Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Posted Oct 7, 2019 23:16 UTC (Mon) by dkg (subscriber, #55359)In reply to: Richard Stallman and the GNU project by frostsnow
Parent article: Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Interesting that you see this as the destruction of a man's career, when all people are asking for is for him to be removed from a position of leadership. Also, interesting that you don't seem to think that Richard bears any responsibility for ways that his behavior has negatively impacted the community. What should the consequences be for a would-be leader who drives people away from a project? Perhaps it's not just the non-RMS "agitators" who are harming Richard's career?
Also interesting that you don't seem to consider the careers of those who have been harmed by Richard's behavior. I grant that those careers can't all be characterized as "a man's career" though.
> Speak only for yourself here, please. If these people wish to contribute then they are welcome to do so of their own accord.
Sorry, I'm not buying this line. You aren't willing to hear it from me (someone within the free software community already) because it's not "for myself", but you're also not willing to hear it from others currently "on the outside" because they're "political agitators". This is a pretty dubious rhetorical position.
And, rhetoric aside, it is the responsibility of people who have power in a situation to act toward righting injustices that they see, whether they are personally, directly affected by them or not. While I don't claim to have a lot of power, I can at least use my contributions to this community to push it the direction that I think it should go in. For me, that's toward justice, openness, caring, mutual aid, and an expanded circle of compassion. I don't believe in driving people away just because their skin isn't thick enough to withstand the abuse.
> you have failed to state your opinion but instead spoken in broad, generalized terms without explicitly committing to anything.
I've stated my opinion repeatedly elsewhere, but I was trying to give you a chance to see why your arguments are less than convincing in this discussion. But just in case it needs spelling out:
Richard Stallman inspired me for much of the free-software-related work that I do in my life. It's also clear that he has significant difficulty in understanding how his behavior affects other people, or in seeing things from other people's perspectives. Smurf (below) rightly calls this a "#whatmeworry" attitude towards matters of systemic marginalization. That's something particularly easy for white men to adopt as they've never faced the brunt of those particular forms of oppression. Note that this doesn't mean that Richard has always had an easy time of things. It's clear that he has not! But being casually ostracized and dismissed for being, say, neurodiverse or stubborn or downright weird, doesn't prevent someone from casually ostracizing or dismissing people for other characteristics either. And worse, when he makes a mistake (like we all do), Richard seems particularly unable to sincerely apologize for it, let alone to act to make amends.
Richard's disregard (whether thoughtless or deliberate) for other people's perspectives makes it very easy for him to alienate a lot of people from what should be a growing movement. His departure from his position of leadership at the FSF was long overdue (I asked him personally to step down due to his behavior over a year ago, long before his Minsky/Epstein remarks, and I should have done that earlier). As for the GNU project, I'm not a GNU developer, so I can't say what the right decision for that project is. But I can tell you that when I've thought about contributing more directly to the GNU project in the past, the thought of placing myself squarely in an area that Richard seems to consider his personal fiefdom was one of the things that convinced me I would rather use my limited time elsewhere.
Just having Richard step down from GNU probably wouldn't change any minds of people who have stayed away from the project due to Richard's behavior, of course. He's been there long enough that his influences, good and bad, will long outlast him. And of course this is not just about Richard, but about the culture of the projects we all work on together. What I hope for the GNU project (and for the FSF, for that matter) is that they keep their commitment to Richard's good influences (strong commitment to software freedom, explicitly political goals for the project) and that they work actively toward repairing the harms that habits and behaviors like his have done to the project's overall health, and the people who care about it. We need to actively build up the community that should surround such an important piece of work. That takes commitment and effort that has been lacking from the GNU project thus far. I hope that changes, whether Richard stays involved or not.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 0:28 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (26 responses)
"Removing him from a position of leadership" _is_ the destruction of his career.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 1:03 UTC (Tue)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (25 responses)
Posted Oct 8, 2019 1:40 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (24 responses)
Tear down the man first, the ideals he promoted will follow.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 1:50 UTC (Tue)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Oct 8, 2019 2:17 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (5 responses)
Every mention of RMS outside of "true believer" circles will end up with "disgraced" in the same sentence. Every time something he wrote gets cited to support an argument why Free Software is a GoodThing(tm), it will get countered with "why should we trust anything that kiddie-raper-apologist and serial-discomforter-of-women had to say?" Especially in conservative corporate contexts where the mear appearance of impropriety gets associations dropped like hot potatoes?
