
Stallman's final interview as FSF president - sohkamyung
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_interview/
======
gwd
This is a pretty interesting comment in hindsight:

" But I believe in judging each thing that a company does separately. So if a
company is doing this thing, which is wrong and unjust, and this thing, which
is helpful, I'd rather not add them up. If these two activities are separable
in practice, in other words, if it's possible to look at each one,
individually, and distinguish it from the other, if they're not tied up with
each other, so much that that's a nonsensical thing to do, then I do that.
Because that way, I can disapprove of whatever is bad and approve of whatever
is good. That's more useful, just adding it up to get one total for a given
company."

Treating people that way, and expecting to be treated that way, is part of the
reason he's had to step down.

------
microtherion
> I never believed that Microsoft was the great Satan.

I suspect that the great Satan for RMS was mostly Apple. I don’t think he and
his organizations have ever advocated a boycott of Microsoft, while they have
called for boycotts of both macOS and iOS at times — and notably at a time
when MS owned something like 90% of the OS market, they advocated for a
boycott of more or less their last PC OS competitor.

I never quite understood that focus. Maybe it was because Stallman thought
that Apple, with its hippie roots, was the bigger disappointment for not
aligning themselves with his values.

~~~
izacus
Or maybe it's because Apples values are significantly more hostile to FSF than
Microsofts? Apples flagship devices are completely forbidden from running
anything not approved by the corporation and their AppStore is completely
incompatible with GPL software. It fundamentally goes against everything FSF
stands for: being able to run any kind of software and modify it on your own
machine. In a world of Apple, FSF is forbidden from existing by policy and
hardware lockouts. Microsoft never came close to this kind of lockdown.

And Apple was always like that - even for Apple Lisa they developed a scheme
where a floppy would be permanently bound to a single machine on first use
practically forbidding resale. There are really not many large software
companies that would be more hostile to FSF core values than Apple.

~~~
microtherion
iOS development is not really compatible with the GPL; both the FSF and Apple
agree on that.

But there was nothing in macOS that was incompatible with the GPL, and yet the
FSF for a decade prohibited its maintainers from accepting macOS specific
patches (So much for “freedom”).

To Stallman, Apple’s “Look & Feel” lawsuit was an unforgivable transgression,
but Microsoft’s various tactics to muscle out competitors were never a cause
for concern.

------
caspervonb
Meanwhile, blue checks with substantial mob following on Twitter are calling
him a "literal pedophile rapist".

~~~
BlackRing
The medium article that was parroted by other sites was a hit piece that lied.
And of course the people reading it believed every word without a shred of
doubt, and other outlets republishing it failed journalistic integrity
spectacularly.

Congratulations, to all those who fell for it.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?co...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?context=2)

~~~
lliamander
Wait, so the only thing that happened with Minsky was that she was told to
proposition him (by Epstein), and that he turned her down? I'd like to here
confirmation of that from the victim, but if that's the case then this whole
ordeal is just an epic disaster.

------
reacweb
rms writes and talks a lot. This gives many opportunities for his opponents to
find ways to attack him. The main point of rms is freedom. Freedom is a right
than can sometimes benefit to evil people. Defending freedom does not mean we
defend evil people. I don't see anything reprehensible in the comments of rms,
just opportunities for his opponents to use this fallacy.

------
evilmoo
That’s a hell of a travel rider.

~~~
shultays
He was our guest for a conference and stayed for a couple days. He ia an
interesting person indeed. Preferred to stay at someone's house instead of a
hotel. If that person has a parrot that would be a plus. And some other crazy
stuff. He has a 3 page document that explains what he likea and what not (i am
not saying it is weird or he is asking for too much, for a frequent traveller
such as him i think it is perfectly ok)

Funny story. He "stole"/borroe my phone. He didnt have a phone so we lended
him one. My phone was a dumb phone and we guessed that would be better. After
the conference, he took my phone to another conference that was in our
country. I got it back though

------
zecg
"I was involuntarily self-promoted into management."

------
13hours
I'm actually baffled that someone so tone deaf about so many things was able
to create such a success.

~~~
vessenes
I’m not a friend of RMS, although we have argued over email.

