

I also stand up for Stallman - fogus
http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-also-stand-up-for-stallman

======
billjings
I can't say I agree with this "stand up for weak people against bullies"
defense of Richard Stallman. It doesn't do rms any favors, because it makes
him look like a weakling.

I don't agree with rms right now, but he deserves a lot of respect for the
work he has done throughout his life. I'm just going by the wikipedia page,
but he wrote gcc and gdb - that alone should give someone a fair amount of
respect. If you add the concept of copyleft and the GPL on top of that, you've
got a substantial legacy that we owe a debt of gratitude towards.

He is an extremist, though. He has always been an extremist. His opinions were
often unappealing even when he was writing in opposition to The Borg. His
opinions have only become more unpalatable as closed platforms from Apple and
Google have become more appealing on their technical merits.

In my own experience, though, it seems like some newer folks don't really
understand that those extreme ideas came from an important place. They don't
understand the hacker ethic or have much of an idea of the culture that rms
comes from, exemplified, and fights for. I imagine most readers here are
familiar with it, but it's a fading ideal, for sure.

Anyway - I've made fun of rms as much as the next guy, but he doesn't need me
to defend him. And I doubt he cares what people say about his rider.

~~~
omlette
you cant call someone like RMS extreme just because his views are REALLY
DIFFERENT. there is a lot of room on the spectrum between expressing your
views non violently and actually forcing them onto people.

~~~
billpatrianakos
I can't read your mind so I don't know if this applies to you, omlette, but I
read a lot of similar comments and they come off as trying to be politically
correct. Yes, very different views and extremism are different but there's a
fine line. Should we say terrorists (even excluding the suicide bombing types
and leaving only the hostage taking ones) aren't extremist but just expressing
very different views? No.

RMS can be called an extremist because he refuses to accept that the opposing
views have any merit when they clearly do (see some of my other comments on
this post for examples, my apologies for hanging around this thread so long
haha).

Just because the guy isn't holding college auditoriums full of undergrads
hostage in exchange for GNU/Linux being installed on all campus computers
doesn't mean he isn't an extremist. The FOSS movement, while stirring up a
fair amount of debate and heated views, doesn't lend itself very well to
suicide bombing, hostage taking, or any other type of violence. Maybe a little
protesting but that's all. Even so, it doesn't mean he's not an extremist.

It's all about that fine line between strongly held belief and extremism.
Peaceful protest doesn't equal not being an extremist.

Please don't pull out dictionary definitions of extremism to counter my point.
I'm not saying black is white and white is red, I think I'm being pretty
reasonable here. There's also a lot of people on the "well, x idea used to be
considered extreme" bandwagon. I'd say to you that different isn't always
better. Communism, socialism, feudalism, and others used to be considered
extreme... And different too. Turns out all the naysayers were right! Those
things unfortunately were tried and they all bombed out with everyone involved
surely wishing they'd never been tried to start with. I'm not saying, at least
not in this sentence and the next, that Stallman is wrong. What I'm saying is
consider the possibility - really think about it. If you can do that then at
least people like me can't call you am extremist.

~~~
omlette
ok, maybe he fits some form of extremism, but labeling him as such still isn't
enough to dismiss him. William Lloyd Garrison was called that, and so was
Joeseph McCarthy. it doesnt really mean anything and it clouds the discussion.

------
3am
It's not fair to tie all criticism of rms to bullying. This whole dust-up
appears to have been started by a reaction to a post by kottke in which it's
not at all clear to me that rms is even being mocked.

I'm not denying rms gets unfairly criticized, or that bullying is bad (and the
part about your son was poignant). But all criticism of rms is not bullying.
In fact, since his position is so important, it would be wrong _not_ to hold
him to a higher standard.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Kottke was trying to start a reasoned debate about parrot husbandry, was he?

That's an awfully generous reading.

Though I can believe that Kottke didn't mean to instigate a mob (it is so easy
to do by accident), there's no sense in pretending the mob isn't there, now.
I'm not about to fuel the fire by _linking_ to multiple people, many with
large audiences, who have been poking fun at RMS's personal habits while
pretending – not very convincingly – that they're doing so out of principle,
but such links aren't hard to find at the moment.

And, yes, we can all tell the difference between disagreeing with (or even
_joking_ about) RMS's very strong and sometimes _very_ offbeat technical,
legal, and political ideas... and making fun of his socks. The first is fine –
it is something he _invites_ – but the second is just rude.