So, yes, RMS stepping down from the FSF was utterly necessary if the FSF was to survive. It's probable that stepping down from GNU will also become necessary. Nobody's going to hire him as a speaker (that whole "disgraced" thing). I'm having a hard time seeing what avenues he has left to support himself. Wal*Mart greeter?
Sure, there's good arguments to be made that RMS should have passed the Free Software leadership torch to someone(s) else. But that ship has sailed, and RMS is being summarily ejected and everyone that is saying so much as "hold on, slow up" is getting actively tarred with the same "kiddie-raper-apologist-apologist" brush. What I find dismaying here is just how much of the Free Software "community" is piling on, and in the process, actively helping the barbarians dismantle the foundations of the entire Free Software movement.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 2:38 UTC (Tue)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 8, 2019 2:58 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
While I hope you are correct (and in the long run, I think you will be), in the shorter term this will be additional ammunition for those who seek to undermine support for free software. (It was already a bit of an uphill battle, this just makes it harder...)
Now if you'd said "open source" instead of "free software" I'd agree without reservation, because from that perspective RMS has long been irrelevant except perhaps as a boogeyman.
> Indeed, if the Free Software movement to this day depended on Stallman to that extent, then his career truly would have been a failure.
...Folks who change the world rarely end up with a good personal outcome for their efforts.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 2:50 UTC (Tue)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (2 responses)
Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder. Many of the ancient Greeks were as well. We'd do well to ignore their takes on matters of slavery. That doesn't mean their other views on topics are useless. Indeed, we'd probably have to ignore anything older than some number of years all throughout history (the acceleration of things today means it is finally closing in on the span of a career instead of waiting until the offenders are long dead to collectively realize "hey, that's an awful behavior"). I still find Stallman's views on free software and even some of the politics of interest and of importance. His views on social interactions? Not worth much to me.
Sure, I'm not everyone and it's sad that so many take a one dimensional view of people (so it goes with identity politics). But isn't this reality a *reason* to remove him from the leadership role today? Just look at all the references to the foot picking video anytime discussions of his viewpoints is brought up. Bad hygeine isn't as bad as poor social behavior, but both are a distraction to the goals of these organizations (the latter being of particular importance as these are socially oriented groups). Incidentally, those who bring up such irrelevant facts as if it's some kind of argument against free software is a good litmus test for who to basically ignore in such threads.
> I'm having a hard time seeing what avenues he has left to support himself. Wal*Mart greeter?
I think you should give him more credit. He could work to improve himself and show that he has learned what has been wrong with his behavior and show that he's working towards improving it. But it's not the end of the road for him (at least as far as I'm concerned) unless he doesn't want to continue. But if anyone has the willpower to perservere through such a process, if be surprised if he didn't have it somewhere in him.
> What I find dismaying here is just how much of the Free Software "community" is piling on, and in the process, actively helping the barbarians dismantle the foundations of the entire Free Software movement.
So the free software movement is of the highest importance? If he had committed a felony, should he have been kept in because no one could replace him? I don't think so. There's obviously a line somewhere here. Personally, I think he is no longer suitable as the leader of the FSF because there *are* those who will sling mud like you say above and he's shown that his behavior in social groups was not going to improve. Debates and discussions without that clouding over it are certainly more productive.
Contrast this with Linus who realized he had an issue with his communication and behavior and worked to resolve it. I've not seen a reduction of kernel code quality since then as many have feared. Recognizing and addressing the problems with his behavior could have avoided a lot of the fallout here, but it never happened. There's no reason for me to think that such improvements would have interfered with his contributions to the free software movement (other than the time spent on them).
Posted Oct 8, 2019 3:31 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
The rate of societal change has greatly accelerated, media has far more permanence, and is much more easily searched.
(But this is the same underlying reason that that the "beatification" process for promoting someone to sainthood traditionally took many decades -- The Church had to wait until everyone who could credibly accuse the candidate of malfesance had died off...)
> But isn't this reality a *reason* to remove him from the leadership role today?
The harsh reality is that retaining any sort of political leadership role will do more harm than good. This probably will eventually encompass technical leadership roles as well (eg individual GNU projects)
> There's obviously a line somewhere here.
... wherever the line, he crossed it, and now it's being pulled backwards.
> But it's not the end of the road for him (at least as far as I'm concerned) unless he doesn't want to continue.
In any case, he will have to lay low for a while. (I suspect he's finding that he has fewer friends than he thought...)
