
On Recent Controversial Events - richardfontana
http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html
======
zaptheimpaler
> It really doesn't matter what your view about the controversial issue is; a
> leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about unrelated issues eventually
> creates an untenable distraction from ....

I can understand his position, but this is part of the picture of a core
problem in society today.

Its NOT that leaders aren't allowed to speak about controversial issues - its
that they aren't allowed to advocate ONE side of an issue, while the other
side is perfectly OK. You probably shouldn't say "diversity is important but
not our only goal" as a CEO, but you CAN say "diversity is the best". That
kind of large scale censorship only stifles dissent without changing the
dissenters mind. Which is a state of affairs the far left happily accepts -
"toxic people dont deserve a voice". Just pray you don't speak against mob or
they'll cancel you. Better yet, just don't even think those unthinkable
thoughts. Submit to the collective. All your opinions can be inferred from
your tribe anyways. You don't really exist, only your tribe does.

~~~
mrkurt
If RMS had said "diversity is important but not our only goal", there wouldn't
be any FSF drama. He didn't say that.

His comments are the wrong comments to defend, I think, for reasons adequately
explained in the article. Minimizing the harm powerful people have caused to
their victims is not "dissent" we should avoid stifling.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
I wasn't defending his comments. I do think he's an a __hole. Not my point
though.

~~~
mrkurt
Fair enough! I think elevating his types of position to the level of "dissent"
sounds like a defense, because dissent is something I think is admirable.

------
smitty1e
What a thoughtful essay. Kuhn clearly pored over those words most carefully.

> The question is whether an organization should have a designated leader who
> is on a sustained, public campaign advocating about an unrelated issue that
> many consider controversial. It really doesn't matter what your view about
> the controversial issue is; a leader who refuses to stop talking loudly
> about unrelated issues eventually creates an untenable distraction from the
> radical activism you're actively trying to advance.

The inability to differentiate between "acute" and "chronic" plagues our day.

~~~
yourbandsucks
But then Kuhn gives the game away within a couple paragraphs, calling RMS's
views 'problematic' and expressing disagreement with several of them.

If you're gonna go with that line, stay on-message.

~~~
eightysixfour
I disagree with you, Kuhn expressed that he believes that a leader pushing a
controversial message unrelated to an organization’s purpose can become a
distraction which has consequences, whether you agree with the leader’s
controversial message or not.

That is not invalidated by the fact that Kuhn also disagreed with the views
RMS has expressed and Kuhn clearly wished to distance himself from those
views.

~~~
yourbandsucks
"Give the game away" is too strong, you're right. I don't mean to imply that
Kuhn didn't mean what he carefully wrote, he seems like a standup guy doing
Free Software.

------
haberman
> organizations need not and should not elevate spokespeople and leaders who
> speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find do not advance
> their mission, and/or that alienate important constituents. I, like many
> other software freedom leaders, curtail my public comments on issues not
> related to FOSS. (Indeed, I would not even be commenting on this issue if it
> had not become a central issue of concern to the software freedom
> community.)

I really respect this. Kuhn is articulating a principle here and then gives an
example of how he himself makes a sacrifice to adhere to this principle. This
makes him much more credible to me than if he was using the principle solely
as an instrument against others.

~~~
breck
Is this a good pattern though? Seems to me like a low standard for our
leaders. You should be able to do more than one thing at once.

~~~
wmf
It's not really about leaders at all but about the public and press who will
listen to and amplify anything leaders say even if it's off-topic bullshit.

~~~
lisp-missionary
Trump says anything and it's fine. Guy tells blatant lies. Says he saw muslims
cheering on 9/11 and he's the president.

But god forbid some computer programmer says something Americans don't agree
with.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into political or ideological flamewar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
kazinator
This new trolling account is annoyingly showing up in Algolia searches for
"lisp" in quotes.

------
michannne
> Most importantly, I believe we must find a way to stand firm for software
> freedom while also making a safe environment for victims of sexual assault,
> sexual abuse, gaslighting, and other deplorable actions.

I understand and I fully stand by his belief that software freedom does not
mean egalitarian and morally righteous principles have to be undermined in
order to progress.

