
Richard Stallman steps down as as head of the GNU Project, effective immediately - sigio
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#28_September_2019_(GNU_Project)
======
geofft
Someone on Reddit says that his site might have been vandalized, and that it
was previously vandalized yesterday:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dambxx/stallman_step...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dambxx/stallman_steps_down_as_a_head_of_the_gnu_project/f1qz2l9/)

It's a bit suspicious because a) he just said two days ago that he has no
intention of stepping down from GNU [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-
gnu/2019-09/msg00008...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-
gnu/2019-09/msg00008.html) and b) there's another copy of the entry dated
yesterday, deeper on the page: [https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#27_September...](https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#27_September_2019_\(GNU_Project\))

It 100% wouldn't surprise me if he didn't have adequate security for his
personal website. He comes from a culture of leaving doors unlocked and
passwords unset, and he also doesn't actually participate in the modern web
(he has a daily cronjob that emails him text dumps of web pages he wants to
read, he doesn't "browse" the web in any me), and his personal site is
probably not actually run by the FSF or anyone else with experience in running
websites.

~~~
tptacek
I feel like I remember him running Unix servers back in the 1990s that were
_deliberately_ insecure, because computer security was itself immoral. I don't
know that he actually runs this site, though.

~~~
mcguire
Check the last section of [https://ftp.gnu.org/old-
gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_nod...](https://ftp.gnu.org/old-
gnu/Manuals/coreutils-4.5.4/html_node/coreutils_149.html):

" _Why GNU su does not support the `wheel ' group_

" _(This section is by Richard Stallman.)_

" _Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For
example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by
changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from
everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the
users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn 't know how to do that in Unix.)_

" _However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su
mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the
ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would
make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers._

" _I 'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to
supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this
idea strange at first. _"

~~~
new_realist
GNU Project founded out of persecution complex.

------
dependenttypes
There is a non-zero possibility that a rogue employee did this. He does not
sign his web stuff with his GPG key after all.

Also, it is there twice [https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#27_September...](https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-
oct.html#27_September_2019_\(GNU_Project\))

~~~
mrob
There seems to be something weird going on. Check archive.org's recent version
on the site:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190928070003/https://stallman....](https://web.archive.org/web/20190928070003/https://stallman.org/)

"What's bad about" section has a "Richard Stallman" link to the Medium post,
and the "donate to the Free Software Foundation" link goes to the "Richard
Stallman Eats Something From His Foot" Youtube video. The Youtube link is
especially suspicious because Youtube uses proprietary Javascript, which RMS
has never supported.

~~~
Sadkov
Javascript proprietary? Are you, people, all <redacted-expletive> here?

~~~
kazinator
"Youtube uses proprietary Javascript [code], which RMS never supported ..."

------
dimitar
I don't get why he doesn't simply apologize, take a few months break from
publicity to think things over and then move on.

Instead he seems to prefer to step down from what he has been doing for the
last 30 years. Does he really regret nothing?

On a human level I sympathize with the women he has offended (I know the story
is also about his behavior over the years), but I also worry about him as
well, I hope he stays in good health and spirit.

~~~
lone_haxx0r
Stallman is the least hypocritical person I've ever seen. So, that's not
happening unless he changes his mind about something he said.

Even if he changes his mind about some subjective things, he will keep saying
other things that are objectively true but people don't want to accept.

~~~
tptacek
Just because Stallman isn't a hypocrite doesn't mean things he says are
"objectively true". Stallman advocated for the legalization of ("consensual")
pedophilia, in those exact terms; that isn't a weird extrapolation of
something he said, but rather words he put on his own website.

~~~
oiq
He is "correct" in a way. It is the inevitable logical extension of current
society's view on sexual relationship (consent based). This is just a repeat
of what happened in 70s with a bunch of intellectuals: Foucault, Derrida,
Althusser, et al argued that age of consent should be abolished too [1]. Seems
like the most rational men always come to same conclusion.

Society slowly unravel that consent is such a fragile concept, and they have
to resort to some finite number (age) to strengthen that stance. But, as the
most rational amongst us found out, those numbers are indefensible too.

A better and more defensible stance is the one Catholic's have (Humanae
Vitae).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of_consent_laws)

~~~
dragonwriter
> It is the inevitable logical extension of current society's view on sexual
> relationship (consent based).