~~~
msbarnett
> And, yes, we can all tell the difference between disagreeing with (or even
> joking about) RMS's very strong and sometimes very offbeat technical, legal,
> and political opinions and making fun of his socks. The first is fine – it
> is something he invites – but the second is just rude.

Are we talking about the same Richard M Stallman who once wrote:

> Could people please not use this list to announce information of no
> particular interest to the people on the list? Hundreds of thousands of
> babies are born every day. While the whole phenomenon is menacing, one of
> them by itself is not newsworthy. Nor is it a difficult achievement—even
> some fish can do it. (Now, if you were a seahorse, it would be more
> interesting, since it would be the male that gave birth.)

> These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is
> something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to
> pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation.

in response to someone mentioning the birth of their child?

If we're going to have an intellectually honest conversation about bullying in
the tech community and the separation of personal attacks from technical
matters, let's not attempt to do so under the delusion that RMS only invites
comments on technical and political matters and never engages in extremely
insulting social attacks on others.

RMS is and always has been a controversial extremist who has been more than
willing to engage in personal attacks in service to the causes that interest
him.

~~~
RickHull
> RMS is and always has been ... more than willing to engage in personal
> attacks in service to the causes that interest him.

Can you cite something? Your above quotations are not personal attacks. He is
explaining (poorly) that the chosen venue was not correct for the content
being communicated. He is speaking in terms of principles and not attacking
the person's identity.

~~~
msbarnett
His first sentence is a (slightly testy) comment that the emacs mailing list
wasn't the right forum for a birth announcement.

This didn't require telling the guy that the birth of his child was menacing,
insignificant because it was accomplished by a female instead of a male, and
complicit in mass starvation and genocide. The "wrong forum" content was just
an incidental cover for a long-form attack on that person because it happened
to push Stallman's buttons, and Stallman was in a position of power on the
list from which he could conveniently abuse the poster without fear of
repercussion.

It's bullying every bit as much as the attacks on Stallman.

------
mattmaroon
One sad thing about arguments is that dismissing them with ad hominems is
incredibly effective. You can see this in the media all the time. "The Tea
Party is just a bunch of racist, homophobic astroturf." "The OWS movement is
just a bunch of anarchist hippies who aren't willing to get a job like the
rest of us." Etc.

These ad hominem dismissals are, logically speaking, irrelevant, but they sway
people, often more than the actual merits of the the arguments. As a result,
it is often frustrating when someone who is on the same side as you, and very
visible, makes themselves such a lightning rod for them. I currently feel this
exact way about OWS. It's a mixture of "I'm glad people care about fixing our
broken financial system" and "oh no, they're going to make moderate America
associate financial industry reform lazy hippies."

Stallman is a tireless promoter of his ideology, and if you subscribe to the
same then you would have to have mixed feelings about him because of this. His
"weirdness" does some amount of harm to the cause because in the end it's
always the moderates (who are most easily swayed by irrelevant things like
parrots) who decide the issue.

This is, of course, no reason to be uncivil to him, but it at least partially
explains (though in no way justifies) the sort of behavior you see even from
many who are predisposed to agree with many of his ideas.

------
Udo
I think a more nuanced view is in order. As with many things, this is an
example where agreement or personal likability is probably not a Boolean thing
for most people.

Personally, I don't care what he looks like and I hate it when disparaging
anecdotes are being passed around. It doesn't matter that he's a stereotypical
"weird kid" as Dave Winer describes him. We're all hackers here and before the
days of the Brogrammer, most of us were (and still are) weird kids. What does
matter is the message Stallman conveys in his talks. It's an important one,
and he brings it across very eloquently.

He himself is, however, an extremist and people do well to always keep this in
mind. He is still influential because he is an extremist with a lot of
legitimate grievances. When he is giving talks he sounds reasonable, because
the fundamentals of his ideas are reasonable. That doesn't mean he is a
reasonable person. In many interactions he does in fact appear to be the
bully, not the victim.

In the end, RMS is so fanatical about his vision of Free Software that he as a
person becomes remarkably non-free. That's a tremendous price to pay and I
respect that. So there is no need to come down for or against RMS. He is what
he is - he does his thing irregardless of the world around him.

I believe it's not always productive to try and pass a final judgement on
people or ideas, to try and weigh the good vs the bad and arrive at a net
value. It is not necessary to stand up for or against Stallman. Sometimes,
it's OK to let the pros and cons stand for themselves and acknowledge them as
such without giving in to the urge to make a weighted sum of the whole thing.