However, it is not the FSF's job to make sure those values are upheld in every
facet of moral righteousness. The goal is clear: make and keep software free
as in liberty. That's it. Anything else should be completely within the realm
of personal viewpoints.

I completely and wholeheartedly stand by the fact that we as a society need to
deal with sexual violence much better than we are currently doing so.

Not an ounce of my being, however, places the burden on dealing with this onto
Stallman's, or Kuhn's, or any other FSF member's shoulder. Help if you can.
Help if you want, but if your _job_ is to make software free, you're doing
great. If you can solve other moral issues while doing so, even better, but
it's not required.

~~~
mrkurt
The problem is that RMS undermines the FSF's progress by being a dumbass. No
one's expects him to solve a moral issue, they expect to him to avoid harming
their mission by being a ridiculous troll.

~~~
ng12
Their mission is his mission. FSF didn't hire Stallman, he created it. I think
it's baseless to say that Stallman is either trolling or harming the FSF.

~~~
ixtli
He created it more then 30 years ago. It has evolved into something much, much
greater than himself and so the organization has a very serious responsibility
to more stakeholders as well.

~~~
ng12
That's exactly it -- 30 years of flourishing with RMS very publicly
documenting his opinion on everything the whole time.

That's why I find it hard to believe that his behavior was so harmful to the
organization.

~~~
zaarn
It wasn't harmful as in it would kill the organization but I believe that a
lot of people were turned away from the FSF or even FOSS entirely due to RMS'
behaviour.

~~~
ixtli
Also lets not pretend its just RMS. ESR has been ostracized for his weird
comments and behavior as well. The presentation of this as without precedent
is really disingenuous.

------
ng12
> The question is whether an organization should have a designated leader who
> is on a sustained, public campaign advocating about an unrelated issue that
> many consider controversial.

I don't understand this. Are people in prominent positions not allowed to have
opinions or interests outside of their job? As long as RMS wasn't actively
using his power/influence as head of the FSF to advance his odd-ball views I
really don't see what the problem is. The only argument I could see is that
RMS's persona was so fundamentally quintessential to the FSF that the two
could not be separated -- in which case firing him was obviously a boneheaded
move.

~~~
eightysixfour
> Are people in prominent positions not allowed to have opinions or interests
> outside of their job?

There are absolutely jobs in the world where “don’t be a distraction” is a
requirement for the job.

~~~
humanrebar
Sometimes who you are, a physical trait, an accent, an unrelated disability is
a "distraction". And, yes, personality and neurological traits can count as
well.

I can understand "don't be a jerk", and maybe RMS failed that test. But "don't
be a distraction" can easily be (and has been) an excuse to oppress in the
name of pragmatism.

------
hollerith
>human sexual behavior not a topic on which RMS has adequate expertise

Ouch!

~~~
shadowgovt
I think that's factually accurate. He's not a professor of sexology and (to my
knowledge) has never pursued any formal study of the topic.

Not everybody needs to be Dr. Ruth, but in some sense, Stallman going on about
sex topics when he's not is as much a problem as Sagan once going on about the
"reptile brain" without considering how much of the neuroscience he was
contemporary to had already disproved that hypothesis.

If you're going to have strong opinions on something and want to maintain your
credibility in general, at least find a trustworthy and informed advisor on
the topic.

~~~
ernst_klim
> He's not a professor of sexology

It's not a question of sexology, it's a question of ethics. I doubt that any
of his critics are professors of sexology as well, people are arguing on moral
ground here.

Many of issues people are attacking him on, are not issues in my country. I
don't see many fellow Europeans bothering what he said, it's American moral
issue totally.

------
telaelit
Very thoughtful and nuanced post-mortem. I generally agree with what he had to
say.

I think I’m more on the side of thinking leaders should be moral people and
not think that pedophilia is defensible. I do believe people in power should
be held accountable.

I think “cancel culture” is the wrong term to use, I think is accountable
culture. If you think it’s okay to demean woman and defend someone exploiting
young girls because his sex trafficker friend gives his institution lots of
money, then I think you’re a bad person.

Free speech doesn’t mean you’re free from consequences.

