
Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him - lelf
https://medium.com/@whoisylvia/richard-stallman-has-been-vilified-by-those-who-dont-know-him-a3907b25b4c7
======
favorited
Here[0] is a post by someone else who (by his own account) "worked for RMS
longer than any other programmer."

While he obviously has had a long relationship with Stallman, one of his key
takeaways was:

"RMS’s loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate
responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior. It does not matter if they
are appropriate responses to a single email thread, because they are the right
thing in the total situation."

Which I think is very well said. So while Paull's assessment that people's
reaction to some email quotes is out-of-proportion, this is really just the
proverbial straw on the back of the camel.

[0] [https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-
depa...](https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-
rms-18e6a835fd84)

~~~
ralfd
And here [0] is someone else who (by his own accord) worked with both RMS and
Bushnell and is saying Bushnell is bullshitting and grinding an axe:

[0]
[https://mobile.twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/11744336549420...](https://mobile.twitter.com/thomas_lord/status/1174433654942007297?p=v)

> Bushnell and I overlapped in our employment at FSF. ... The general culture
> of inclusiveness and tolerance that RMS fostered meant that, at least when I
> was there alongside Bushnell, that social circle in and around the
> organization was feminized and all the stronger for it. This does not mean,
> of course, that RMS (or any of us) never gave offense or acted stupidly. But
> Bushnell's portrait showing a depraved sexist coddled by this or that MIT
> prof. is simply bullshit, and Bushnell probably knows or should know that in
> his heart.

~~~
strenholme
Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions
which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which
were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered
job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019.

For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree
with the whole “free love” movement and think sex _should_ only be done in a
lifetime monogamous commitment.

I have met and have had dinner with RMS; he came off to me as a very kind
person who has very strong principles. I do not see the imaginary monster that
the outrage clickbait media is trying to make RMS be in him.

~~~
input_sh
> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child
> pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as
> no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and
> narrowmindedness.

June 28th 2003: [http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-
aug.html](http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html)

> I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The
> arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't
> voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea
> that their little baby is maturing.

[https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-
jun.html#05%20June%20...](https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-
jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29)

~~~
strenholme
I mention this elsewhere in this sub-thread, but RMS was not completely out of
line in 2003 or 2006 writing those kind of things. It was an era when it was
still an open question whether the Wikipedia should have pro-pedophilia
advocacy in their entries.

For the record, I have never endorsed those positions [1], but I also see that
they were on the fringe of acceptable discussion at the time.

[1] See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_mo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pedophile_movement/Archive_13&diff=prev&oldid=4770710)
for how I felt about pro-pedophile advocacy back in 2004, in an era when a
small outspoken fringe worked really hard to make it part of the Wikipedia.

~~~
mantoto
Just because a few people where discussing this doesn't make it out of line. I
remember 2003-2006 well enough. There was no discussion in society about this.

~~~
stuaxo
This - it may be the case that Wikipedia was discussing this, but mainstream
society was just the same as now.

The episode of Brass eye lambasting the scares about it actually came out in
2001, so the assertion is nonsense.

------
flippinburgers
If you read the article she notes that the infamous "hot ladies" photo was the
result of someone else writing and then snapping that shot of his office door.

People only see what they want to see. I see a bunch of people beating up on
and attacking an awkward "nerd". It reminds me of high school.

~~~
zaroth
But on Twitter all you see is this;

[https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1172283772428906496?s=21](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1172283772428906496?s=21)

~~~
coleifer
Sarah Mei alternates between aggressive, mocking, and combative. She has no
sense of humor. Her worldview is unbelievably bleak and threatening. And she
views herself as special -- someone "woke". It's terrible to behold.

The truth is that people make mistakes. People are entitled to their own
opinions, however much you may disagree with them. The world exists outside
one's self, and any one person just a small, small part of it. The world is
not to blame if I feel hurt or threatened, and life is not fair. But within
this world we have complete freedom. Do not try to take that away.

~~~
parasubvert
Sarah Mei is just defending her own freedom to want to exist in a professional
capacity without harrassment.

Who's taking freedom away? RMS is still a free man. He's just lost his
privileged positions.

------
chasing
> He takes everything literally and doesn’t necessarily take feelings and the
> reactions of others into account when making statements that are outside the
> bounds of his expertise in free software.

Whelp, then no one should be _that_ surprised when people stop taking his
feelings into account and decide they no longer want to be associated with
him.

Not being an asshole is a two-way street.

