
Justice for Dr. Richard Matthew Stallman - JDW1023
https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/
======
geofft
Justice begins with truth.

1\. He only has honorary doctorates. If you wouldn't say "Dr. Zuckerberg,"
don't say "Dr. Stallman." (Meanwhile, Dr. Bill Cosby has an _earned_
doctorate!)

2\. Related to the previous point, his "position" at MIT was an office with a
mattress, thanks to having influential friends in the faculty there. He was
not paid by MIT, he had no teaching role at MIT, and he was part of no MIT
research projects.

3\. Even if every error printed by the media was corrected, there is - and has
been for years - significant dissatisfaction with him at MIT, within the FSF,
within the GNU Project, and within the free software community at large.

4\. Stallman continues to be welcome to debate the truth. It's a valuable part
of a free society. What MIT and the free software community has made clear is
that he is not welcome to debate the truth _and serve as a representative of
MIT and of the free software community_. MIT gained nothing direct from his
affiliation as unpaid research staff assigned to no research projects; all
they gained was an association with his reputation. As soon as that becomes a
negative association, there's no rational reason to keep it. Similarly, the
free software community has argued for the removal of Stallman from his
leadership position because they've seen that he prioritizes his interest in
debating about sexual norms over his interest in leading and growing the free
software community. (See, for instance,
[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-
rms.html](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html) .)

It is true that the media flare-up about Stallman's Minsky/Epstein commentary
was the immediate political motivation for him leaving his MIT affiliation
(since the most active benefit of his affiliation was his presence on the
CSAIL general mailing list where he made this comments, and there has been
general displeasure at his presence there for well over a decade) and his FSF
role. But I'm not sure what the benefit to the world is to re-appoint him to
his FSF role only to "re-try" him for his actual failure to do his work -
especially when so many GNU projects seem on the verge of forking.

~~~
cryptica
It doesn't make sense to remove someone from a position because of a few
things they said. Rather, we should evaluate the individual as a whole. Is he
a good person or a bad person? Is he effective or inneffective? Based on
everything I read about Stallman so far over the years, I'd say he is truly
decent human being and an extremely effective leader. He is almost certainly a
better person than all of the self-righteous, hypocritical bureaucrats who are
now trying to take him down who never did anything altruistic their entire
self-centered lives.

IMO, if Stallman didn't do any crime himself, he can say whatever the heck he
wants about anything. People need to toughen up and stop being such
hypocrites. We all have a brain between our ears; how about we start using it
to decide for ourselves if some celebrity or politician is right or wrong
instead of trying to censor them. Just because they're famous doesn't mean
they're right and it doesn't mean you have to agree with them.

~~~
geofft
Sure, that seems like a much more reasonable basis for this discussion.

There has been very strong consensus at MIT for decades that he's not a decent
human being and he himself tries to take down people who are doing altruistic
things but dare to host their volunteer signup form on Google Forms. I
genuinely don't know what the argument _for_ reinstating his MIT position is.

The internal politics of GNU have been awful for decades too, largely due to
RMS, and I know plenty of free software folks (including a few folks formerly
associated with FSF - i.e., true believers in the cause that RMS managed to
deconvert) who think his leadership is ineffective, harmful, or both. So, if
there's a claim that he's a good leader for the FSF and for GNU, that seems
like something we can have a direct, factual debate on.

"RMS didn't make the statements about Epstein that the media claimed he said,
therefore he's a qualified and effective leader of the free software movement"
is fallacious. "The media attacked him unfairly, so he needs his old job back
to get back at them regardless of his fitness for the job" isn't justice, just
revenge.

------
richmarr
This post discusses 'terminological precision' and tries to clarify
'mischaracterisations', which is fair enough, but fails its own litmus test by
using terms like 'hate fest' and 'witch hunt'.

------
AmericanChopper
Stallman’s experience with the online outrage mob is rather typical of the way
they operate. The authors comments about the witch hunt were very on point.
Defending the target does make you a target yourself. This sort of thing
happens to people all the time, the only difference about this case is that
RMS has enough supporters out there that some of them will actually speak in
his defence.

The real problem we have as a society is that this sort of puritanical
orthodoxy is becoming more common place. The way this intolerance shuts down a
lot of inquiry and honest discussion seems obvious to me, and the way sinners
are identified and publicly ruined is just another natural consequence of this
system of values. A person is expected to have lived their whole life in
perfect conformance to the orthodoxy. Any transgression, past or present,
warrants complete exile from society, and any association with or defence of
such a sinner warrants the same.