RMS has a unique super power I propose you admire: he is deeply committed to
his convictions, and willing to construct his life around them.

He has autism so he finds himself in situations that you are politely calling
tone deaf a lot; he has said in public that he can find the responses hurtful.
But he still keeps on with his values, at times at great personal cost.

I think of him as a sort of national treasure; if we had 10 of him in the last
twenty years the world would be a much better place.

~~~
nineteen999
I agree somewhat; having had dinner with him once with our local Linux
organization when he was in our part of the world over 20 years ago, I think I
learned a lot in that short time.

What I came away with was that _SOMEONE_ needs to hold the points of view that
he holds, at least as far as they pertain to software development and
licensing, since almost nobody else does.

Whether he presents as well as he could is a different matter. The recently
reported on comments he has made could and will be perceived as quite
distasteful.

------
vezycash
>Stallman's post to the MIT mailing list argued, in a spectacularly
INSENSITIVE fashion, that Minsky may not have been aware Giuffre had been
coerced to have sex.

How is this particular statement by Stallman insensitive?

~~~
kelnos
Because it's besides the point. It's a distraction from the actual topic at
hand.

It's also naive. I mean... powerful billionaire brings you to his private
island and presents to you a beautiful young woman who wants to have sex with
you, a 70-something man. That sounds like the "plot" of a really bad porno.
You'd have to be obnoxiously naive to believe the woman wasn't being coerced
in some way.

~~~
berberous
Assuming the allegations that they had sex are true, I think the most likely
scenario, and the one that Minsky believed, was that she was a completely
willing paid escort. It's only in hindsight that you think it must have been
obvious she was coerced in some way. Why would he assume a billionaire had not
simply used some of his money to pay for escorts? Isn't that more logical,
without knowing what you know today about Epstein?

~~~
kelnos
Ah, yes, the "only in hindsight" defense. I don't buy it.

A paid escort is plausible, though, and I hadn't thought of that. However, the
girl was 17. Obviously age isn't always obvious down to the year, but I would
_hope_ someone in that situation would think twice before assuming everything
was kosher.

------
rswail
John Lennon was a misogynist but wrote world changing music.

Churchill was a racist that (arguably) saved his nation from invasion.

Stallman is a Marxist ("from each according to his abilities, to each
according to his needs") when it comes to how the power of computing is used
and distributed and arguably the GPL and Linus's choice to use it for Linux
have had world changing effects.

But Stallman is a man that also has no clue about how to deal with people in
general or in tolerating other views.

His defence of Minsky's behavior is unacceptable as the head of the FSF and
damaging to CSAIL/MIT (as is the relationship of MIT to Epstein in general).

It is unfortunate for him that his defence of Minsky has had this effect on
his career. However, the impact of the result of that defence on the
institutions he represented is much more important to resolve.

Geniuses in one field are not knowledgable in others.

~~~
jacquesm
I've made this point elsewhere, but it is Minsky's _alleged_ behavior and
Stallman did Minsky a large amount of harm by defending him as though it had
definitely happened.

See also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992876)

------
mothsonasloth
About time if you ask me. RMS is brilliant but also completely unpalatable to
people outside the world of GNU.

Time for someone who is a bit more accessible and savvy to take the FSF cause
onwards.

The question though would be, will the FSF mission change or it's cause be
diluted without RMS at the helm?

~~~
lliamander
> RMS is brilliant but also completely unpalatable to people outside the world
> of GNU.

He just sacrificed his job and legacy to defend the honor of a friend.

What kind of person do you want leading the FSF, a mealy-mouthed politician?

~~~
stephenr
> He just sacrificed his job and legacy to defend the honor of a friend.

He resigned after claiming that a victim of child sex trafficking, was "a
member of (the trafficker's) Harem" and "entirely willing".

Defending his dead friends honour might be to raise the question of whether it
was in fact his friend who was involved. He essentially gave the "but she
wanted it" defence, for a dead man, who is accused of raping a child whom he
had "borrowed" from another dead man, who is also accused of raping children.

> What kind of person do you want leading the FSF, a mealy-mouthed politician?

Most people would probably just be happy with someone who doesn't say the
following about prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of
child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (and I quote):

> All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are
> illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

~~~
iamnotacrook
What's adultery doing on that list? Why shouldn't it be legal? Prostitution is
legal in many places. Legalising it everywhere would help get rape cases
reduced. Unless you're a vegan it's hard not to laugh at criticism of
justification of bestiality.