No, it's not; a consent based view does not logically imply that children are
capable of consent; in fact, the view that intoxication, mental disability,
and other factors can make adults incapable of consent at least strongly
supports an approach where children (to, perhaps, an age above the common ages
of consent) ought to be viewed as at least presumptively, and possibly
conclusively, unable to consent to sex; the dominant legal position is
consistent in outline, though there may be room to debate the particular
details.

> A better and more defensible stance is the one Catholic's have (Humanae
> Vitae).

Humanae Vitae didn't even reflect the most defensible stance within the
Catholic intelligentsia, which is why the Pope had to dump the position
adopted by the Second Vatican Council workgroup on the topic to issue it, and
why the document is widely disregarded by the faithful and even large segments
of the clergy and even heirarchy (see, e.g., the _Declaration of Königstein_
).

~~~
oiq
As you realized, you have to add bunch of qualifiers to make consent works:
age-of-consent, condition-of-consent, etc. The defense then shifted into
defending those qualifiers.

From system design perspective, it operates on lower level rule-based design.
This is weaker. I understand there's debate internally about Humanae Vitae,
and it's good. But at least it gets the core design stronger by operating on
higher level goal/paradigm constraint (the purpose of procreation)

~~~
dragonwriter
> But at least it gets the core design stronger by operating on higher level
> goal/paradigm constraint (the purpose of procreation)

That's actually not how it works; the intricacies of the dual procreative and
unitive function model in the theology under Humanae Vitae is no less complex
than that of the consent-based system, but it's just based on a moral system
with a larger number of specialized axioms; the consent-based system is based
on a simpler set of axioms, because it doesn't need a specific set of axioms
for sex; the principle of consent underlying the consent-based system of
sexual morality is the same one underlying all of the liberal enlightenment
political/social/economic ideology.

~~~
oiq
This conflates paradigm of a system with its rules (axiom). It's not the same.

------
psb
My feeling about Stallman is that he is that rare creature, a fundamentalist
lefty. Its a pretty lonely island and I'm actually a little surprised he has
lasted this long

~~~
typon
He's not a lefty. He's a fundamentalist libertarian.

~~~
jcranmer
I'd say he's more communist, since he seems to believe that private property
just shouldn't exist. Libertarians by contrast would tend more on the scale of
"you should be able to do whatever you want with your private property."

~~~
icebraining
Some argue that copyright undermines private property:
[https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-
property-2](https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-2)

------
smitty1e
RMS is an important historical figure.

Having his inevitanle departure reduced to collateral damage of Jeffrey
Epstein is a shame.

------
jefft255
These resignation messages are really short (the one from FSF being the
other)!! Not much context in there. I get that he said a lot of things which
some think are so-so, some think are terrible. Maybe he decided he’s so bad at
this he won’t even try to explain what happened, choosing to resign without
saying a word.

~~~
Ensorceled
I’ve been in industry for 32 years now and not single one of my resignation
letters contained any reason beyond “decided to pursue other opportunities”.

~~~
djsumdog
I'll sometimes include a "Thank you" or "I enjoyed working with everyone," if
it's true. But even with that, none of mine since I graduated University have
ever been more than two to three sentences tops. Resignations should always be
short and to the point.

Nixon's was one sentence: [https://watergate.info/1974/08/09/nixons-
resignation-letter....](https://watergate.info/1974/08/09/nixons-resignation-
letter.html)

~~~
Ensorceled
Yep. “I wish $company all the best” etc. Just never a reason.

------
turndown
Who is his most likely successor? Will GNU strategy change(the kernel coming
to the front of my mind) or will things basically be the same?

~~~
hutzlibu
How relevant is any GNU project today really?

What is activly maintained and being used?

~~~
detaro
bash, gcc, coreutils, make, ...

For GCC, less Stallman influence, if it happens as a result of this, might
have some consequences. E.g. there was some discussions about (not) having
features giving deeper insight into internals some years ago, which are
helpful to e.g. make code inspection tools, but also could be used to feed a
non-GPL codegen backend.

Many "GNU" projects are really run independently though, with little
influence.