~~~
qzx_pierri
He’s autistic. Suddenly the people who were annoyingly vocal about being
“inclusive” are forgetting Stallman’s disability. He says “creepy” things
because he doesn’t understand social cues or casual communication at a certain
level. Everyone in this thread demonizing RMS should be ashamed of themselves.
This is the same reason why he can’t hold a relationship, or why he sleeps in
his office. He’s just far out there - This doesn’t take anything away from his
hard work, his genius, or his dedication. He never had a chance. People look
at the “evidence”, but refuse to look at it with the proper context.

~~~
kelnos
If you have a condition where you have trouble interacting socially with
people, while also running an influential organization and acting as its
figurehead, you need to be able to mitigate these issues. If this means you
have an assistant who you run emails by before sending them, so be it. If your
assistant also takes a look at your office (given to you as a favor by a
respected educational institution) and tells you that "Knight of Hot Ladies"
is not appropriate, then you take it down. If female colleagues are putting
plants in their offices because they know you don't like plants and it will
deter you from visiting them, you either need to recognize that on your own
and do something about it, or allow a trusted someone to help you fix the
situation.

Autism isn't an excuse for bad behavior. It can _explain_ some bad behavior,
but that bad behavior cannot continue over decades; it must be dealt with in
some manner.

I cannot believe people keep defending him given the accounts of what he's
actually done (assuming you believe the accounts). What about the women who
have been creeped out or harassed by him, or who have left the field because
of him? Don't they get any consideration?

As Matthew Garrett has pointed out (through personal experience with RMS),
"the problem isn't that he's unable to understand, the problem is that he's
unwilling to"[0]. So I don't buy the "because autism" line here.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1172422966904160257](https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1172422966904160257)

~~~
vnth93
If he had the capacity to comprehend any of this he wouldn't be the sort of
person who talked about the Knight of Hot Ladies at work. Unless Garrett
somehow turned out to be a some kind of medical expert, his opinion on
Stallman is about valid as Stallman's on anyone else.

~~~
loeg
You don't have to be a doctor to diagnose asshole behavior.

~~~
vnth93
But you do to judge what people with any given type of mental health issue can
and cannot do.

~~~
kelnos
I think that's fair, but I think there are also a lot of people in this
discussion who reject out of hand the idea of: "this person shouldn't ever be
in a position of authority over people because their mental health issues
cause them to act around those people in ways that end up being construed as
inappropriate at best, and actively making people feel unsafe at worst".

A handicap might mean that you just can't do certain things. No, it's not
fair, but it's not like we expect the a quadriplegic person to be a long-
distance runner... at least not with the medical technology available to us
today. I hear a lot of rhetoric (that I agree with) around how a mental
illness should be treated just like any other illness and not stigmatized as
something to be embarrassed about. But it goes both ways: if a mental illness
is just like any other illness (or handicap), then it's perfectly possible
that some mental illnesses might mean that some activities aren't feasible, at
least not until we understand them well enough to provide better treatments.

------
twblalock
His job, as the head of the FSF and GNU, was to represent those organizations
to the public, which includes many people who don't know him. Being judged and
vilified by people who don't know you is what happens to public figures.

If your behavior brings disrepute on the organizations you represent, you
should let those organizations find different representatives. RMS was right
to step down. He is still free to say whatever he wants as an individual
without damaging the reputations of GNU and the FSF.

~~~
DocTomoe
I agree. That's why I cancelled my recurring donations to the FSF after this
debacle. There are other, more worthy causes than an organization which
considers public opinion to be more important than integrity, an organization
that essentially axes it's central figure because of some internet trolls.

------
floatingatoll
Richard Stallman has been vilified by those who experienced him.

His actions are reported to repeatedly exceed what is permissible without
societal censure, regardless of the logic and/or reasoning behind them.

Knowing him is not necessary to react to him, and to tell stories of his
actions to others.

~~~
remarkEon
Imagine the world if Stallman had been excommunicated from tech after the
first awkward/offensive interaction he had with someone.

I sure wouldn’t.

Tangentially: I better not see anyone here lionize Steve Jobs ever again,
because he inflicted _actual physical trauma_ on people. He didn’t just piss
them off with his failure to recognize social cues.

~~~
oliyoung
Imagine the world where that person that didn't do the thing in tech because
of an "awkward/offensive interaction" with Stallman did that thing.

Imagine that multiplied by all the someones that didn't do any of the things
that had an awkward/offensive interaction with Stallman did those things.