Posted Oct 8, 2019 7:13 UTC (Tue)
by Psychonaut (guest, #86437)
[Link]
Of course it doesn't, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees with that assessment. However, Jefferson and the Ancient Greeks held slaves at a time when this was the societal norm, and this continued to be the societal norm for many decades (or even centuries) afterwards. They did not and could not suffer any slavery-related scandals during their lifetimes that (however irrelevantly) would have tarnished their authority on other matters. Their reputations as political and philosophical greats in their respective fields were safely cemented long ago, and are not today in any danger of collapsing even though society's attitudes have shifted rather dramatically.
Stallman, by contrast, is still alive. Rightly or wrongly, his general behaviour can still influence how others see the ethical-technological views he espouses. As its founder and its most visible and vocal representative, any scandal involving him could be used, illogically but not ineffectively, to discredit the entire free software community.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 5:22 UTC (Wed)
by gfernandes (subscriber, #119910)
[Link] (1 responses)
By the time that happens, we'll all be at the bottom of that slippery slope, and it'll be very hard to crawl back up.
Right now we're on the edge.
Turning back seems right to be. Slipping ahead seems right to you.
Posted Oct 11, 2019 19:00 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Posted Oct 8, 2019 4:13 UTC (Tue)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (14 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 5:25 UTC (Wed)
by gfernandes (subscriber, #119910)
[Link]
But just because no one *else* is willing to fight for something clearly a lot of us here feel is important, doesn't mean we all collectively throw in the towel.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 5:30 UTC (Wed)
by gfernandes (subscriber, #119910)
[Link] (12 responses)
That's a bit rich.
I've know few people with half as much spine as RMS. The combination of RMS and Eben Moglen have been a potent force.
Not so long ago, Microsoft called the GPL a virus. Today Microsoft contributes to GPL licensed projects.
Nothing has changed?
I think not - I think a *lot* has changed. And RMS and the GPL have been instrumental in effecting this change.
Just look at the BSDs if you'd like a counter point. They've been around longer, and changed less.
That's "Open Source" for you.
Few people see that though.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 7:58 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 17:23 UTC (Wed)
by jra (subscriber, #55261)
[Link] (10 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 19:12 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (9 responses)
E.g.: https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2011-Octo...
Posted Oct 9, 2019 19:56 UTC (Wed)
by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 19:59 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Oct 10, 2019 11:46 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (6 responses)
If so, the obvious explanation is that the lawyers approved "V2 or later" and no-one wants the hassle of changing it. Inertia is a *powerful* force - especially in big corporations ...
Cheers,
Posted Oct 10, 2019 18:14 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (4 responses)
> If so, the obvious explanation is that the lawyers approved "V2 or later" and no-one wants the hassle of changing it.
Posted Oct 10, 2019 23:34 UTC (Thu)
by mrshiny (guest, #4266)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Oct 10, 2019 23:42 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
By contributing the code under "GPLv2 or later" you only take the obligations imposed by GPLv2. However, GPLv3 projects can still use this code because it's explicitly allowed by GPLv3.
Posted Oct 11, 2019 18:50 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
Who is "they"?
If "they" is Microsoft, then they own the copyright so by definition they can licence it as anything.
If "they" is Samba, then the GPL does NOT give them the right to licence the code, so they CAN'T licence it as ANYTHING!
What Samba CAN do, because MS licensed it as V2+, is to *distribute* it under v3.
This is what really grates with me all the time - people who don't understand the difference between the OWNER LICENCING the code, and the USER DISTRIBUTING the code.
Cheers,
Posted Oct 11, 2019 19:20 UTC (Fri)
by mrshiny (guest, #4266)
[Link]
Posted Oct 11, 2019 18:41 UTC (Fri)
by jra (subscriber, #55261)
[Link]
Posted Oct 8, 2019 4:08 UTC (Tue)
by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957)
[Link] (19 responses)
>Also, interesting that you don't seem to think that Richard bears any responsibility for ways that his behavior has negatively impacted the community. What should the consequences be for a would-be leader who drives people away from a project? Perhaps it's not just the non-RMS "agitators" who are harming Richard's career?
>Also interesting that you don't seem to consider the careers of those who have been harmed by Richard's behavior. I grant that those careers can't all be characterized as "a man's career" though.
>Sorry, I'm not buying this line. You aren't willing to hear it from me (someone within the free software community already) because it's not "for myself", but you're also not willing to hear it from others currently "on the outside" because they're "political agitators". This is a pretty dubious rhetorical position.