------
jiggy2011
If people were following stallman arounnd when he was trying to do his
shopping or whatever and jeering at him or threatening him or making malicious
comments about his weight or his beard or something then that would be
bullying him.

He makes public comment as the leader of a large software organisation, many
people strongly disagree with his statements and post their reasons for this
on technology related forums.

I don't really see an issue with 99% of what is posted here on HN, juvenile or
downright nasty comments usually get downvoted pretty hard.

~~~
raganwald
> many people strongly disagree with his statements and post their reasons for
> this on technology related forums

I’m 100% ok with this. In my essay a few years ago about optimism (there’s a
link in the post), I suggest we we try hard to praise people and criticize
behaviours. That’s where I try to go. I think it’s perfectly ok to criticize
words and choices. I try to avoid criticizing people. It may seem like a
meaningless distinction, but to me there’s a world of difference between:

So-and-so is a dick, and:

So-and-so wrote some dickish words.

------
SNK
Perhaps calling Jobs a corrupt, malign evil slaver the day after his death
might also be construed as rude by some.

"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to
sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley,
“I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to
die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than
theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s
computing."

~~~
loup-vaillant
By many, actually. But this is ridiculous anyway. If they _read_ his post,
they would have seen the rudeness just isn't there, at least when you assume
(and this is not unreasonable), that the lock-in in Apple latests devices is
plainly unacceptable:

(1) Stallman got his facts right. (Jobs _is_ pioneer of the walled garden that
people actually buy.)

(2) Making people accept such a lock-in can reasonably be called "malign
influence" in my opinion.

(3) Stallman quite clearly stated that Jobs didn't deserve to die.

(4) The timing was probably appropriate too, as Jobs death creates a surge of
interest for Apple's locked-down devices. It wouldn't do for the Free Software
cause if Steve Jobs became a martyr for Proprietary Software.

~~~
billpatrianakos
No. I call weak sauce on that one. It's like you're _trying_ not read the hate
and pretending there is no subtext there. A computer didn't write Stallman's
post on Jobs. Stallman did. He's a human and everything we say, do, and write
has a subtext. Sometimes that subtext isn't very obvious but you can tell by
someone's written words how they feel not by the words themselves but how
they're strung together and how they fit into the larger thought behind the
writing.

All 4 of your points are factually accurate (number 4 can be debated but I'll
give it to you now for the sake of argument) but they miss the glaring,
obvious, in-your-face subtext of that post which was:

"I Richard Stallman, am going to use the death of a high profile enemy of mine
to purposely stir up controversy and get attention, despicably, by calling him
evil, but not directly, then adding in this Herals Washing quote so I can have
plausible deniability that my supporters will use to defend me".

The worst thing about what he said is that he purposely infused that post with
words and a quote that he could use as plausible deniability.

You know, Id be mad but would definitely not think of Stallman as a coward
(which that post makes him) if he were to just come right out and say what he
meant which was so obviously:

"I'm glad Jobs is dead because that means the company might flounder under new
leadership and fail, making my movement seem attractive. Oh, and I do hate
Jobs, always have, think he guy is evil along with his product line".

Anyone denying that his post on Jobs was not full of vitriol or schadenfreude
is one of the following:

* an RMS fanboy * someone who didn't read the post * a contrarian * blind (physically or otherwise) * lacks human emotion, intuition, and the like

That post was seriously just completely damning for RMS. we'd expect that out
of some random Internet jerk but somehow because it's Stallman and because he
laced it in his cloak of plausible deniability its become a debate. There
should be no debate. The guy said he was glad Jobs was dead without having the
balls to come out and say he was glad Jobs was dead.

~~~
loup-vaillant
You seem to assume that one can't make the separation between the deeds and
the man. I know of the halo effect[1], but we can break free of it to some
extent. I suppose you have read Stallman's followup[2], where he addresses
this point, and the timing as well.

Also, it is quite obvious for everyone that Jobs' work is overall quite
against Free Software (though it doesn't hesitate to use Open Source). That is
something worth reminding, especially while everyone else is praising that
very work. But how can you possibly criticise a man's life work without making
it look like you want to soil the man himself? My guess is, you can't.