These behaviours, ESPECIALLY by someone in such a influential position in our
industry, have a chilling effect on every person they affected.

~~~
dependenttypes
> Imagine the world where that person that didn't do the thing in tech because
> of an "awkward/offensive interaction" with Stallman did that thing.

It really seems like they are inflicting it on themselves though. Stallman is
not a gatekeeper.

------
ratsmack
The thing is though, the outrage mob usually doesn't care about facts. Their
outrage is always based on the heat of the moment. It even seems this mode has
been spilling over into our justice system lately, which is a very unfortunate
and a sad state of affairs.

~~~
ykevinator
And also, sometimes the mob is right. The mob is guilty of shooting first and
asking questions later but in this case, just read what he said and wrote, the
mob is both guilty and correct.

~~~
matz1
"Correct", sure, as in whichever side is the stronger and can force the other
to comply is the correct one.

------
menotyou43
Umm.... absolutely not. These quotes (directly from his site) beg to differ:

> “I am sceptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The
> arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t
> voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea
> that their little baby is maturing.”

> “There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing
> participation in pedophilia hurts children. Granted, children may not dare
> say no to an older relative, or may not realise they could say no; in that
> case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel
> imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed
> participation, a different issue.”

RMS isn't being "vilified," he's facing proper judgment for the stupid,
ignorant, and disgusting things he's said.

~~~
topmonk
>> Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

> Umm.... absolutely not. These quotes (directly from his site) beg to differ:

Do you know him? Aren't you vilifying him?

Having an unpopular opinion isn't grounds for "proper judgement" of being
constantly harassed by a mob every time his name is brought up.

~~~
kelnos
I don't personally know Charles Manson, but I think he is definitely deserving
of vilification.

Now, that doesn't mean that RMS (or anyone else) absolutely certainly deserves
being vilified by people who don't know them, but the entire premise is false:
knowing someone (personally, I assume is the implication?) is not a necessary
condition for condemning their behavior.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
It’s funny because this is exactly the type of argument that RMS would
probably make.

~~~
kelnos
I hadn't thought of that when writing it, but yeah, he probably might.

No one is claiming all his arguments are bad, or that all his arguments are
framed poorly, or that all his arguments ignore how they could offend or hurt
people. But some of them, arguably, do.

------
cable2600
They took his words out of context:

[https://medium.com/@richardsmith_76348/richard-stallman-
was-...](https://medium.com/@richardsmith_76348/richard-stallman-was-framed-
and-misquoted-c76302bdebe)

[https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-
stal...](https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/09/30/in-defense-of-richard-
stallman/?source=post_page-----c76302bdebe----------------------)

------
zby
We want our public figures to be predictable. When we lived in small bands we
knew the peoples our whole life and we could build a really good model of
their thinking. Later when we had bigger polities, we did not have that much
information about the leaders. Now we know all of what they say and do and any
time - but what is reported are only the deviations from the expectations - in
our perception they are not balanced by the whole daily predictable lifes. To
be public figure now means to be a good actor, understand what the public
thinks about you and constantly adjust your behaviour to fit in and never be
caught on any deviation from the public figure image. Stallman is not good at
adjusting behaviour. He is still pretty predictable in the geek culture - but
for the wider public he is really weird.

See also this blogchain: [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/series/predictable-
identities/](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/series/predictable-identities/)

And in particular this quote from another article: "The perception of
creepiness is a response to the ambiguity of threat. […] While they may not be
overtly threatening, individuals who display unusual patterns of nonverbal
behavior, odd emotional responses or highly distinctive physical
characteristics are outside the norm, and by definition unpredictable." from
[https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.20...](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.03.003)

------
dreamcompiler
The fact that one is neuro-atypical doesn't mean one cannot also be an
asshole. RMS was both, and people finally got fed up with the latter bit.

~~~
lallysingh
He's a bad representative for neuro-atypicals

~~~
curiousgal
List one neuro-atypical with as many achievements and as much world-changing
added value.

To me this whole ordeal is simple to look at:

RMS: created software that shaped today's world and hurt some people's
feelings.

