Richard Stallman To Continue As Head Of The GNU Project

[jacob]

BTW Michael, AFAIK Stallman was never a Hurd developer. Hi greatest software achievements are GNU Emacs and GCC. If I could make a wish, I would like Stallman to get active in GCC development again, it's a foundational part of the FOSS community (emacs is probably a relic these days and no-one seems to need Hurd).

[sverris]

I'm 100% positive as well that people quoting that reddit comment didn't see that one, "oops": https://www.reddit.com/r/programming...m_medium=web2x

I have read about this too, yet how can anyone be sure what is true and what is not true? (I mean: some allegations, some people defend him, some quote without context, some describe what they have seen in person... but actual proof?)
I was following mainly the recent events - and there, I still cannot see that Stallman is to blame.

[tului]

Good. This retarded "cancel culture" is ridiculous.

[L_A_G]

I love how even in this thread we have people slandering Stallman based on something he's recanted and apologised for. Particularly when the whole stink is one big malicious misinterpretation of him defending a dead friend and colleague being called called a pedophile because he attended one of Epstein's parties and was propositioned by one of his then underage victims, but turned her down.

Mind you, I'm not a fan of him and find him to be a downright repulsive person in many regards, but in this instance he was grossly wronged by the media who claimed he was defending Epstein when he actually condemned him and called him a serial rapist. I really can't see any reason to interpret his defence of Minsky and pointing out that the underage Epstein victim who propositioned him, and again I stress that Minsky turned her down, was probably coerced into pretending to be willing as a defence of Epstein than the worst kind of tabloid "accidental" misinterpretation.

Honestly, it just plain sickens me how to see how far most of the media has fallen in recent years. I remember back when this kind of "reporting" was mostly we just laughed at and thought "Well that's just Fox News" or "The News of the World" or some other crap tabloid. Now every TV news channel wants to be Fox News with a different slant and every newspaper a bottom feeding tabloid. Hell, it's harder and harder to tell the New York times apart from the New York Post. Then again the media sector has contracted pretty heavily since the 90s so it's probably to be expected that the most talented people are going to be the first ones to leave as they're going to have the easiest time finding new jobs in other industries.

[tului]

BTW Michael, AFAIK Stallman was never a Hurd developer. Hi greatest software achievements are GNU Emacs and GCC. If I could make a wish, I would like Stallman to get active in GCC development again, it's a foundational part of the FOSS community (emacs is probably a relic these days and no-one seems to need Hurd).

Am I wrong in thinking Minix 3 is basically what HURD wanted to be? From a technical standpoint at least, nothing to do with the philosophy of "freedom"

[jacob]

Am I wrong in thinking Minix 3 is basically what HURD wanted to be? From a technical standpoint at least, nothing to do with the philosophy of "freedom"

I don't know Minix 3 but I don't think it's the case. HURD was supposed to be an infinitely modular and reconfigurable OS that would be all things to everyone, which means of no real use to anyone.

[JMB9]

RMS founded GNU 1984 and FSF in 1985.
He was the only spiritual leader - no one else showed up to get any trust in all these years.
All the blame and insults was aimed at him - like communism, cancer, ... GPL being something bad and that kind of stuff.
No talk or interview without citing him in a wrong way ... so many times ... with his talks and interviews always being brilliant and to the point.
It is a real problem of no respect for such a man who did it not for money like Gates, Jobs and the rest ... and who stood up when no one else did.
We will see if the FSF can survive that.

GNU is important, but is more about code.
I can not remember anyone giving a good talk about free software and pointing to the real critical things to take care of.
No one - except him.
So there is no one who can lead the FSF - as simple as that. No person is coming to my mind.
Comparing to Linux Torvalds he was never the only one - Alan Cox, Andrew Morton, Greg Kroah-Hartman.
All made their points and got trust by their saying and doing.
And from my point of view GNOME may be more comparable to Microsoft as given in the ironic statement - they never understood what freedom of users mean.
Not even technically when forcing special workflows and restricting people from configuring SW similar to Microsoft.

It will be quite interesting who will step up and the way showing the spirit behind the new FSF.
The FSF is not the LF - where the CEO can make a talk with a non-Linux device or using proprietary SW.
It would be a pity if the FSF and its goals will vanish to another open source thing without meaning ...

But the positive thing is: RMS seems to be capable and willing of staying there and reminding people of what should be done.
I personally hope that he will stay committed and has the energy to stand to free software and keep the excellent work he did for all these important goals.
How important these goals are today is much clearer now than those days when GNU and the FSF were founded ...

[lkundrak]

> I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children.

May depend on the context in which this was said. Sounds to me like he wanted to point out the 'voluntary' aspect. But still, even despite being 'voluntary', I would say that it can harm. But concerning the case in question, I do not get the impression that his remarks were inappropriate.

What really matters is that one's disagreement with the claim shouldn't be a reason for outrage. It should be a reason for discussion. Much more so that the topic itself has suffered from being a taboo and lacked scrutiny.

Richard Stallman is perfectly capable of civilized discourse. He also states that he's sceptical, which specifically means that he's questioning the thing.

In fact, that's what actually happened: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-j...child_is_wrong)

[moilami]

This Stallman episode is a disgrace to the society. I don't see him being a criminal, yet he is treated as such, maybe even worse.

[alcalde]

I love how even in this thread we have people slandering Stallman based on something he's recanted and apologised for. Particularly when the whole stink is one big malicious misinterpretation of him defending a dead friend and colleague being called called a pedophile because he attended one of Epstein's parties and was propositioned by one of his then underage victims, but turned her down.

First, when you look over Stallman's entire history, from his "Cult of the EMACS (female) virgin" on up, he has decades of inappropriate behavior which, just like Torvalds', went unchecked and perversely praised and egged on by cultish groupies. Second, Minsky did have sex with the woman unless you believe she's lying.

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/EMACS_virgins_joke

Rather than handing out business cards, Richard has "pleasure cards" which describe his personal interests, including "tender embraces". He hands these out to people of any gender, but what may appear whimsical to men who receive them may seem creepy to women.

How the heck does anyone defend this with a straight face?