What even was the point of this? [LWN.net]

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 17:06 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465)
In reply to: What even was the point of this? by chexo4
Parent article: The conclusion of the FSF board review

It was an opportunity for them to do a mea culpa. They failed to do so.

to post comments

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 17:13 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

Reminds me of the recent OSI election retrospective covered in https://lwn.net/Articles/1019215/. It all feels very superficial. I am not sure what purpose this serves.

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 17:44 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

It's the same thing. OSI *could* have said "we were flying by the seat of our pants and we made a bad call, we're sorry, here's how we're fixing it". They didn't. That's disappointing.

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 19:51 UTC (Wed) by intelfx (subscriber, #130118) [Link] (7 responses)

> It was an opportunity for them to do a mea culpa. They failed to do so.

What exactly were they supposed to claim themselves culpable of?

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 20:52 UTC (Wed) by algesten (subscriber, #153363) [Link] (6 responses)

Stallman made what seems like a fake resignation from the board, only to come back 18 months later when the media cycle around him slowed down. As far as I know he never backed down from claiming that Epstein's/Minsky's victim was "presented herself as entirely willing".

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 21:19 UTC (Wed) by fwyzard (subscriber, #90840) [Link] (2 responses)

And one person's private opinions have exactly what to do with their institutional role in a foundation ?

Let's pause

Posted Apr 30, 2025 21:28 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

I'd like to ask everybody involved in this conversation to pause for just a moment and be sure that you are not just replaying the discussions that have happened over the years on this topic. There is not much point in going through all of that again.

Let's pause

Posted May 1, 2025 14:16 UTC (Thu) by anarcat (subscriber, #66354) [Link]

On the other hand, this is a fantastic opportunity to build a good block list, thanks to that nice little "mute" button you added there. :P Going to save myself a lot of pain in future similar threads, thanks!

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 22:13 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> As far as I know he never backed down from claiming that Epstein's/Minsky's victim was "presented herself as entirely willing".

How can he back down from something he never said?

The actual quote:

"We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she 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."

Stallman is nothing but excessively pedantic. So pillory him for what he actually wrote, not something that's been through numerous rounds of deliberate outrage telephony.

What even was the point of this?

Posted May 19, 2025 13:32 UTC (Mon) by sheepdestroyer (guest, #54968) [Link]

It must tiring to always, necessarily, have to be excessively pedantic, given the alternative (mea culpa, and all)

What even was the point of this?

Posted May 6, 2025 21:04 UTC (Tue) by amarao (guest, #87073) [Link]

Why this is important for free software?

If I farted in church, do I ineliggle for free software activities?

What even was the point of this?

Posted Apr 30, 2025 19:53 UTC (Wed) by Shiba (guest, #151620) [Link]

Too bad they didn't ask some deranged Fediverse community for their opinion.