>It's also clear that he has significant difficulty in understanding how his behavior affects other people, or in seeing things from other people's perspectives. Smurf (below) rightly calls this a "#whatmeworry" attitude towards matters of systemic marginalization. That's something particularly easy for white men to adopt as they've never faced the brunt of those particular forms of oppression.
>Note that this doesn't mean that Richard has always had an easy time of things. It's clear that he has not! But being casually ostracized and dismissed for being, say, neurodiverse or stubborn or downright weird, doesn't prevent someone from casually ostracizing or dismissing people for other characteristics either. And worse, when he makes a mistake (like we all do), Richard seems particularly unable to sincerely apologize for it, let alone to act to make amends.
>Richard's disregard (whether thoughtless or deliberate) for other people's perspectives makes it very easy for him to alienate a lot of people from what should be a growing movement. His departure from his position of leadership at the FSF was long overdue (I asked him personally to step down due to his behavior over a year ago, long before his Minsky/Epstein remarks, and I should have done that earlier). As for the GNU project, I'm not a GNU developer, so I can't say what the right decision for that project is. But I can tell you that when I've thought about contributing more directly to the GNU project in the past, the thought of placing myself squarely in an area that Richard seems to consider his personal fiefdom was one of the things that convinced me I would rather use my limited time elsewhere.
>Just having Richard step down from GNU probably wouldn't change any minds of people who have stayed away from the project due to Richard's behavior, of course. He's been there long enough that his influences, good and bad, will long outlast him. And of course this is not just about Richard, but about the culture of the projects we all work on together. What I hope for the GNU project (and for the FSF, for that matter) is that they keep their commitment to Richard's good influences (strong commitment to software freedom, explicitly political goals for the project) and that they work actively toward repairing the harms that habits and behaviors like his have done to the project's overall health, and the people who care about it. We need to actively build up the community that should surround such an important piece of work. That takes commitment and effort that has been lacking from the GNU project thus far. I hope that changes, whether Richard stays involved or not.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 6:17 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (2 responses)
Expecting everybody else to put up with the culture of misogyny and professional denigration that his continuing disregard of personal vs. professional boundaries fosters is equally ridiculous.
Treating people the same regardless of gender (in a professional context) is not just a moral value IMHO. It's basic ethics, not to mention common sense.
You personally might be comfortable with a club where you need to leave your values (or your emotional well-being) at the door if you want to be a member, let alone a card-carrying one, but I am not.
No I don't expect RMS to follow any of my values. I assume him to be unable to, not without some professional coaching. Right now this fact is to the detriment of the GNU Project and, ultimately, his own (professional) ideals. Thus there should be consequences.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 17:38 UTC (Tue)
by Zack (guest, #37335)
[Link] (1 responses)
That gets repeating a lot. Repeating something a lot doesn't make it true.
> I assume him to be unable to [follow any of my values], not without some professional coaching.
"Assuming I am a better person than he is, my moral objections are vindicated (because I am a better person)."
> Right now this fact
That's an assumption, not a fact. You just said that: "I assume him...".
> Thus there should be consequences.
"Thus" means a conclusion to a logical chain of arguments. You haver introduced nothing but a personal dislike of the man, and some backwards reasoning to arrive at the conclusion that you are right to do so.
It's okay to simply dislike the man. It's not okay to hide behind spurious reasoning and fabrications to convince the world there's a moral imperative to do the same so you can feel better about your convictions.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 7:32 UTC (Wed)
by xophos (subscriber, #75267)
[Link]
Posted Oct 8, 2019 12:43 UTC (Tue)
by dvdeug (guest, #10998)
[Link] (12 responses)
What's this, the divine right of RMS? Anyone associated with the GNU project has the right to call for him to be removed. Those with the legal authority to remove him have done so.
> Expecting him to follow *your* moral values is ridiculous.
This always starts to go down a rabbit hole for me. If there is no shared moral values, then why would it be wrong for me demand things from him according to my moral values? I don't find it ridiculous to expect leaders to follow moral values acceptable to their followers.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 17:44 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Maybe frostsnow would understand better what we were driving at if we took a limit case. A free software leader who cooked and ate unwilling victims would not share my moral values, and I would not consider him an acceptable leader of any movement I wanted to be associated with. I imagine (well, I hope) frostsnow would also be unwilling to follow someone with habits like that. So is frostsnow's real concern "expecting him to follow your moral values is ridiculous, but expecting him to follow mine is fine"? If so, I hope frostsnow can see the minor problem there.