RMS' criticizers: ...?

~~~
dreamcompiler
Just one? Temple Grandin comes immediately to mind. In our field Bill Gates
probably qualifies as high-functioning neuro-atypical. And then there's
Richard Greenblatt who built the first Lisp machines that eventually became
the counter-inspiration for RMS's whole career.

------
xenadu02
There's a rule: If Stallman is invited to speak at your conference under NO
circumstances should you allow him to stay at your place, nor at the home of
anyone you care about or even don't outright hate (ask Miguel de Icaza about
it some time).

Why does that rule exist? Because he has, many times, shown up and refused to
leave for weeks. He brings random flings back to your place. He refuses to
shower or observe basic hygiene. He's the worst houseguest imaginable.

Hell, why did VA Linux send an email all female employees letting them know
when Stallman would be visiting so they could work from home or make
themselves scarce? For that matter, how many people (especially women) dropped
out of MIT, moved to another major, or left the lab because of Stallman?

Why does Stallman feel entitled to abuse other people's hospitality? Why does
he get to do as he pleases? Why are his feelings and his experiences the only
ones that matter?

I think this has bearing on the current issues: Stallman has been protected by
those around him. He was protected by Minsky early on. This taught him that he
could do as he pleased without consequences. He was never forced to learn
socially acceptable behavior.

You sometimes see the same thing with child stars or pampered celebrities: No
one ever tells them "no". They never face real consequences for their actions.
Everyone around them makes excuses, either because they look up to them or
because they're the gravy train. Things escalate until a) they cross the line
so badly they can't weasel out of it or b) some "straw that broke the camel's
back" situation arises. In situation "a" the person is often confused and
bewildered because they've done as they pleased for a very long time. They
don't understand why the current situation should be different. In situation
"b" people often focus on the trivialities of the current incident, ignoring
everything that came before it.

Am I saying Stallman should have been run out on a rail early on? Not at
all... but Minsky shouldn't have excused Stallman's behavior. The first time
Stallman cornered a woman in an elevator at MIT and blocked her from leaving
Minsky should have, at the least, sat him down and said "stop it or you are
out". We do a great disservice by sweeping complaints under the rug or
excusing "geniuses". Bad behavior doesn't usually magically clear up, it tends
to get worse over time as people learn they are the chosen ones and won't be
questioned.

Does Stallman deserve the hate he's getting as a result of some posts to an
email list? I don't know.

Should Stallman have been kicked off the FSF board a long time ago?
Absolutely.

~~~
kragen
> The first time Stallman cornered a woman in an elevator at MIT and blocked
> her from leaving

Is this a thing that happened or something you just thought up? I've talked to
women who worked with Stallman at MIT and complained to me about ways he hit
on them and they never mentioned anything like that.

------
haolez
Kind of meta, but I don’t think Hacker News downvotes are being used as
intended in this thread. There are a lot of well constructed arguments exposed
in a polite manner that are downvoted.

~~~
mattsfrey
lmao, welcome to hn comment section circa 2012+

------
paulproteus
> I do not excuse Richard Stallman’s remarks, nor do I challenge the actions
> of both the MIT Media Lab and the FSF for terminating his positions with
> them.

It wasn't the Media Lab with which Richard had a position; it was MIT CSAIL.

------
johnny22
Anybody else surprised this is posted on medium of all places? I'm surprised
Stallman would agree to such a thing.

~~~
jasonvorhe
So he should get to decide where is name is being mentioned? As if it wasn't
enough that he's dictating which video streaming codec is used for his talks.

------
airbreather
I am finding the endless outrage about thoughts to be extremely tedious, I can
see where the snowflake terminology came from.

At least reserve outrage for actions, thought police are Stasi style.

------
Pfhreak
Dude has gone out of his way to make other people uncomfortable. I use
singular they for my pronouns. He's so bothered by this that he goes out of
his way to not only tell me I'm wrong for doing so, but to invent his own
language for referring to folks who use gender neutral pronouns (which no one
will understand, because it's not widely used).

I would certainly question whether I was welcome at an event where he was a
speaker/key presenter. Even if I was told I was welcome, I suspect others
would feel emboldened to antagonistically challenge my pronouns. To me, it
makes sense that if he's causing people to consider not attending events or
signing up for his causes, then he's maybe not the right 'perse' for the job.

~~~
marmada
I don't understand why his pronoun scheme is antagonistic. He still respects
that you want gender neutral pronouns, he just won't use they because he
thinks they has a standard plural meaning.

I don't understand why people have an obligation to use "they" specifically as
long as they respect the gender neutral concept.

~~~
Pfhreak
> I don't understand why people have an obligation to use "they" specifically
> as long as they respect the gender neutral concept.

The same reason we use people's names. Or their nicknames. Or their middle
names sometimes. Or their stage names, noms de plume, or noms de guerre. When
you are introduced to someone you expect to be spending some time around, you
might ask them, "Do you prefer Henry or Hank? Charles or Chuck? William or
Bill?" And if they say, "Actually, I use my middle name, David." you wouldn't
immediately say, "I'll go ahead and use your full first name because it's an
equally equivalent name for you, because I'm respecting the concept of you.