~~~
hutzlibu
"Many "GNU" projects are really run independently though, with little
influence"

Ok, I meant GNU projects, with actual ties to the organization and not just
the name. If there is no real connection, then it does not really matter who
leads GNU

------
ohashi
Is there some context I'm unaware of?

~~~
ThrowawayR2
Definitely peculiar. Three days ago, RMS stated that he intended to stay on as
head of the GNU Project: [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-
gnu/2019-09/msg00008...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-
gnu/2019-09/msg00008.html)

[EDIT] Quoting the text of the above link for convenience:

> " _On September 16 I resigned as president of the Free Software Foundation,
> but the GNU Project and the FSF are not the same. I am still the head of the
> GNU Project (the Chief GNUisance), and I intend to continue as such._ "

Earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088690)

~~~
mlevental
>Dr Richard Stallman

why does he sign this way? he doesn't have a PhD.

edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually
call themselves doctor.

~~~
Ensorceled
It’s not appropriate to call yourself Dr. with an honorary degree so I’m not
sure why you are being down voted.

~~~
tptacek
This is a pretty silly debate. Plenty of people have done far less far-
reaching CS work to obtain "actual" PhD's; it's not like computer science
doctorates are medical degrees. Let him have his "Dr." title.

~~~
Ensorceled
I really don’t care, but it’s yet another convention he ignores, in a terse
resignation letter no less.

------
ezoe
While I thought RMS's technical knowledge wasn't updated properly since he
pivoted his activities to be an evangelist of freedom rather than being a
programmer.

I believe he was directly responsible of the development stall of GCC, Emacs
and various other projects. It's also his fault for not abandoning the Hurd
sometime around the early 1990s.

His forced resignation should better be happened earlier for the lack of
skill, not by his opinion on the definition of pedophile and the correct
understanding of intention in criminal law system.

------
starpilot
Very sad. I hope he is able to take some loyalists with him.

Stallman forever.

------
Grue3
It's not on the linked site. Fake news?

~~~
Syri
Whoa. It was there an hour ago. I wonder what's up?

------
hprotagonist
[https://stallman.org/seeking-housing.html](https://stallman.org/seeking-
housing.html)

~~~
mlevental
lol talk about out of touch. doesn't mention paying either. it's astounds me
that people can be so dense that even after clear contradictions (don't be so
obnoxious that you lose your job) they persist.

~~~
dependenttypes
Have you considered the possibility that he might not be able to pay?

Also, I am sure that there are many people who would offer him somewhere to
live, he has quite a few fans.

~~~
EmeraldMoon
I honestly would love to offer him a room, but I'm nowhere near Boston. This
guy is a FLOSS hero -- his thoughts and opinions beyond FLOSS do not matter to
me.

~~~
happytoexplain
>his thoughts and opinions beyond FLOSS do not matter to me

Why? That's an impressive amount of benefit of the doubt to give anybody, but
so much more so if you're also willing to personally host that person. It's
almost unbelievable. Do you in fact mean to say not that you don't care about
his opinions, but that you simply have read about them and don't find them
particularly condemnable?

~~~
EmeraldMoon
I have attended his talks, listened to podcasts and read some of his
conversations on mailing lists. I can see why people may not like him, or the
way he talks. But we disagree with people all the time.

I would be willing to host him just for the conversations, and because I feel
like it's the least I can do for a man who shaped much of the software that I
use everyday.

------
ckaygusu
I'm completely in awe with how a significant portion of this community
believes (directly or indirectly) the accomplishments of a person makes being
a decent human being optional. This leads to a "strong-rules-all" culture and
I think what we're seeing is just modern barbarism.

~~~
EmeraldMoon
I don't think it's strong-rules-"all."

I appreciate RMS for all that he has done. But unless he committed a crime,
which he didn't, I don't think we should police his thoughts and opinions. The
thresholds for decency may be different for you and me. And RMS is not a
politician whose opinions could potentially affect all of us. If you don't
link what he says, you can just ignore him.

~~~
tptacek
He is welcome to his thoughts and opinions, and everyone else is entitled to
their freedom not to associate with him as a result.

~~~
bitwize
More to the point, everyone else is entitled to their freedom _to_ associate
with him, _despite_ his thoughts and opinions. He is entitled to be the head
of the GNU project because _it 's his fucking project_. And if other people
are willing to contribute money or code to that project, _fucking FINE_.