[1]: <http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Halo_effect>

[2]: [http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html?ohai#27_Octob...](http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html?ohai#27_October_2011_%28Steve_Jobs%29)

------
alttag
Maybe it's because I just spent three hours watching re-runs of "The West
Wing". Maybe it's because I used to be an elected official, and had to deal
with more than a few crackpots and nut-jobs with paranoid tendencies. What
every it was, the line "My ideas deserve to be heard ..." made me wonder to
what extent that's true.

I don't wish to deny anyone the right to hold their ideas, or to speak them
(even stupid ones). But the right to speak is not the same as a right to be
heard. I saw this as the foundation of the argument. I agree that some honor
is due someone who adopts a principled stand and lives by a moral code of
conduct, even if I may disagree with the morals or their consequences. But
that does not mean they have a right to be heard. The mere existence of an
idea does not grant the right to be debated.

Pragmatically, ideas are shared by those who have attention. And the act of
obtaining attention reflects—whether it should or not—on the idea itself.
That's what the hubbub is about, not whether someone should be allowed to
speak.

~~~
swah
I had the same thought when reading about "deserve to be heard": does not
scale. But the author probably means that if you are going to pay attention to
("waste time with") that person, its their ideas that you should be caring.

------
albedoa
raganwald, if I were to spit on you and shove you into a locker, people would
be expecting me to apologize to you, not follow up my bullying by attempting
to justify my behavior. Anything less than an apology would be deserving of
scorn.

The analogy you've drawn between Stallmam and your kid does not validate. rms
isn't being bullied; he is the one doing the bullying. The public reaction is
appropriate and rational. There is no excuse for Stallman's behavior, and if
you disagree that it's deserving of backlash, well then we'll just have to
disagree.

That said, it hurts my heart as well to hear about your son being picked on. I
hate the thought so much. Your kid isn't the bully. He's the victim. I hope
you've explained to him, and I hope he realizes, the difference between him
and those who push him around.

~~~
raganwald
Thank you for your very kind words. They touch me.

------
kevinalexbrown
Someone with Stallman's level of clout is not the victim of bullying. He has
been _very_ well recognized for his work, including a MacArthur "Genius"
grant. He's a big enough deal that he can have really specific requirements in
his rider and can walk away from speaking engagements when the organizers
don't meet them.

This is getting a little paternalistic. Stallman is not a child, and speaking
of others' bullying him strikes me as somewhat diminutive, particularly when
the example Raganwald compared Stallman to was his son.

~~~
tokenadult
_Stallman is not a child_

True enough. But behavior fitting only for overgrown children is still a bad
idea, even if Stallman can take the heat. I agree with raganwald here that if
we can say "I am a human being" we ought to have some basis for treating all
of our fellow human beings humanely.

~~~
nknight
RMS's repeated failure to demonstrate any humanity has an awful lot to do with
the dislike people are feeling towards him.

~~~
gillianseed
I seriously doubt that, it seems ad hominem attacks are used because his
detractors in general don't feel they have enough to argument with and/or that
their arguments hold little weight. He, being an 'odd bird' from a social
aspect makes him an easy target for these kinds of attacks. Has Steve Jobs
displayed more 'humanity' than Stallman? Has Steve Ballmer? Linus Torvalds,
Mark Zuckerberg?

~~~
billpatrianakos
, Ballmer, Jobs, and Zuckerberg, and even Torvalds aren't on the font lines of
advancing an agenda. And they also didn't write posts about being glad a
competitor was dead the day after that death (don't even try to say Stallman
didn't say he was glad, see my comment above a little ways on why that
argument is total bunk). Those guys aren't looking for controversy like
Stallman. They do their job, get things done, and don't whine constantly like
RMS. The others you mention certainly do get their fair share of ad nominee
attacks and they don't even set themselves up for it like Stallman. RMS has an
appropriate last name as he really is stalling the progress of the FSF.

------
hugh3
Isn't this submission a little redundant?

~~~
tokenadult
I think raganwald offers a different perspective from Dave Winer, and I think
both posts are important for our community.

~~~
hugh3
I think raganwald's perspective is fine and dandy, as a comment on the
original article, which is how he originally left it.

------
dualboot
I'd really hate to live in a world where everyone was bland, unoriginal, or
even-worse so completely dishonest that they pretend that there is nothing
that makes them the least bit unique.

------
biot
A bit offtopic, but:

    
    
      > coïncidence
    

While I get that the diaeresis signifies that the first part of the word isn't
one syllable like "coin" but two syllables like "co-in", it seems a little
archaic to write it that way. Should one also write "beïng" or "goïng", lest
someone pronounce these as one syllable words?