------
ahuth
> However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose views we
> fundamentally disagree.

I don't know much about the author, but I really like this viewpoint. People
are of course entitled to their opinions and to free speech. But we don't have
to follow leaders whose values don't align with our own.

------
fencepost
While it doesn't match the FA title, I think an addition of "(FSF and RMS)"
could be helpful to many people.

------
jammygit
RMS resigned!? I can’t believe I missed something like that (I’m even a fsf
“member”)

~~~
krapp
Seems you have some drama to catch up on...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583)

~~~
jammygit
Wow, 2100 comments. Thanks for the link

------
jammygit
The “Free as in Freedom” podcast, with Sandler and Kuhn, restarted this year.
It hasn’t had an episode in a few months however. I wonder if they will do an
episode on this

------
dvfjsdhgfv
> It really doesn't matter what your view about the controversial issue is; a
> leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about unrelated issues eventually
> creates an untenable distraction

So this practically means the moment you become the leader, you renounce your
freedom of free speech. RMS is a freedom fighter, there is no way he would
agree to that. And I'm grateful he didn't give up.

------
mistermann
> In fact, RMS' views and statements posted on stallman.org about sexual
> morality escalated for the worse over the last few years.

Each word is a linked to a comment, some of them fairly eye opening.

~~~
deft
Except reading the links and keeping the timestamps in mind pretty much the
opposite occurred. In 2016 he was blabbing about bestiality and pedophilia /
rape of minors and excusing it, but later on he was mostly talking about not
calling 18yos children, and saying that not all 'Sexual assault' is equal and
different words should be used to describe different actions, he even provides
a pretty logical argument for this.

His worst comment was probably this one
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman....](https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-
oct.html#29_October_2017_\(Pestering_women\))

~~~
fencepost
Regardless of how his stated views changed over time, the article is more
about how such outside-the-mainstream views end up being a significant
distraction from the already (unrelated) outside-the-mainstream views of the
FSF.

Even were he to turn out to be an incredible coder and lover of open source, I
also wouldn't expect the FSF to hire David Duke as a spokesman because the
combination of two unrelated advocacy positions would be a distraction for
both.

~~~
ng12
I think we need to keep in mind that RMS was posting this stuff very publicly
all the while FSF was a runaway success. If RMS were being nominated to lead
the FSF today, sure it might be appropriate to point out that he seems like a
wack-job. However, as it stands we've lost one of the most impactful thought
leaders of the past several decades over some mudslinging and theoretical
"distraction".

~~~
XorNot
Frankly, how?

He hasn't been silenced. He still has internet access and the many publishing
platforms that affords him.

He's been dissociated from a role in an organization.

If his ideas so clearly stand on their own, then he should have no problems.
What he will not be doing anymore is acting as a direct representative of the
organization.

~~~
ng12
Well I'm sure part of it is that he's been unjustly branded as a pedophile.
Also I doubt he cherishes the prospect of starting FSF Round 2.

