Richard Stallman Reportedly Steps Down As Head Of The GNU Project

[perpetually high]

I am disgusted by the man-boy-love crowd in here.

Stallman did nothing wrong.

Repeat after me: Stallman did nothing wrong!

[dwagner]

It may be true that in this individual instance no crime was committed... it doesn't however make stallman any more qualified to hold his position, he's been a shitty software hobo for his entire life, and that is just as invalid today as it was throughout his career at MIT and the FSF.

That person you talk about authored gcc, the still best and most versatile free and open source compiler of the last 3 decades. If you call that "shitty", the only one full of shit is you.

[oiaohm]

I have put you together because the final apart applies to both you.

To make matters worse, there's witness testimony that Minsky didn't even sleep with the girl, meaning that Stallman's faith in Minsky was almost certainly correct. Oh, but it's not the fact he was right/wrong, it's the fact he decided talk back at all. He should have just known that people participating in technical projects would have a knee-jerk reaction. Essentially, he should have replied to the other faculty members as if he were dealing emotional children instead of functioning adults.

The law does not require you to sleep with a person to be done for sexual assault. Doing sexual grooming behaviours on a child is guilty by law of sexual assault so the bar of guilt legally is a lot lower than what Stallman used and those in management positions today need to be aware of it. There is a good chance that Stallman faith in Minsky was wrong. Stallman needed to wait for the the full investigation to be completed before doing anything as well as understand the legal bar of guilt on sexual assault was way lower.

This legal bar on what is sexual assault lowed about 25 years ago. So 30 years evidence he had would have been right to ignore/attempt to discredit the claim but its not today or for the past 25 years.

But next issue is then how Stallman was levered away. It was made by a massive smearing campaign by predatory yellow page qualified hateful media among very toxic and loud twitter smearers, of which some are clearly pofessionals in manipulating these eager to judge, eager to execute masses. This all was totally unfair and absolutely shameful. Do you think people who can do such actions are in some way riding a morally higher horse than Stallman?

Some thing to be aware of is those smearers have been around for 2 decades. Its really easy to join dots to something that really does not factor into it. Those doing smearers really don't factor into why Stallman was dismissed. Of course those smearers are going to claim credit for success they are not due. Stallman trouble is the fact old laws have started being enforced.

Do you think it is good for a company if it is lead by observably borderline psychopath bullies having strict political views out of tech areas harder than hard core politruks in USSR, and who are eager to publicly destroy anyone who dares to speak something else than what they think is politically correct? What kind of concussive fear they would spread around?

Doing that is in fact offence under law as well for someone in a leadership position. You are not in fact allowed to bully people it is either verbal assault or physical assault that is offence under law. These laws are not enforced as much as they should be are a very much like the sexual assault rules that are on the books and were being ignored until some point in future they get enforced and we see a cleaning of house.

With RMS in FSF I don't think you had to fear anything.

Yes we did something to fear with RMS in the FSF at leadership position due to him using the wrong judgement on sexual crimes as I pointed out to Blahblah even that Blahblah did not know it.

What has come out in the Catholic church cases in Australia and the Harvey Weinstein cases in the USA is that everyone involved in a attempted cover-up of a sexual crime can be legally detained and possibly prosecuted. These laws are old England laws that fairly much apply in every country who legal systems is based off the England one but the laws have been sitting on the books not being enforced until recently.

So if FSF or GNU board defended the position of RMS in his mistake there is a chance they could down with him this is due to the recent legal precedence backing very old legal precedence as still current . To protect the FSF and GNU organisations Stallman need either to be demoted or fired. Fired being most sure protection so that Stallman mistake over what is sexual assault does not effect the other people in management positions at FSF or GNU organisations.

Basically Stallman downfall tracks tot he fact people have worked out what laws are in fact on books and the legal requirement as management you are required to follow in sexual assault cases. Anyone who screws up in management position on sexual assault things should expect to be fired and it does not matter if you are founder of the company/organisation or not because the company/organisation can fall into legal mess because of these mistakes.

Now what I said should have been the message about the Stallman mess. But we have those with a anti Stallman bent not wanting to cover the legal facts so not warning people when it comes to this sexual assault stuff you need to be way more careful particularly if you are in a management role as it how to get fired in a management role.

The laws that really force FSF and GNU hand over sexual assault are in fact over 300 years old. So these are not new laws on the books. This is also another important point leaving a law you don't agree with on the law books that not being enforced does not mean one day it not come active again. Before Catholic church cases in Australia and the Harvey Weinstein cases in the USA the the laws at play here had been unenforced for roughly 100 years.

The best thing we can do in a case like this is accept that Stallman made a critical mistake and not try to overly protect. I do hope like in 12 months time Stallman is given a lower non management position due to all the work he has done he is truly due that.