------
kscaldef
This is an aside to the main point, but I get the impression that raganwald
doesn't quite understand the "it gets better" movement (I'm not sure if that's
quite the right word to use for it, but I'm failing to come up with a better
term). "It gets better" wasn't started to try to claim that the situation for
LBGT teenagers was improving (although that's true), because that message
doesn't really help the individual teen. The message was: as you,
individually, get older, it will get better. And, more specifically, please
don't kill yourself because your life is difficult right now. A similar idea
appears in some of PG's essays where he points out that high school is pretty
unpleasant for nerds, but most of that disappears later in life. It gets
better because the community of adults is structurally different than the
community of children.

~~~
raganwald
Yeah, I do understand that it gets better when you get out of HS. Paul Graham
made a similar point about being a nerd, I don’t recall which essay it was
from.

Here’s an interesting video, Rick Mercer calling on people in the limelight to
stand up and be counted. I am not endorsing his views, just suggesting it’s an
interesting perspective to think about:

<http://youtu.be/Wh1jNAZHKIw>

And his words from 2007:

<http://youtu.be/t1Y7qpiu2RQ>

------
doki_pen
Isn't it documented that people in the pecking order constantly have to assert
their position or risk losing it, while people at the top do their best to
give the appearance of not caring about the pecking order? We should do our
best to use our intelligence but bullying is very natural and has its roots in
evaluation. It is the job of the top of the pecking order to police it.

------
diminish
the future needs free software, open source software and the incredibly
innovative licenses stallman pioneered to create.
[http://www.augmentedmadness.com/we-from-the-future-also-
stan...](http://www.augmentedmadness.com/we-from-the-future-also-stand-up-for-
stallman)

~~~
rimantas
There was free software befor rms, there are other licenses which are more
free than his. I know many will not agree with my opinion that rms and his
ideas are obsolete and irrelevant, but they are. Mind you, free and open
sofware is not irrelevant, quite the opposite. But rms view of the tech world
is.

~~~
gillianseed
If GPL ceases to be used (which seems extremely unlikely since it's the most
popular software licence) then perhaps you could state that his ideas are
obsolete and irrelevant. I do not share Stallman's view regarding proprietary
software (although I can see where he comes from given the printer-driver
which inspired him to craft GPL) but I certainly see the value of a licence
which enforces source code availability of distributed derivates, both
practically and ideologically, just as I see the value of licences such as
BSD/MIT.

As for his predictions regarding the 'tech-world' they have unfortunately been
very accurate with software patents posing as the biggest threath to both
open/closed source development just as he predicted back in 1996 (if not
earlier). Add to this the increased widespread use of computer 'gadgets' and
their locked-down functionality. As such I think his views of the tech world
is more relevant than ever, despite not fully agreeing with it.

------
billpatrianakos
You've got to be kidding me! No one is bullying Stallman and even if they
were, standing up against Stallman-bullying != anything close to the LGBT
movement, women's right, and definitely not slavery. I say it often and I must
say it again here as it definitely applies: Really? C'mon. Reaalllyy?? Just
c'mon!

I'm going to write a blog post about how no one can say mean things about the
president anymore (any president from now on) and equate strongly disagreeing
with prominent public figures and saying any mean thing about them is as bad
as slavery and gay bashing. Does that sound reasonable? Nah. Didn't think so.

Stallman is a public figure and like it or not, people say mean things about
them publicly. It goes with the territory. People like that have to deal with
it and I really doubt they lose sleep over nasty comments on Internet message
boards and blog comments.

You know, I was always a huge Steve Jobs fan. Maybe even a fanboy. I've seen
all sorts of crazy comments about him all over the web but I never once
thought the guy needed me or anyone else to stand up for him nor do I think he
paid any mind at all to what us little people said about him.

I admit I'm a bit biased. I don't like Stallman. I'm on board with _parts_ of
what he stands for but generally don't like his attitude and the way he
conducts himself publicly. That said, if Stallman wants people to stop
bullying him then he should get out of the public eye. I know he's no Paris
Hilton when it comes to media attention but amongst circles like ours here on
HN he qualifies as a public figure. This post is preposterous to me and I
can't believe it's a top story.

Oh, and please don't down vote me because that's bullying and losing all my
karma on HN would hurt my feelings! (Actually, I would get a little tiny bit
upset but I, apparently unlike Stallman am prepared to face the consequences
of voicing my opinion in a public forum).