(There are similar problems with "it's OK what he does as long as it's legal": there are plenty of things that are legal but intolerable, and for that matter RMS has made a career out of intentionally pointing out flaws and loopholes in the law and consequences of the law as it currently stands, and thus making things that others assumed were illegal into major industries, and showing disbelievers that they were in fact desirable things in the process. So that doesn't really work either.)
Posted Oct 8, 2019 21:35 UTC (Tue)
by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957)
[Link] (10 responses)
>What's this, the divine right of RMS?
>Anyone associated with the GNU project has the right to call for him to be removed.
>This always starts to go down a rabbit hole for me. If there is no shared moral values, then why would it be wrong for me demand things from him according to my moral values?
>Maybe frostsnow would understand better what we were driving at if we took a limit case. A free software leader who cooked and ate unwilling victims would not share my moral values, and I would not consider him an acceptable leader of any movement I wanted to be associated with. I imagine (well, I hope) frostsnow would also be unwilling to follow someone with habits like that. So is frostsnow's real concern "expecting him to follow your moral values is ridiculous, but expecting him to follow mine is fine"? If so, I hope frostsnow can see the minor problem there.
Posted Oct 13, 2019 18:15 UTC (Sun)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (9 responses)
It's a limit case. It appears your argument really *is* that expecting RMS to follow my moral values is ridiculous, but expecting him to follow yours is fine. Hmmmm.
Posted Oct 14, 2019 1:15 UTC (Mon)
by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Oct 14, 2019 9:26 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (7 responses)
(Also... one wonders if this is simply privilege speaking. Would you agree to have someone running an organization you were involved with if that person was creeping *you* out every time you interacted with him? I would presume not. Would you be happy to just leave that organization, even if you valued it, because obviously the guy at the top must be more important than any subset of other members? 'cos that's what you're doing here, except without you yourself in the crosshairs.)
Posted Oct 15, 2019 2:17 UTC (Tue)
by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957)
[Link] (6 responses)
The problem with the cannibal example is that the change is so fundamental that all of society would have to be warped to its reality, and the society which would result would be so alien to my knowledge that I could not coherently reckon about my interactions with it.
>You claim your discriminator to be 'is this legal?' but we all know that declaring that legality to be equivalent to morality leads to disastrous consequences, even if it made conceptual sense (does your ethical code really change every time you cross jurisdictional boundaries?). Not all that is legal is right to do.
>(Also... one wonders if this is simply privilege speaking. Would you agree to have someone running an organization you were involved with if that person was creeping *you* out every time you interacted with him? I would presume not. Would you be happy to just leave that organization, even if you valued it, because obviously the guy at the top must be more important than any subset of other members? 'cos that's what you're doing here, except without you yourself in the crosshairs.)
Posted Oct 15, 2019 10:15 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (5 responses)
I think what we are learning here is that the organization's values are not all written down -- and that if people who should (going by those shared values that *are* written down) find that they cannot join the organization because of violations of some of those unwritten values, they are quite within their rights and in fact justified in saying why this was. If it turns out that a lot of members of the organization agree, those values then become more explicitly stated.
This is what we're seeing here. (There were very long delays in making this widely public precisely *because* this sort of thing is usually kept under the carpet, because when this sort of thing gets publicised the organization usually comes down like a ton of bricks on the complainer and squashes her into a paste: instead you get people passing names and lists of names around on the quiet, people you don't want to be left alone in a room with, lists of people you don't want to be in the same room as even if not alone, etc. That you don't realise such things exist is yet another sign of privilege: like me, you are not in the afflicted group and so will not be on the under-the-table friendship networks that pass these things around. That you and others on this thread are immediately accusing the accusers of all being liars in the total absence of evidence is an example of the exact sort of squashing into a paste that I'm talking about here.)
Posted Oct 16, 2019 0:22 UTC (Wed)
by zenaan (guest, #3778)
[Link] (2 responses)
Your assertion is prima facie false; thus your subsequent conclusion from this assertion, has no basis in truth.
("Great way to bring balance and objectivity" by the way.) Posted Oct 16, 2019 3:30 UTC (Wed)
by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957)
[Link] (1 responses)
I will give an example. It will be a religious one, because the current claim being made against RMS is a moral superiority one, and, like the current claim, the example religious claim will be a moral superiority claim. Suppose, instead, that 90% of the members of GNU found that they all had a strong belief in Christianity. They may claim that others would feel creeped out by Godless heathens and their blasphemies (cursing, licentiousness, intoxicants, &c), and that the project would flourish if only their morality was incorporated into GNU. Their religious ideology does not give them the justification to co-opt GNU for their moral ideals.