 _That 's_ what this is about. Sarah Mei is coming from a place of, "Because
RMS said this Very Bad Thing, _no one_ should associate with him _at all_."
Carrying with it an implied threat: if you continue to associate with a Bad
Person, then _you_ are a Bad Person and maybe whoever signs your checks should
know just what a Bad Person you are.

~~~
1_player
FWIW I have never heard of Sarah Mei until today. I had a quick look at her
Twitter account. There must be over 100 tweets and retweets about Stallman and
the FSF over 10 days, that's when I stopped scrolling.

I have no horse in this race, this is too much of a hot topic to take a stance
about personally, but I can't say I'm enjoying the modern viral Twitter shit-
storm phenomenon very much.

The loudest campaign, wrong or right, wins by deafening everybody and
amplifying their moral stance through that platform.

I have nothing against Mei personally, but I _loathe_ the modern Twitter
driven moralism. Does everything have to be a crusade?

~~~
tptacek
People have literally written the same thing about me and DNSSEC, both here
and on Twitter. If you don't want to pay attention to Sarah Mei, you don't
have to. People are allowed to decide what they care about, and to advocate
for those things.

------
chachachoney
G.N.U. is now undeserved.

------
nkkollaw
Is this another victim of the awful all-American outrage culture, or there's
some actual reason why he should throw away his life's work?

~~~
tptacek
Resigning from an organization doesn't destroy the organization, let alone the
work that organization has done in the past.

~~~
nkkollaw
I meant his career and reputation, though.

~~~
tptacek
Then you should say that, and not "his life's work", which is obviously
something different. People are going to keep using and extending Emacs.

~~~
nkkollaw
Yes, I can see your point.

------
CriticalCathed
Richard Stallman is a victim here. He's been taken out of context, provably
so, and then the lies repeated and amplified by social media and even
legitimate news outlets.

It is a witch hunt, pure and simple. There is no smoke, there is no fire.

~~~
tptacek
_The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were
protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia,
bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia"
also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All
of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal
only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness._

~~~
kderbe
That quote is from 2003. This quote is from 2019:

 _Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex
between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it._

 _Through personal conversations in recent years, I 've learned to understand
how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about
the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the
conversations that enabled me to understand why._

------
vbezhenar
After that event I don't trust to both FSF and GNU organizations. I kind of
accepted them because of RMS, but now they are irrelevant. I'll look forward
where RMS will go.

~~~
IntelMiner
Why?

~~~
vbezhenar
They treated him unfairly. He did nothing wrong.

------
dx87
EDIT: It seems like the sites can't be held responsible because they didn't
create the false information, they just disseminated it. Leaving up the wrong
part of my comment for context.

The sites that ran articles quoting the garbage medium article should get sued
over this. RMS lost his job and doesn't have anywhere to live because someone
who never met him decided to write a hit piece instead of talking like an
adult.

~~~
tptacek
On what legal theory do you propose that sites who run articles quoting a
Medium article should be sued? Before you say "libelslander", if that was your
plan, you should do some reading about how libel in the US works.

~~~
deogeo
[https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/](https://sterling-
archermedes.github.io/) documents how RMS's words were twisted. The reporting
was without doubt careless and misleading. Specifically, his

 _she presented herself to him as entirely willing_

was re-phrased to

 _then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be "entirely willing"._

'Presented as' and 'be' are subtly, but _critically_ different, so
paraphrasing him like that is a lie. At the same time, it's close enough that
it could be argued it's an honest mistake. Given how short the original quote
was, I highly suspect the decision to trim it to a mere two words was
malicious. But convincing a court it wasn't an honest
mistake/misinterpretation would be difficult, and it's close enough to the
truth that "reckless disregard for truth" wouldn't apply, I assume.

Other publications repeated this, with titles such as _Renowned MIT Scientist
Defends Epstein: Victims Were "Entirely Willing"_ \- which is again false, as
he neither defended Epstein (if you _must_ interpret his statements as a
defense, it was only for Minsky), nor did he claim the victims were willing.

In sum, the reporting contained damaging false statements - did you have some
specific reasoning why this wouldn't be libel (even if difficult to prove
intent in practice)?

Edit: Yes, I agree, merely quoting the initial article wouldn't be libel.
However, many articles repeated the creatively re-contextualized RMS quote
themselves, without attributing it to the original medium post, and made it
look like it was something they themselves were stating.

~~~
dkersten
He actually went one step further and said _" presented herself to him as
entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had
every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates."_ He
never said she was willing, but that she was likely coerced by Epstein to
present herself that way. The medium post and reporting thereof all somehow
equate this to _" RMS said the victim was entirely willing"_. O_o