And regarding sex trafficking/rape - sex with a 17 year old is almost never
seen as rape legally. That's a mostly US thing. The age of consent is 16
generally; lower than 16 in parts of Europe. Everyone's entitled to an opinion
but criticising someone for defending actions which are legal and - subject to
opinion - moral seems like a bit of a boring waste of time.

~~~
stephenr
I simply copied the whole quote so someone who wants to defend him won’t cry
about partial quotes.

But sure, carry on as usual because there’s always someone to defend RMS no
matter how fucked his statements are.

~~~
seba_dos1
You copied two words out of a complex sentence and now you simply lie. Or
maybe you don't really know what he said and that's the reason you can't
understand why people may be defending him in this case?

~~~
stephenr
You need to read what you reply to. I quoted an entire statement made by RMS
on his own website, claiming that amongst other things, child porn and fucking
kids, should be legalised.

Another poster asked why "adultery" was in the list of things in the quote,
and I explained that I quoted the entire thing he said.

So fuck you, read something before you want to claim people are lying.

~~~
seba_dos1
As opposed to you apparently, I've done my share of reading already:
[https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#14_September...](https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#14_September_2019_\(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong\))

...and you just straight out lied there:

> He resigned after claiming that a victim of child sex trafficking, was "a
> member of (the trafficker's) Harem" and "entirely willing".

~~~
stephenr
> As opposed to you apparently, I've done my share of reading already

So, he says something a decade and a half ago, and then coincidentally 3 days
after an email discussion where he defends a man alleged to have had sex with
a victim of child sex trafficking, he suddenly "thinks adults should not do
that".

WELL WHAT A REVELATION.

He called her a member of Epstein's Harem and said the "most likely"
explanation is "she presented herself as entirely wiltingly"(sic)

A harem is a collection of wives or concubines. How exactly is a child sex
slave either of those things?

RMS' theory is that a 70 year old man goes to a billionaire's private island
and a 17 year old girl just happens to "present as willing" for sex and the
guy asks no questions?

As other's have said, even if he didn't know she's 17, and somehow it never
occurred to him to ask, it's the plot for a bad porno, it's not a plausible
chain of events in reality, and it's definitely not the _most likely_
scenario.

~~~
lliamander
Just so we're clear:

> "She was asking for it"

is very different from

> "I don't think my friend - who I knew well - was aware that she was coerced"

You, at least initially, argued that the former was the correct interpretation
of his words, but to do so you did misquote him in a way that obviously
altered the meaning of his words. Was that intentional or a mistake?

I don't have the context for the "harem" quote, but given how you presented
the quote with regard to the victim's willingness, I think it's reasonable to
conclude that RMS meant something other than what you insinuate.

In any case, it seems now that you recognize that the latter interpretation is
correct, and you question whether RMS' position was reasonable. Fair enough.
But tell me, would you know the difference between an 18yo prostitute (who is
otherwise free to leave) and a 17yo slave?

Look, I think what Minsky did was wrong regardless, that he was foolish to let
himself become entangled with a man like Epstein, and I think it's atrocious
what happened to the young woman, but these two scenarios have vastly
different legal consequences. Do you not think it is plausible that Minsky
thought it was the first scenario?

For what it's worth, my initial thought when I heard that Minksy had been
implicated in Epstein's ring, was that he was fully aware and complicit in the
abuse. And Minksy may have in fact been fully aware, but RMS' words lead me to
question that assumption because RMS _actually knew the guy_.

EDIT: _hold the phone_. Looking at some other sources suggests that Minksy may
not have even had sex with the young woman. It sounds like she was coerced by
Epstein to proposition Minsky, and that according to another witness _Minsky
turned her down_ [1]. It does not appear that the victim is actually accusing
Minksy of assaulting her (though I could be missing evidence. If this is the
case, then why is this argument even happening?

[1][https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/richard_stall...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/richard_stallman_resigns_from_mit_due_to_pressure/f0l50w4/?context=2)