There is an expectation that, whatever your moral convictions, you do not try and co-opt unrelated groups for your own moral ideals, even if a large majority of a group's members share those values. You are advocating breaking that expectation. I am advising you against it.
>This is what we're seeing here. (There were very long delays in making this widely public precisely *because* this sort of thing is usually kept under the carpet, because when this sort of thing gets publicised the organization usually comes down like a ton of bricks on the complainer and squashes her into a paste: instead you get people passing names and lists of names around on the quiet, people you don't want to be left alone in a room with, lists of people you don't want to be in the same room as even if not alone, etc.
>That you don't realise such things exist is yet another sign of privilege: like me, you are not in the afflicted group and so will not be on the under-the-table friendship networks that pass these things around.
>That you and others on this thread are immediately accusing the accusers of all being liars in the total absence of evidence is an example of the exact sort of squashing into a paste that I'm talking about here.
Posted Dec 25, 2019 14:06 UTC (Wed)
by dvdeug (guest, #10998)
[Link]
> When I encounter difficult people in an organization which I have agreed to be a part of, I both minimize my interactions with them and keep the ones that do happen short and on-topic. However, I would not call for the removal of the person unless they have violated the shared values of the organization.
Cool. What happens when a bunch of people are doing that to you, including many of the more powerful people? Do you stick around?
What's funny is you're advocating for "Diversity, Inclusion, Equity" values. It's not okay for GNU to be exclusionary of non-Christians, but it's okay for GNU to be exclusionary of women.
>> instead you get people passing names and lists of names around on the quiet, people you don't want to be left alone in a room with, lists of people you don't want to be in the same room as even if not alone, etc.
>I don't think conflating RMS with the people who are on the "might rape you" list is productive.
Do you want to be left alone in a room with "difficult people"? If you knew there were people in a group who would take every opportunity to ask you about "your personal relationship with Christ", especially if left alone with you, and you knew the group as a whole didn't care, would you not share their name with others who might get harassed by them?
Posted Oct 8, 2019 13:33 UTC (Tue)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (2 responses)
Before Hammurabi, there were no laws or legal authority (more or less; there was some inception point though). Laws don't exist within a vacuum. They are the product of what a society deems to be acceptable and unacceptable behavior which is backed by the authority granted to the state to enforce the laws. This means they change over time. How the laws get made is the political system, but the laws all derive their power from the collective will of the society in which they exist.
Put another way, slavery was always bad, legal or no. It just wasn't until the 19th century when humanity collectively started enforcing it through the legal system.
Posted Oct 10, 2019 1:09 UTC (Thu)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 18, 2019 0:52 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Now is this process finding the "ultimate morality" and if so, is that inevitable? No, I don't think so on either account. But anything that ends up going towards less collective empathy and mutual respect is (in my view) less viable for humanity as a whole in the long term.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 9:16 UTC (Tue)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (23 responses)
I'm not convinced this has happened a lot, or even happened at all.
You'll find a lot of people who will say "I would have contributed if…" but you can also find a lot of people who say "I would have loved to learn to play guitar" and yet never got themselves a guitar. People say a lot of things and maybe they believe them.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 9:39 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (16 responses)
That's your problem. Kindly let the rest of us get on with at least trying to make our corner of the world more inclusive.
There's a reason our conferences now have codes of conduct. If the problem was just a bunch of busybodies who drummed up a problem from thin air, they'd simply be shown the door.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 14:12 UTC (Tue)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (14 responses)
So inclusive by exclusiveness.
Seriously, it'd be really nice to know if there is some hard data on demographics of contributions to see if code of conducts and such have actually changed anything.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 14:29 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
I doubt it. Not because CoCs or such are inherently useless, but because this the sort of social change that happens on a generational timeline.
Posted Oct 8, 2019 22:18 UTC (Tue)
by ebassi (subscriber, #54855)
[Link] (12 responses)
So inclusive by exclusiveness. I'd recommend you read the paradox of tolerance. it'd be really nice to know if there is some hard data on demographics of contributions to see if code of conducts and such have actually changed anything. There's a whole study on the topic.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 0:41 UTC (Wed)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link] (8 responses)
I think this is probably the best response I've ever seen to the general idea of the paradox of tolerance: Tolerance is not a moral precept. The basic argument is that tolerance is not a moral absolute. It is a social agreement intended to allow different people to live together, and people who violate that agreement lose its protection by doing so.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 12:52 UTC (Wed)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (7 responses)
Can you point me at one human being which has never said an unfunny joke or made one unwelcome advance? I don't think that exists.