~~~
neumann
I haven't seen him branded as a pedophile. I'll happily brand him as a former
pedophile apologist, and have yet to read anything that suggests he has
renounced those views explicitly.

~~~
ng12
I would argue the delta between calling someone a pedophile and a pedophile
apologist is pretty negligible in the age of clickbaity news bites.

------
neurocline
This is Bradley Kuhn trying to explain and justify his behavior to himself
(and, to take a personal stance, I think he did - I think his actions and
motivations are fine). I think it points out several things.

1\. Dealing with a controversial issue from inside an organization rarely
works. Sure, maybe FSF has been grappling with Stallman's non-FSF stances and
how they hurt the FSF and free software in general. But they had several years
internally to make changes and nothing happened until it spilled over into the
public. And then, yes, it did happen quickly.

2\. There is a huge tension between the mission of a group and how to interact
with the society that group is embedded within. I agree that a group should
focus on its mission, and leave other goals to groups more dedicated to those
issues. I especially agree that a group with no particular expertise in a
matter should avoid pontificating or trying to "lead" in that issue. And yet a
group is composed of members from the society. There's a conflict here that no
one really knows how to handle.

Why do people high up in very visible or very powerful organizations take on
topics outside their remit? Because they have personal opinions and want to
use the power of the organization to amplify their voice. I think this is a
subtle form of corruption, even in the case where you "created" the
organization. Because while Stallman did pioneer the idea of "free software",
he's not personally responsible for all or even most of the success and
visibility of the FSF. He hijacked the org to press certain opinions. And,
yes, while he didn't pretend that the FSF was saying these things, he knew
full well that he only had attention paid to him because of all the history of
free software and the fact that he was the very visible figurehead. Saying
these things to your friends and associates is one thing, but blogging about
them is a public campaign.

I don't know the full answer. But an org can't avoid big issues for the
society it's embedded in, because that often looks like it's made a decision
(usually for repression - to wit, the many groups facing public approbation
over apparent kow-towing to the Chinese position on recent events in Hong
Kong). But also #metoo and LGBTQ+ rights and Epstein and any number of culture
flashpoints in recent history. I think orgs need to make cautious statements
that these things exist and that orgs will not endorse unethical or illegal
behavior but that other things are up to the actual actors involved. So for
example "Black Lives Matter" \- I don't expect companies to be champions, and
I certainly don't expect any companies to attack it (whether flat-out or
noxious things like "Blue Lives Matter"); but I do expect those companies to
not make empty talk about equal rights and diversity but to work to make sure
their companies aren't part of the problem (e.g. only hiring white men, for
example). When a problem is exposed to you, you take that information in and
you use it, you don't ignore it, and you certainly don't work to undermine it.

These things blow up because someone in a position of a lot of power does
something either purposely or accidentally evil, and then the reaction looks
like an overreaction, and we all "murmur murmur MURMUR MURMUR!!" about it for
a while.

Let's all be humans. That means we have our goals (game companies make games -
and profits) but we also are composed of members of the society we are
embedded in, so we are part of those larger goals whether we like it or not.
And we don't make social decisions based on "the market", but on foundations
of morals and ethics - which we argue about constantly, but over the longer
run are pretty easy to see.

Not quite on a tangent - companies today face a huge problem in that they
employ people, and people have their own opinions and goals not related to the
company's mission. For some companies, the expectation is that you take no
position on matters, because that would harm the opinion of the company. I
think this is very problematic, especially since a lot of self-censoring
happens. I said very little controversial in public while I was employed by a
certain large game company, for example, and no one in the company explictly
told me to be like that. I think that caused society a tiny bit of harm. But
the flip-side is also bad in that companies face unwarranted criticism because
some employee says something that goes viral, and then if the company fires
the person, the company is in trouble, but if the company defends the person,
the company can also get in trouble.

I think this whole thing is only tough because we haven't yet figured out how
to handle it. And then once we do, future generations will look back in dismay
and say "what the fuck, how could you have been so blind?". I wish someone
would figure it out already, so we can go back to being productive.

------
pnako
Et tu, Brute?

------
reggieband
> However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose views we
> fundamentally disagree.

I hesitate to bring up Trump in this context but I know many wish they didn't
have to follow a man who casually joked about sexual assault. Yet Americans do
have to follow Trump on matters of law related to his office as President,
like it or not.

> [...] organizations need not and should not elevate spokespeople and leaders
> who speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find do not
> advance their mission, and/or that alienate important constituents.

I agree on "need not" but disagree on "should not".

Just because Kuhn chooses to keep his public persona free from conflicts with
his personal commitments to organizations does not mean anyone else must as
well. Nor does his belief that he is doing something worthwhile mean it is a
universal moral law. I appreciate his integrity but I do not consider it a
requirement for leadership of software advocacy organizations.

I find it troubling that a common tactic when someone disagrees with someone
else is they want to ruin them. They want them de-platformed and unemployable.
It isn't enough to combat their ideas with better ideas, they need them to go
away permanently. I would have preferred both Kuhn and RMS to stay on the FSF
and engage in a public healthy debate.

~~~
XorNot
RMS is being pushed out of a public relations role, because he has
demonstrated that he cannot competently maintain relations with the public.

The Trump administration has, similarly, _repeatedly_ fired public relations
representatives when it became dissatisfied with their performance.

