commitment to a cause that takes, and I think if half the people concerned about his "problematic opinions" would focus on issues in that sphere on a platform that isn't the FSF, the world may legitimately become a better place. Instead, you just get this token drama that holds the State of the Art back. I swear, if I ever pull off independent wealth enough to take an extended sabbatical I'll come take someones position to unburden their conscience of working with the likes of Stallman or Linus, or whoever the world is dumping on for carrying the progress of Free Software forward. Never seen a group of people so disenfranchised with literally carrying a legacy to the species on their backs that they have to start eating each other to continue making the experience bearable.

The entire world of proprietary software and all the adherents there of want division. They want chaos that detracts from the quality of Free Software. They want infighting, they want a more manipulable figurehead. They want work they can steal, make their own, then hold society hostage for access to.

The only one with their eye on the ball seems to be the very GNUisance everyone wishes to condemn. That's the world we live in now I guess. Nothing but ultimatums and outrage.

> I agree that Stallman is probably not the best PR person for the FSF, but that's not what this is about.

I truly don't understand this. I am neither autistic or even a 10x programmer.

RMS is such a genius dude who can match an entire Symbolics programming team that had genius and legendary hackers. His math skills are superior even among the elite math students at MIT(source at end [1]). RMS wrote the first version of gcc and many other utilties and *yet* despite all of his talents and genius gifts he started FSF and choose to remain poor because of his strong belief in freedom. This is immensely inspiring.

Its very rare to see a genius and who scarifies their life for a cause in a single person. The people i can think in this category are Noam Chomsky, Aaron Swartz.

How can any other person being the face of FSF a better fit?

[1] https://sagitter.fedorapeople.org/faif-2.0.pdf

I actually did meet Stallman on a few occasions. In all cases he was a kind and generally awesome human being:

  * 2000's, Linux Conference in San Francisco / Silicon Valley, I asked him about porting some app from LibC5 to GlibC6, I bought the GNU LibC manuals there. I imagine he was more confused than me about my newbie questions, but he patiently heard me out and gave me some valuable insights.
  
  * 2010-2016ish, FOSDEM conferences in Brussels. Attended multiple talks of him about FOSS.

Edit: Small spelling fixes and clarifications here and there.

I think that's a fair statement, but this letter calls for the removal of all FSF board members. Is that a fair response to RMS' opinions and behavior?

I have. He’s less of an asshat than my father. At best my father got called a prick. We didn’t form a consortium of people to cancel him. That’s just batshit crazy.

Multiple decades of bad behavior, people are tired of it and don't want to work with him. You can't force people to work with someone who treats them like shit.

Then go work at SFFSF (Stallman-Free Free Software Foundation), name not final.

You aren't being force to interact with the FSF.

That's essentially what's happening here. You have something like half the keynote speakers from LibreConf last week announcing that they will no longer participate in FSF events, and a bunch of community members supporting them.

No that's not what's happening. What is happening is they are trying to force RMS and now the entire FSF board out of the community. That's not the same as refusing to work with someone.

Interesting, could you point out where in that letter these people are being forced out of the community?

Alternatively, could you explain how you differentiate "we will not work with these people" and "forcing someone out of the community"? Like if enough people refuse to work with someone, doesn't that functionally force them out of the community?

I see two demands: the FSF board step down, and Stallman remove himself from any leadership positions. This is functionally the same request as last time, to keep RMS out of leadership. I'm unaware of any significant backlash to him having been a speaker at LibreConf, so clearly he could still still be a community member.

How is demanding the entire FSF board step down not an attempt to force them out of the community? To refuse to work with them would take the form of "we refuse to work with the FSF moving forward" or something to that effect. They are not doing this. They are demanding people lose their jobs because they disagree with them. Take your blinders off and be rational.

When someone is being fired you remove them from an organization, you don't give them the organization and tell everyone else to go find new jobs, especially since they're the ones doing all the work.

What your talking about is as if Stallman had decided to layoff everyone who is "woke" after being hired. That's not even close to what is happening.

Outsiders are asking the board to resign over a hiring decision.

They're not outsiders, they're the people doing the actual work of Free Software.

No one has to work with anyone. Walk away.

Edit: Wow the brigading in here is worse than Reddit at US sunrise.

> You can't force people to work with someone who treats them like shit.

It's open source software written by volunteers, though. How many people are actually forced to work with RMS?

Was your father the president of something?

Yes something fairly large and well known.

Was it a North American country, by any chance?

Not that prick but he’s not far off it. Was a large trade association.

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