Culturally, we already accept a wide variety of markers for people in a host
of different situations, and have generally settled on "it's polite to try and
refer to people in the way they prefer."

To me, it's as if RMS had posted a blog post that said, "I propose we use only
people's full and legal names when referring to them, because I believe that
system works better."

~~~
inimino
Just a few points to present another perspective.

\- RMS's main reason for introducing "per, pers, ..." was to use them in
written English; this was just his own weird solution to a problem that a lot
of people have noticed in modern English, the lack of a good singular pronoun
for "a person" in general, without referring to anyone in particular. Lots of
people have come up with crazy ideas for this, not many people are passionate
enough about their use of language to write long blog posts about them, but,
well, rms isn't everyone.

\- Using people's preferred names is a matter of common courtesy, and this has
been the case pretty much for all time. People having preferred pronouns, in
contrast, is relatively new, and even 50 years ago nobody would have been
familiar with this idea. It would be charitable to not judge an older
generation by the standards of the young when something is changing even
within our lifetimes.

\- Insisting on using only full names would be bizarre, but surely nobody
would take that as a personal attack, because presumably nobody would feel
"singled out" by this. I think if you want to know if RMS was trying to
antagonize non-binary folks or if he was rather just being prickly and a
little eccentric about language, you would need to look further than this one
idea of his. As far as I know, he is rather progressive on these issues, and
he also has a history of passionately advocating unusual word choices, almost
none of which have caught on, so I would lean towards this being just another
example of his eccentric opinions about language, rather than trying to
antagonize anyone.

~~~
pseudalopex
Nobody said he was _trying_ to antagonize nonbinary people. The problem is how
he responded when people told him he had.

People having preferred pronouns is a new idea in most English speaking
cultures because intersex, transgender, and nonbinary identities are new ideas
in most English speaking cultures. Stallman doesn't use an older generation's
standard. He says we should respect other people's gender identities by using
the appropriate pronouns.[1]

Many people felt singled out when Facebook insisted on full and legal names,
for what it's worth.[2]

[1] [https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-
pronouns.html](https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-
name_policy_cont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-
name_policy_controversy)

~~~
inimino
> Nobody said he was trying to antagonize nonbinary people.

The first sentence of this thread: "Dude has gone out of his way to make other
people uncomfortable."

I'm simply saying that, on the basis of your [1] alone, I would not come to
that interpretation.

------
_nalply
I met Mr Stallman only once, so I don't know him, but remembering this only
encounter I feel that he is not one of those humans who wield power expertly.
So he fell. I think this is like a putsch. We will see what happens with GNU
the next ten years.

I don't mean to exculpate nor denounce him, just point out that he is
different.

------
PHGamer
even if he is an asshole, he has the right to say what he wants. I sorta get
FSF ditching him because linux is going corporate (which I am very much
against). but MIT (and western schools in general) are no longer places where
free speech is allowed and that is the greater atrocity.

~~~
jasonvorhe
MIT first needs to clean up the shit show they've allowed to foster in their
midst with regards to taking funding from convicted rapists of adolescent
girls first.

------
bechampion
I met him around 2002 , he was nuts already . He says shit he would've gotten
away in the early days of the internet but he doesn't now . He hasn't change
much to be fair it's just now what he says gets echoed in social networks.

------
mirimir
Also: [https://medium.com/@richardsmith_76348/richard-stallman-
was-...](https://medium.com/@richardsmith_76348/richard-stallman-was-framed-
and-misquoted-c76302bdebe)

------
thekevan
Stallman came up with a great idea, got it started but has been a toxic
personality in the community.

The open source movement was created because of his involvement, yet
flourished in spite of his personality.

------
amai
At least Stallman resigned himself. Other presidents are doing much more
horrible things and do not plan to resign ever.

------
jasonvorhe
The amount of people still defending m and claiming that this is merely mob
justice is shocking.

------
baron_harkonnen
We are, sadly, entering a new age of conformity. Aligning yourself with what
main stream society thinks is correct is now more important than anything
else.

The response of course is that "bad behavior should never be excused,
regardless of ability!" which leads to a losing argument in which we try to
say what kind of good excuses what kind of bad. But this presupposes the
conformist stance: that fitting in with the norms is the default behavior, and
violations of it must be explained.

The Hacker culture from which everything we have today in tech arose. Which is
the culture that Stallman arguably helped create. The culture which makes this
site "Hacker" news, is one in which doing something interesting is more
important than anything else. The presupposition from this more iconoclastic
view is: why aren't you doing something interesting? Adhering to norms because
it's the "safe" thing to do is the true aberrant behavior.

