Richard Stallman Resigns From The Free Software Foundation

[wizard69]

even if he didn't say that the victims were willing, his belief that it's possible for a child to consent to being raped by a grown man is more than bad enough.

If someone consents it isn’t rape. Statutory rape varies widely by country, some places it might be 16 or the concept might not even exist. The flip side exist where things legal in the USA can land you in jail in other countries.

[wizard69]

In South Korea the age of consent is 20. So if you sleep with a 19 year old person in the US, how can that be acceptable?

I don't have an answer to that, but I know people shouldn't lose their jobs just for asking the damn question. When I was in high school, I emailed Marvin Minsky for advice about AI, twice. And both times he responded to me the same day with helpful advice. I don't like this demonization of people without the facts.

This is part of the problem people seem to think that the concept of statutory rape is uniform world wide. It isn’t at all, even state laws vary here. So you have this sub discussion going with people trying to apply US laws around the world. As one might imagine that could get Americans in trouble in Korea.

In any event what bothers me here is that somebody is loosing his job over what should be free speech. Even more disgusting is the twisting of facts to inflame the uninformed.

[wizard69]

I mean, I fear the GPL may go down, the MIT/Apache/permissive licenses may stand up and at some point since these licenses are too permissive, they'll close everything down, effectively turning the open-source community into a closed-source one...

Open source licenses do not close anything down. I’m not sure how this ignorance ever developed. GPL has actually been pretty horrible for open source.

[wizard69]

it's horrifying that so many people think "innocent until proven guilty" should apply to rapists, but not to their victims.

After living for almost 69 years I would never assume a woman is being honest about anything. This especially in the case of rape, when so many allegations are proven false again and again. It is really sad that so many people are so gullible when it comes to this stuff.

[wizard69]

This is very confusing, at least for someone like me who wasn't raised in North America. According to the news the lady was 17, so why are people calling her a child?
She isn't a child according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_o..._North_America
Or is this article wrong?

The article in the main is right, however the laws can be very complex or down right strange in some states. At one time anyways there where states where the age of consent varied based upon the virginity of the female. This is why the whole sub thread about a 17 year old giving consent is so bogus, it can be perfectly legal in the right place.

[andyprough]

Open source licenses do not close anything down. I’m not sure how this ignorance ever developed. GPL has actually been pretty horrible for open source.

Good. Never use any GPL'd software again then. Let us know how it works out for you.

[tuxd3v]

I don't understand at all...

me to

[tildearrow]

Open source licenses do not close anything down. I’m not sure how this ignorance ever developed. GPL has actually been pretty horrible for open source.

Permissive open-source licenses allow anybody to do so though.

[ElectricPrism]

He should have created a blog post REVISING his prior statements to better reflect his intent and then get a second major news article to cover it.

[Farmer]

Virginia Giuffre is 35 in 2019. The incident happened in 2002. She would have become 18 that year. Legal ages of consent are 17 in New York where Epstein lived and 16 in Massachusetts. Even if Minsky did have sex with the girl, which Stallman said he didn't, it would have been 100% legal. Before someone chimes in with Romeo and Juliet laws, that's below legal age of consent. They literally shamed the guy into resigning OVER NOTHING.

No, it would not have been 100% legal under any circumstances. Age of consent in the U.S. Virgin Islands is 18. Ergo that would be rape. Compounding that problem is that it would be a clear violation of the Mann Act and thus a Federal set of crimes - irrespective of the location. From there it just gets worse.

Why was Minsky on an island with what were clearly underage girls brought there for the sole purpose of sex? Stew that and what it tells us about Minsky.

As for Stallman, he clearly, early on, let everybody know he was ok with paedophiles. He then claimed to have "seen the light" and "changed his mind."

Here's the important bit.

In defending Minsky he made it clear that his "change of mind" was a farce as he tried to defend Minsky with the claim that perhaps Minsky believed the girl was consensual. A minor, by definition, cannot consent. Ergo Stallman lied when he claimed he'd changed his mind - get that? His entire premise that she could consent is a refutation of his claimed "change in position." Anyone with a basic understanding of minors and sex understands that they cannot consent. Unless they're not really against paedophilia.

Good riddance to RMS. He's a creeper.