Please remember the context.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 14:02 UTC (Wed)
by tao (subscriber, #17563)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 16:13 UTC (Wed)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (3 responses)
I agree that persisting on the same person is certainly unwanted behaviour, but surely you don't expect someone to never make any jokes or advances ever because they upset one person.
And I haven't seen reports indicating that the same person was harassed more than once.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 16:18 UTC (Wed)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
There's still a pattern - if the majority of people reject your advances, then at some point, you have to accept that what you're doing is unwanted to most people, and find a better way to target your advances.
Similar applies if you tell your racist joke to lots of different people, and they're all uncomfortable - the fact that each person only hears it once from you does not mean that you are faultless, rather it means that you're failing to learn from the failures.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 17:13 UTC (Wed)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (1 responses)
I agree. Any indications that this was not the case for rms?
And even then, not everyone is skilled on social cues, so it might take a while before they independently figure it out.
If they are calmly explained what they did wrong it is another situation.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 20:16 UTC (Wed)
by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844)
[Link]
mjg59 and dkg both stated that they have already done so on several occasions in a different thread: https://lwn.net/Articles/800042/
Posted Oct 11, 2019 10:55 UTC (Fri)
by zenaan (guest, #3778)
[Link] (1 responses)
Let me repeat the relevant part of the quote:
"That is what's lacking in this case."
Over and over, and over, again, allegations and innuendo are made, assumed, propagated, in this massive and public discussion re RMS.
Facts, people, facts are what you need if you want to shift the world and if you want anything resembling due process and not a mob rule witch hunt!
Posted Oct 13, 2019 23:54 UTC (Sun)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link]
Between you quoting it and you selecting a soundbite from it to push your agenda (two lines), you seem to have forgotten the rest of what it said. Go back and read it again, until you understand.
Posted Oct 9, 2019 11:48 UTC (Wed)
by evad (subscriber, #60553)
[Link]
" In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."
John Rawls (a philosopher) made it even more clear:
"While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
As far as I am aware, none of this applies to the situation. We're not debating a dangerous movement/philosophy that wants to end tolerance - so the paradox of intolerance is not relevant here.
Posted Oct 10, 2019 20:47 UTC (Thu)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (1 responses)
I'd recommend reading about the Petrie multiplier as well. Especially for anyone claiming this is all about “opportunist political agitators” trying to “destroy” someone. That article turns six years old this week.
Posted Oct 10, 2019 22:31 UTC (Thu)
by jebba (guest, #4439)
[Link]
Posted Oct 9, 2019 7:39 UTC (Wed)
by xophos (subscriber, #75267)
[Link]
Posted Oct 8, 2019 17:51 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (5 responses)
For the record: it happened to me: the glibc community before its current inclusive, helpful form was sufficiently, shall we say, *abrasive* that after one tentative attempt I gave up any attempt to contribute anything and maintained my changes out-of-tree. I'm quite happy to contribute now, and plan to keep doing so as the whim and need takes me. I am absolutely certain that I'm not the only one, and that that was not the only such community, though I'll grant you it was an extreme case.
Technical brilliance is not all a free software maintainer needs. -- and God knows I'm not perfect in this area myself. The thing to remember is that if you get annoyed and are abrasive to someone, for God's sake apologise as soon as you realise it. Apologise even if you're right, not for being right, but for being *nasty* about it. It is every bit as important to be nice as to be right, unless you actually like working entirely on your own and watching everyone else form a new community without you. (Some people do like that outcome: the XFree86 developers after the fissioning of X.org are an example... and look what happened to that.)
Posted Oct 9, 2019 12:59 UTC (Wed)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (4 responses)
I made an actual example of a conversation that happened to me tens of times. People telling me "I would have liked to learn an instrument". False, they would have liked to be a master of an instrument but not to go through the pain of learning.
Every time that the twitter mobs are targeting someone, for 1 person that is honest about the "I would have contributed but" There are a thousand liars who would like to be contributors but actually don't want to spend the time and effort to become one.
I have a number of small libre software projects and contributions are very very rare, and good contributions happen even more seldom.