------
bbanyc
Even setting aside RMS's indefensible behavior, his vision of what "free
software" means is stuck in the '80s. [1] got flagged for its flame-baity
title but it's a valid point. Nobody gives a damn about the firmware for your
laptop's wi-fi card. Cloud services and mobile rule the world now, and RMS
never came up with a good solution to either besides "don't use them."
(There's AGPL but it's never won any victories for software freedom. All it
means is "buy a commercial license.")

It's unfortunate that RMS loyalists will continue to control the FSF for the
foreseeable future. This is one of those cases where progress is made one
funeral at a time.

[1] [https://maffulli.net/2019/10/17/why-richard-stallman-
doesnt-...](https://maffulli.net/2019/10/17/why-richard-stallman-doesnt-
matter/)

~~~
catalogia
> _" Cloud services and mobile rule the world now, and RMS never came up with
> a good solution to either besides "don't use them.""_

I generally agree and I think the problem is bigger than SaaS. Consumers are
now becoming accustomed to software "running" on low power hardware that
simply cannot actually run on that low power hardware, which requires some
sort of "SaaS" system, which in turn requires that they either trust somebody
else (inevitably a for-profit corporation who very often has incentives
misaligned with the user) or become their own system administrator (an
unreasonable ask for the typical user.)

A concrete example:

Suppose a user wants a FOSS photograph organization application that supports
organizing large numbers of images through tagging. A user coming from the
proprietary world might reasonably expect this application to perform face
detection and recognition to automatically tag all of their friends in the
application. There are FOSS implementations of this kind of ML tech.. but what
are the chances any of that heavy duty stuff can run on the users low power
smartphone? Snowball's chance in hell. Even if you get it to run, it certainly
won't scale as well as the SaaS alternative from Facebook/Google/Apple.

What's the answer though? I don't have a great answer to this, RMS obviously
doesn't, I don't think any RMS supporters _or_ critics do. Not that I've heard
anyway.

~~~
wmf
Apple's on-device ML at least proves it's possible even if the FOSS world
would take a while to catch up. A bigger problem may getting access to
training data.

~~~
catalogia
It's only possible to a limited extent. A low power smartphone will simply
never be able to do as much ML as a high power server, so there will always be
a capability asymmetry here. And that's not even getting into the matter of
FOSS drivers for such hardware.

And as you say, training these models is a different matter than merely using
them. The data and power requirements involved are a huge problem.

------
throwaway13337
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
say it."

This is understood as the principle of freedom of speech.

We don't get that if you risk losing your job if you don't share every view of
the majority.

The principle should be well understood by an organization that stands for,
above all, these sorts of freedoms.

There is no freedom of speech left if you're only able to say what everyone
agrees with.

When did we lose sight of this?

This posturing is shameful.

~~~
mthoms
His freedom of speech hasn't been hindered in any way, shape, or form (as far
as I can tell).

What I do see, is others utilizing _their_ right to (dis)associate with
whomever they want.

Freedom of speech has never included any notion of "Freedom from societal
repercussions".

~~~
humanrebar
"Freedom of speech" is a universal principle that is also crystallized in the
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution with respect to government
suppression of private speech.

It's also important that the principle be applied in private interactions,
weighing other considerations. Of course, a political diatribe at a funeral is
a poor choice. But there need to be places for well intentioned and civil
people to come together and discuss things, even if ignorance is spouted of
from time to time. If we're all humble, we'll all understand we're each
ignorant in our own way and have a little grace to let each other be wrong,
annoying, and even circumstantially negative from time to time.

Yes, freedom of association is important and conflicts with freedom of speech
sometimes. But deciding to shun people also has repercussions. We have to
consider all the repercussions of all of our actions.

~~~
mthoms
Well said. I agree completely.

The question I would ask next though, is whether RMS is _well intentioned_ ,
_humble_ and aware of his own capability to be ignorant? I don't have a strong
opinion, but there does appear to be a long history of behaviours and musings
which suggest he isn't.

I'm not saying he deserves to be a social pariah. But it seems reasonable for
the FSF to want to disassociate with him.