------
grawprog
The thing about all this is, when you run a non-profit organization, the
things you say is seen to represent that organization whether you want them to
or not especially when you're a fairly well known person like RMS. Watching
the things you say is part of the job unless you want it reflecting badly on
your organization. In the end, if the FSF and GNU don't feel like the things
RMS says should represent them, then that's just how it goes. It's too bad,
but when you become an adult, you become responsible for the things you say
and the consequences that come of them.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Regardless, it’s problematic when you also have to be responsible for things
you didn’t actually say.

~~~
geofft
But that's also part of the job. It's certainly unfortunate and unfair, but
it's not _more_ unfair for him than any other public figure. That's why a
qualified leader needs to be careful with words and so far above reproach that
a) it's hard to accidentally mischaracterize what you say b) if someone does,
it seems out of character with what you actually believe.

Deliberately making public statements about controversial topics that have
nothing to do with your leadership role is certainly your right, but it's a
strategically risky move. It's like "defensive driving" \- whether or not it's
illegal to brake check a driver behind you, it's definitely a bad idea.

RMS and the free software movement would both have been better off if he'd
stepped into an internal technical leadership role and found someone else to
take on the advocacy / moral leadership / public speaking role. It would have
been a better use of his talents (and honestly it might have left fewer GNU
maintainers bitter about how he isn't actually writing very much code anymore
but still tries to overrule decisions every so often).

~~~
deogeo
It's also part of the job of a journalist to not deceive their readers. But I
guess we're going to let that slide, and demand public figures speak in such a
way that is impossible to misrepresent or take wrongly out of context.
Assuming that's even possible...

~~~
geofft
> _But I guess we 're going to let that slide, and demand public figures speak
> in such a way that is impossible to misrepresent or take wrongly out of
> context. Assuming that's even possible..._

That is literally the job description, yes.

Sure, you will sometimes fail at it. Sure, I will sometimes write bugs in my
code. If I deliberately write code without tests and ignore code review and
cause problems in production, my employer would be justified in firing me -
not because I wrote bugs, everyone writes bugs sometimes, but because I made
no effort to avoid them. Similarly, the occasional gaffe is understandable,
but using your official work email address to talk at length on irrelevant
subjects in ways that are easy to misinterpret is being deliberately
irresponsible.

You should hold journalists accountable for telling wrong stories, but you
should also expect that journalists, too, will get things wrong sometime. The
robustness principle indicates that you'll have a better time in practice
being careful and precise about what you say than having high expectations
about how others interpret it.

~~~
panny
Headline news: geofft@HN states, "I deliberately write code without tests and
ignore code review and cause problems in production" and goes on to say "my
employer would be justified in firing me" \- - vice.com

~~~
geofft
That's fine, because such a story is implausible to anyone who knows me or has
heard of me. Go ahead and publish it. I support your right to free speech. Do
you?

(Also, my job is technical and not PR, and I have been arguing consistently
that both RMS and the free software movement would have been better off if he
had made himself a role that was primarily technical and not PR.)

~~~
deogeo
> Go ahead and publish it. I support your right to free speech. Do you?

Even free-speech extremists such as myself and the US Supreme Court don't
support libel.

~~~
geofft
I've long suspected that people who virtue signal about free speech don't
actually believe in it nearly as much as the people who genuinely have
something to say.

~~~
panny
And now you have proof; The "it's free as in speech" FSF has fired their
founder for something he said.

------
zzo38computer
Even if I may disagree with some of his opinions, that does not mean that I
disagree with all of them. But whether I agree with it or not is not the
point. Rather, is that you should not try to argue about sexual norms when
trying to discuss free software instead; on your personal website you can
discuss whatever you want whether I agree or not.

"...he prioritizes his interest in debating about sexual norms over his
interest in leading and growing the free software community." Whether or not
it is true, it would seem to me that, debates about sexual norms are off of
the topic of the discussion of free software, and should be kept out of their
mailing lists (but he can post it on his own personal general-purpose mailing
lists if he has opinion of it, but not the one for MIT or FSF, please). But if
he has something to say about free software then he should say.

------
antiuniverse
>Some excerpts from many years ago did defend the alleged liberty of children
to have sex – even with adults – “if the child accepted it”. For example, in
2003 Stallman wrote

>>"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not
indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)"

>In 2006 he was skeptical of the claim that “voluntary” pedophilia harmed
children. He wrote something similar in January 2013, but within limits.

>This author opposes such an opinion! However, Stallman later changed his mind
and, on 14 September 2019, (belatedly) retracted it.

YIKES. I hadn't even heard that part. Convenient timing to suddenly change his
views on the subject.

------
gweijers
Seriously, if a young lady one third your age, who you have never met before,
in the retinue of a ostentatiously wealthy guy, would present herself to you
for sex, and you don’t question the circumstances you are willfully ignoring a
situation that’s likely illegal. Stallman was defending the indefensible here.

~~~
panny
Where was that young lady's parents? Do you typically let your underage
daughter travel with a playboy billionaire for the stated purpose of giving
massages to his clients?

~~~
JetSpiegel
How is that better? Isn't your moral obligation to denounce that situation?

~~~
panny
Her father was directly responsible for her situation, being her legal
guardian. RMS is not responsible for her situation at all and has a right to
have his opinion about it.