It's a shame too since now of all points in human history we need more radical
thinkers and people who are willing to question the status quo, which btw is
inherently unsustainable. But maybe it's this fear that leads us rushing back
to deep moral systems likes religious fantastics when their faith is
questioned.

~~~
aonsager
Yes there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it
without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. Stallman was viewed as a
toxic individual who caused harm, and this is what our society is trying to
weed out.

I still believe, perhaps naively, that it's possible to maintain not-normal
opinions without causing pain to the people around you. And this is something
that everyone needs to do, whether you're in the majority or the minority.

~~~
jamesrcole
Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously
offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful
to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different
sexualities.

For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that
others find unpleasant.

You might say, but it’s not _those kinds_ of “harmful” views we want to stop,
only the genuinely harmful ones. But who gets to decide which views are
harmful?

On a different note, I think that, for creativity, it’s important to be able
to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself.
And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess
everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may
bring in the outrage mob, either now or at some point anywhere potentially
years later.

~~~
glangdale
I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say,
enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women.

Suppose there _is_ some future society that has decided that weird stinky
dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively
hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting
are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own?

If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual
harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and
there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better
than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now.

This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc.
Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay
relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that
were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are
doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society
as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because
of its effect on the person _involved_ (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously
as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks
about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them.

IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult.
People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror)
professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to
get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather
than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the
sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his
thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.

~~~
yocheckitdawg
The argument isn't that enabling weird dudes to inappropriately hit on women
is the progress we are after, that is a complete misunderstanding of the
point.

The argument is that often renegade and maverick thinkers are deeply deeply
flawed on an individual level and would do stuff like that. This doesn't
really fit well into the "progress category" of civil rights, it's more about
advances in technology.

TBH I don't know jack about Richard Stallman, but my understanding is he
played a huge role in developing the idea of free software which has had
enormous benefit to the world in general.

The question is does the benefit the ideas and works of Richard Stallman have
brought warrant the personal costs he has imposed on many people around him?
And in the future, are the potential personal costs another Richard Stallman
would bring worth the advances they could bring in another area?

To put it even more bluntly, will it be possible to have the types of
significant progress we desire in technology or what area, while excluding
people who on a more personal level we find deeply problematic? Can the best
parts of a Richard Stallman or Steve Jobs be separated from the worst parts?
Can we in a sense "sanitise" progress so that only people we find socially
acceptable are the ones who will do it? What if the people who will do most
for humanity's collective properity are (a) assholes (b) unprofessional, and
(c) never the shut the hell up about stuff they know nothing about?

I don't have an answer here, but it is going to be an issue worth thinking
about going into the future.

~~~
glangdale
I'm not sure that the entire careers of a Stallman or a Jobs are inseparable
from them acting like dickheads at some point in their career.

It may be the case that having "Future Stallman" or "Future Jobs" be persuaded
to rein in their excesses (rather than being tolerated and encouraged to be
raging assholes, at least in some contexts and ways) might be of benefit both
to the people around them, but also, the talented individuals themselves.

Maybe we can apply discussions of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" also
to badly behaved white middle class people too, and they could do better?

~~~
thatcat
There's no future Jobs or Stallman who is going to change the status quo of
technology, but be agreeable and not neurotic.

~~~
glangdale
First of all, this is bullshit. There are plenty of perfectly agreeable people
in computing who have had massive impact. I've met Ken Thompson and Dennis
Ritchie, for example, and both were kind and pleasant people. I don't recall
hearing that Berners-Lee is anything but pleasant. While there are plenty of
disagreeable sorts (I hear Dijkstra was a bit of a Djick) there is by no means
a hard and fast rule that those who change the status quo of technology are
dickheads. And some of the people who were neurotic aren't necessarily bad to
other people, and historically, it's easy to point to some people who might
have had much saner lives but for the times they lived in (Alan Turing).

Second, even the people like Jobs and Stallman can moderate their toxic
behavior towards other people if incentives are in place. That doesn't mean
that they will be _normal_. They will almost certainly continue to be rude,
abrupt, and a little weird. They don't have to be nice.

There's something bizarrely fetishistic about the assumption that letting
people like Jobs and Stallman do whatever they want is essential to their
success. It's like Delilah cutting Samson's hair and taking away his strength.

~~~
yocheckitdawg
Few differences here though.

