
Yesterday’s Man: The Fall of Richard Stallman - CrankyBear
https://fossforce.com/2019/09/yesterdays-man-the-fall-of-richard-stallman/
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throwawawathrow
I used to have a lot of respect for rms. Sure he was quirky but at least he
was principled. Sure his last actual free software contribution was in 1995
but he did a lot of advocacy afterwards. Sure he was very annoyingly
intransigeant but he said things that were true but inconvenient to hear
(regarding Facebook, Google, Amazon et al.). All in all, I thought that for
all his flaws, the world needed someone like him.

But now, it seems everyone's coming out of the woodwork with one damning story
after another that I didn't know of. I don't know if the spider plant thing is
true, but the pleasure cards thing is ludicrous. Looking back, one can't help
but wonder if in hindsight he was more of a hindrance to the cause.

If anything, the disgrace of rms should be the final nail to the coffin of the
so-called _hacker spirit_ as enshrined by the likes of him and esr, and which
I've always kind of perceived as 'you can be as much of an obtuse dick as you
like as long as you're technically correct'. Maybe such 'hackers' were
necessary in 1970 when computing was niche and restricted to certain
demographics for various historical/sociological reasons. Now that the pool of
available talent has largely increased, we should ask ourselves: for one
brillant but obtuse dick, how many brillant _and_ chill people are out there?
Is it worth latching on the former at the risk of missing out on potential
scores of the latter?

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cupofinsane
>his comment that one of Jeffrey Epstein’s underage victims willingly
prostituted herself

I don't get it, why journalists so persistently misrepresent Stallman's words.
I mean, yeah, what he said was tone-deaf to say the least, but that's not what
he said.

