
A Reflection on the Departure of RMS - rwolf
https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84
======
geofft
For some context, Thomas Bushnell was the chief architect of the HURD from its
founding in 1990 until 2003. He understands the FSF and Richard Stallman as
well as anyone does.

~~~
speedplane
> Thomas Bushnell was the chief architect of the HURD from its founding in
> 1990 until 2003. He understands the FSF and Richard Stallman as well as
> anyone does.

I invited Stallman to speak at my law school, along with other high ranking
FSF members. I may have worshiped him at the time, but many of the tight-laced
budding lawyers in attendance thought he was weird, mildly anti-social, and
did not understand his relevance. Developers "got it", but most law students
didn't connect. The traits that endeared him to the software community cut
against him when trying to reach a broader audience.

Even though "open source" is everywhere right now, the GPL and true sharing of
code is not. The Apache license, which allows you to do what you want and not
share any changes, rules the day. I wonder if a more mainstream leader, who
was just as committed to copyleft software would have been more effective.

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scohesc
I'm pretty sure RMS exhibits most of all of the symptoms of Asperger's and
would immediately get the diagnosis if he walked into a psychiatrists' office.

It's a bit ignorant for Bushnell to be degrading RMS by calling him a "a whiny
child who has never reached the emotional maturity to treat people decently"
when the man 99.9% likely cannot cognitively do so.

It's really unfortunate that people with Asperger's (potentially like RMS) are
at a massive disadvantage when holding positions of any kind of power in a
public setting.

~~~
rongenre
RMS has all the resources he needs to get an Asperger's diagnosis and
appropriate therapy.

~~~
malandrew
Why should those that are aspie modify themselves to satisfy those that are
neurotypical instead of those that are neurotypical learning how to work with
aspies?

Not saying the aspies shouldn't work on themselves, but it should be a two way
street, where NTs also learn to recognize and tolerate aspies.

~~~
geofft
> _Why should those that are aspie modify themselves to satisfy those that are
> neurotypical instead of those that are neurotypical learning how to work
> with aspies?_

This isn't an either-or question. _Everyone_ needs to learn how to work
productively with other people, if they wish to succeed at multi-person
endeavors. For some people it's harder, sure, but that doesn't change the
reality on the ground that you can't just say "The fifty of us have decided
that we prefer being antisocial, and therefore we're going to start a
community for it" and expect it to work.

Also, this argument does quite a disservice to women with Asperger's who are
harassed out of communities because they lack the inherent social confidence
to stand up for themselves when a powerful man acts abusive and other people
defend him by saying "He probably has Asperger's." Maybe neurotypicals should
learn how to recognize _those_ aspies and stand up for them?

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zozbot234
I'm quite willing to entertain the notion that RMS was a problem in _some_
sense (though, if he has been 'coddled' for _decades_ , one has to wonder if
that problem was due to any fault of his own that he ought to have been
cognizant of!) But pay attention to what this post is _actually_ saying. It's
inappropriate to defend Minsky in the wake of the Epstein scandal? (And there
_are_ people, considered reliable by others, who have said that when sex was
inappropriately offered to Minsky, he turned the offer down! Of course RMS did
not say _that_ , and what he did say was rather tone deaf to say the least.
But still...) RMS must go because he is fat and ugly, and thus makes women
uncomfortable ( _the horror_!) even when he's simply trying to joke around and
be charming? Come on.

~~~
NateEag
I suggest you read the articles linked in the posted link, and also this story
by Steven Levy:

[https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-
of...](https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of-the-
clueless-nerd/)

Threatening to kill yourself if someone won't go out with you is terrible
behavior at a bunch of levels: [https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-
stallman-appendix...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-
appendix-a-a7e41e784f88) (search for "When I was a teen freshman").

It's clear that Stallman was not just "trying to joke around and be charming".

Even if that were his actual intent, acceptable intent does not justify bad
behavior.

~~~
jeegsy
"The fall of the clueless nerd" indeed. The headline in the wired story linked
triggers the hell out of me. I suppose we have come full circle, Nerds suck,
then they were cool and now they have been consigned back to uncool again. For
the life of me, based on the snippets i've seen regarding his interactions
with women, the only advice I can give him and ppl like him if they could have
a do-over is stay away from women period. Which causes other problems but I
will gladly have those problems than have an icon of an industry/space that I
love be exiled in such an ignominious fashion.

~~~
speedplane
> the only advice I can give him and ppl like him if they could have a do-over
> is stay away from women period

Stallman could have been a quirky, uncompromising, and passionate personality
and still treat women like equals. Being a "genius" is not a good (or even
sensical) excuse to treat people poorly. If anything, it shows you're not
really a genius after all.

~~~
nessus42
> If anything, it shows you're not really a genius after all.

Plenty of geniuses have not treated people well. Newton was a complete
asshole. Even Einstein, who was a staunch defender of civil liberties at a
time when most of his peers weren't, wrote some rather unpleasant things about
the Chinese in his personal journal.

I agree completely that being a genius is no excuse for treating people
poorly. But unfortunately history is littered with such people.

~~~
speedplane
> Plenty of geniuses have not treated people well. Newton was a complete
> asshole. Even Einstein ... wrote some rather unpleasant things about the
> Chinese in his personal journal. ... being a genius is no excuse for
> treating people poorly. But unfortunately history is littered with such
> people.

I suspect that many of these "geniuses" only became difficult personalities
after they recieved recognition and had a taste for power. Power corrupts, it
allows people to do things without regarding people that may be affected by
their actions.

I don't think there's just a simple correlation between people deemed geniuses
and them having difficult personalities. Rather, I suspect there's a causal
effect between being granted the "genius" title and abusing the accompanying
power that leads to a difficult personality.