Thompson and Ritchie were technical pioneers but weren't philosophical
pioneers. Their work was entirely about implementing technical solutions, it
had nothing to do with the philosophical structure within which those
solutions were made.

Jobs and Stallman were different. They had strong and assertive views about
how technology "should" be, not just how things would get done.

Jobs was all about accessible, easy to use, and sexy being important to
technology.

Stallman is all about resisting the influence on corporate and governmental
interests on the development of software.

I mean look at this list of suggestions Stallman made to Microsoft.
[https://mspoweruser.com/richard-stallmans-10-suggestions-
to-...](https://mspoweruser.com/richard-stallmans-10-suggestions-to-
microsoft/) This is entirely about the philosophy of how computer software
development should occur, not really anything to do with the technical aspects
of it.

Richard Stallman sounds like a bit of a paranoid nutter. Is it safe to assume
that his paranoia and personal idiosyncrasies can be separated from his
philosophical views of the world (many of which are fundamentally about
empowering the individual technology user against corporate and governmental
interests which many of us agree with)? The jury is out on that one imo. He
has seeded his ideas successfully and now they permeate the culture so perhaps
he as an individual is no longer necessary to the movement.

But what about the next Stallman? A man or woman with a vision of how the
world should or could be that is informed by their personal flaws? Will they
be determined as to problematic to be involved in the industry and we will
lose out on a unique way of looking at the world that would leave as all
better off? I don't know. None of us do. It's an open question.

------
coleifer
His life's been ruined by a shrieking Twitter mob. Who's next? These sjws are
complete parasites. They never fork. Just go after vulnerable people at the
top and insinuate their way into established institutions.

------
aspaceman
I think what this comes down to is pretty simple. Does Richard Stallman make
women at MIT uncomfortable?

If yes, then Richard Stallman shouldn't be a leader at MIT.

~~~
megous
Why just women?

~~~
amp108
> Why just women?

Because they are the people who have been made uncomfortable by his behavior.
If it were men, or also men, I'm sure the parent post would have read "men or
women". This is not an abstract case, so implying that somehow men are
underrepresented when dealing with a person whose (alleged) behavior has been
targeted at women sounds a little petty.

Imagine someone is accused of abusing children, and the local prosecutor says
"if we find that any children have been harmed, we will press charges". Do you
really think you need to correct them by saying "but what about adults?" It's
unnecessary, and distracts from the actual case.

~~~
megous
The post just asks a question. I'm sure plenty of men were also made
uncomfortable by his behavior and stubborness with regards to free software.
I'm just asking why exclude those?

I don't think doing uncomfortable things necessarily means harmful abuse, so
your metaphor doesn't help me much.

------
nautilus12
I guess we've just reached the point as a society where we've decided that we
enjoy the professional bloodlust of burning anyone at the stake that isn't a
paradigm of behavior to leave any room for forgiveness. Welcome to the new
Salem.

~~~
parasubvert
Oh, bring me the smelling salts. It is no such thing. RMS is still alive. And
in charge of GNU.

He lost some privileged positions because society has decided that it's time
for women get powerful.

------
Mugwort
Most programmers aren't worth even a pimple on Richard Stallman's ass. Most
people too.

------
Mizza
The thing that I find particularly obscene about these cyber lynchings is that
the leaders are almost always the most privileged people in the entire world:
youngish white college graduates who live in urban California and work for
evil surveillance advertising companies or banks - in the 80's, they called
them "yuppies."

I think it must be a way to deal with the guilt of getting paid gobs of cash
while walking past dozens of homeless people every day - feel better (and more
importantly, look better) by saving the hypothetically oppressed from the
opinions of potential tyrants. I'm also assuming once Trump is out of office
it'll all be back to business as usual.

~~~
mindslight
Invoking "Trump" needlessly cheapened your comment, which was otherwise
relevant (although I'd include "journalists" as the leaders). It's always
"business as usual" \- regardless of which skinjob has won the job of
absorbing outrage.

~~~
happytoexplain
I thought calling it an "obscene cyber lynching" committed by "young white
college graduates who live in urban California and work for evil companies"
cheapened it quite severely before even getting to the latter half of the
comment.

~~~
Mizza
That's really the main point, though. People complain about "punching down" in
comedy, but that's all this ever looks like to me. It's always somebody who
works at Google, or Facebook, or Salesforce, or blah blah blah, which is
something that I consider to be far, far more egregious than telling off color
jokes or defending the reputation of your deceased friend. If you spy on
people or send spam to make money, you're a bad person and you've got no
grounds at all to tell other people how to think. It smacks of the bourgeoisie
telling the peasants to get in line. That's my opinion.