Posted Oct 13, 2019 18:19 UTC (Sun)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (3 responses)
I think that might be among the worst examples of flawed reasoning I've ever seen.
Posted Oct 14, 2019 5:57 UTC (Mon)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (2 responses)
I didn't say everyone. I said a staggering majority.
Posted Oct 14, 2019 9:27 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 14, 2019 11:39 UTC (Mon)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link]
Huge amount of trolls who "would contribute if you kick out that guy".
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
That's silly. Regardless of the merits of defenestrating Stallman, the Free Software movement is much too broad and deep at this point to be significantly affected by his fate. Indeed, if the Free Software movement to this day depended on Stallman to that extent, then his career truly would have been a failure.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
As far as I'm aware, Microsoft made no contributions to GPLv3-licensed projects.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Wol
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
No. GPLv3 is explicitly prohibited in MS (and many other companies) because of patent clauses.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Wol
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
As pizza stated, that is what it is.
A better question would be *who* has the authority to enforce consequences for his behavior? What authority, both moral & legal, do they have?
>And, rhetoric aside, it is the responsibility of people who have power in a situation to act toward righting injustices that they see, whether they are personally, directly affected by them or not.
And those actions must be guided by a tempered humility. Not all crosses are yours to bear.
You used the collective form "we" when you wrote "we've driven lots of people away...", and I'm not willing to let you project *your* guilt onto *me*. Speak only for yourself here.
It seems to me that the impetus, thus unstated, is a rehash of the White Man's Burden: the burden is to guide the marginalized savages towards the glorious Free Software civilization. Your belief & acceptance of this burden does not give you the moral authority to destroy other's livelihoods; if you wish to make a sacrifice for the greater good, it must be *you* making the sacrifice, not someone else.
Or he doesn't share all of your moral values and thus does not feel sorry for all of the actions which you think he should feel sorry for. Expecting him to follow *your* moral values is ridiculous.
That was a reasonable choice for you to make given your understanding of the situation.
I don't think that a community which takes seriously people who put forward the notion of a "sustainable pruge" (https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-appe...) is healthy.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Someone needed to say it!
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
No, and neither is the agitators' right to usurp him.
They do, but on what grounds? On what *basis* may they rightfully call for his removal?
There are shared moral values and there are unshared moral values. This is dealt with by using one subset of moral values in one context and another subset of moral values in another. For Free Software the moral values that everyone agrees to is with regards to the use, production, and propagation of Free Software for use in personal, public, and professional settings. RMS has been a stalwart upholder of this moral value.
The agitators calling for his removal are not doing so because he has violated the moral values of Free Software, but because he has violated another set of moral values: those of DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity). What's more, the upholders of the value believe it to be a superordinate value to that of Free Software, by claiming that upholding DIE values will be best for Free Software. Not everyone believes them. I, for one, do not.
Calling for RMS's removal on the basis of violating DIE values and not Free Software values thus creates a cacophony of differing moral values by dragging in values which are not directly relevant to Free Software. It is similar to calling for RMS's removal for being a Godless heathen. RMS should be judged in a Free Software context on his adherence to Free Software values alone, and, circling back to my original point, I still trust him to uphold those values in a way that I do not trust the political agitators.
Free Software values exist within a system in which people are not allowed to murder each other for food. The example is ridiculous.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Close. The moral values which apply are the subset which have been agreed-upon by the group. It is that which allows us to agree in one respect and thus co-operate towards a common goal despite our other disagreements.
That is not my claim. The moral values of GNU are not legal values, but they must be upheld within the group.
When I encounter difficult people in an organization which I have agreed to be a part of, I both minimize my interactions with them and keep the ones that do happen short and on-topic. However, I would not call for the removal of the person unless they have violated the shared values of the organization.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Then you have missed my point entirely. You have conflated the values which the subset of people which you describe hold with the values of the overall group. Finding that "a lot" of members agree on other values does not give them the justification to formally incorporate those values into the organization and purge those who do not hold those values.
I don't think conflating RMS with the people who are on the "might rape you" list is productive.
That I do not agree with you does not mean that I am blinded by my privilege, and I do not appreciate your casual dismissal of my argument.
When did I do that? You seem to be confusing me with other commenters. I do not appreciate your careless accusation, either.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
I'd recommend you read the paradox of tolerance.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
They scream long enough and loud enough that some people think, they must be right, and soon there is a mob, showing RMS the door.
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project
Richard Stallman and the GNU project