~~~
aspaceman
To be clear, many progressives hold this same opinion.

------
unityByFreedom
Perhaps this author is unaware of the number of statements Stallman has made
regarding pedophilia on his website over the years [1]. If RMS has changed his
point of view, he can go back to those parts of his blog and add an update.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=pedophile+site%3Astallman.or...](https://www.google.com/search?q=pedophile+site%3Astallman.org)

~~~
NiekvdMaas
100% agreed. This is one of the worst examples:
[https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
aug.html#05%20Jun...](https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29)

I'm all for freedom of speech, but I don't see how people can defend these
kind of opinions he's advocating.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Yeah. It's not clear to me whether or not RMS still believes these things. He
may need time to collect himself. In the mean time, I don't understand blog
posts like this one that completely gloss over his past statements which
remain the same without further comment.

~~~
NiekvdMaas
Well... He updated the link 12 years later (last year) because the original
one was broken. So it's pretty much clear he still holds these beliefs.

If he made a statement that he changed his mind, I'd be happy to see it.

~~~
dependenttypes
[https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#14_Septe...](https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#14_September_2019_\(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong\))

and for 2016:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biograp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard&diff=727727586&oldid=727703442)

~~~
NiekvdMaas
Good to know! I stand corrected.

------
lilyball
> _As an active feminist and one who has witnessed much bad behavior among
> tech CEOs over the past 30 years, I think that accusing Richard Stallman of
> not supporting women, gays, or any other minority group is false. Look at
> his real history — […] — but his record in helping to give everyone in the
> world access to free software._

What kind of bullshit is this? Stallman's advocacy for open source _in no way
whatsoever_ makes him a champion for women, gay people, or any other
marginalized group, and does not even remotely excuse his behavior.

Sylvia, calling yourself a feminist doesn't actually make you one.

~~~
emiliobumachar
She has reasonably solid feminist credentials, which she presented up front,
probably to preempt accusations of sexism.

No True Scotsman would ever support Stallman?

~~~
lilyball
"Feminist credentials" aren't really a thing. It's not like there's an
organization you can carry a card for.

------
hota_mazi
> Look at his real history — not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his
> MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he
> removed but not before someone took a photo of it — but his record in
> helping to give everyone in the world access to free software. He has truly
> made our world a better, more free place.

Just because someone did good things doesn't automatically make the bad things
he said or did go away. This is a very dangerous position to hold.

Stallman has an established record going back more than ten years of saying
despicable things about women and children and the only reason why this
reckoning didn't happen to him until today is because people like the author
of this article gave him a pass for philosophical reasons.

She is part of the problem and one of the reasons why women are having such a
hard time in the industry today.

~~~
dependenttypes
> Just because someone did good things doesn't automatically make the bad
> things he said or did go away

This is not what your quote says.

> Stallman has an established record going back more than ten years of saying
> despicable things about women and children

I would be interested to see them.

> She is part of the problem and one of the reasons why women are having such
> a hard time in the industry today.

This is a very bold claim, would you happen to have anything to base it off
other than her personal opinions that she expressed about Stallman?

------
olliej
No, he has been widely reported for decades that he behaved unprofessionally,
and harassed women who worked with him.

That it took him publicly taking the position that child sex work was
acceptable is the problem - his long history should have got him fired decades
ago.

~~~
dependenttypes
He did not say that...

------
ykevinator
If you assume he believes what he says, he is not qualified to teach kids.
Sorry, I don't ascribe the qualities to him that the author accuses me of
ascribing, but his views on child sex are deviant and unsafe.

------
jameslk
Stallman resigned from MIT and the FSF. So why are we still talking about it?
It's not going change any of this or exonerate his name. You only have one
reputation and once it's damaged, it's very hard to recover. So all this talk
is just arguments on the internet at this point. Time to move on.

Also, I realize this is an unpopular opinion here because of the lack of
awareness that most outside this community don't even know who Stallman is nor
care and can't accept they're wasting their time on this topic. The more he's
talked about with regards to this controversy, the more he will be known for
this issue and less about the things he fought over the decades for the free
software movement. Good job everyone.

~~~
noobermin
If it's over then what pain does it cause HN to discuss it here?

~~~
jameslk
This article and thread further alienates those in this community who are
affected by Stallman's comments and pushes them away. While providing no value
other than creating a venue for others to talk past each other and
upvoting/downvoting those who take their side. In other words, it's politics.