[cb88]

That person you talk about authored gcc, the still best and most versatile free and open source compiler of the last 3 decades. If you call that "shitty", the only one full of shit is you.

There is basically none of stallman's code left in GCC since probably decades... what is your point, his last contributions were in the mid 90's. There are only 43 references to RMS in the gcc codebase... and 2/3 of those are root mean square...

At the point RMS was writing gcc it was nothing spectacular... and didn't really come into it's own untill forked as EGCS which eventually got merged back into the fold as GCC.

[coder111]

Just a note. GPL is not supposed to protect developer's rights. GPL is supposed to protect USER's rights. And GPL does that perfectly.

Developer might or might not license their software under GPL. But as a user, using GPL software you are guaranteed that you have rights to modify and distribute modified software. Effectively you are guaranteed the power to control the software you are using.

I guess as a developer writing GPL software, you are also guaranteed that your software will not be misused to impinge on rights of users.

These are very powerful and useful guarantees. Whatever flaws RMS has, first I'm very grateful to him for these guarantees expressed in GPL. Second, his comment about Minsky does not defend pedophilia in any shape or form, and news media have engaged in massive libel campaign against him and have done much damage. IMO RMS should sue each news outlet that has misquoted his post and portrayed him in bad light for libel and demand compensation and retraction. Whether MIT or FSF want to fire him for his creepy/asshole behaviour is a completely separate question unrelated to this particular post defending Minsky.

You highlight some of the worse aspects of the GPL and why it is a hideous license. GPL takes away developer freedom and rights.

[UlisesH]

I was born only a few years before that and this current day ideology that you should treat people differently based on sex and race in the name of anything let alone "diversity" goes completely against everything I was ever taught. The same is true for the other idea that it's perfectly fine to destroy people and remove their voice if they say something you do not agree with, something Richard Stallman has now become a victim of.

Where the hell did this bullcrap come from? There are many people much older than myself that have taken on this mindset too, and to me this is pure insanity. I do struggle to understand how this idea swept though and corroded people's common logic away so easily.

Also, why are lies and misinfo perfectly allowed if as long as it's used to attack something the mob does not like?

the answer is fear. People are so afraid of being cancelled that become supporters of cancel culture to avoid drawing attention

[onicsis]

Then in this hostile context, Linux fragmentation it's a good thing because, no single corporation/organization/entity can control it.

[Guest]

I see, well, in The Circus there is room for everyone

Getting software for free is clearly a big benefit, but I doubt I myself would had been drawn to Free Software because of that. If getting software for free was my motivation I would had chosen *BSD, which always triggered my nerd fancy more than GNU/Linux.

Software is easy to copy and modify due to its nature. Being active in Free Software movement or just using Free Software is a way to change the world for good. It is the best venue for all people in the world to build and improve something for mutual benefit. Sounds idealistic? Well, I think I have all the rights in the world to be idealistic in my man cave

Yep, some SJW people of the "Free Software Movement", fighting for extreme position of freedom (emphasis on free as in free beer) to take anything they want, would be quite nice addition to The Circus ;-)

I like, and share, the view, that Free Software is a way to change the world towards a better place. The only thing, that I'm against regarding Free Software, is the extreme leftist position/attitude of some Free Software advocates/proponents. My disagreement only applies to that extreme - these SJW people of FSF, and GPL license.

History confirms, that socialism didn't work well.

[azdaha]

My agenda is to contrast idea of enforced freedom to acquire software for free (as in free beer), without having to pay for it. And, that "freedom" is enforced by GPL in viral way. Who wants to take, should give/contribute. Freedom to acquire things for free is beneficial only for lazy people,... What's agenda of FSF forum warriors/supporters? To take/acquire software for free?

You might be going too far there, actually. Your "research and development" is based on "acquired things for free"; whether it's thousands of years of prior research, learning, and publishing, or the ubiquity of the open source code that helped you to become a developer in the first place. There are valid reasons, obviously, to be rewarded for your work and expertise. However, it would have to be done in a different way; either by providing a service while using the free tools/code for a company or person(s), or by creating an entirely new thing as a developer. Otherwise, you are guilty of the same thing that you accuse users and proponents of GPL to be; namely, a lazy person (developer). In case that's somehow not clear: If you are using open source software (i.e. GPL licensed) to create something on top of it, then you are being lazy for not doing it the hard way. You are being lazy and accepting something for free as the foundation of your own "work".

If, however, you feel that your work will be beneficial for others long after you stop developing, then you are glad to contribute to the advancement of human development. Whether it's on a small scale, like giving another young person the ability to learn from your contributions; or on a bigger scale, by allowing tools and technology to be built upon your work.

If everything is obfuscated and hidden to everyone but the person/company that owns it, we will be reinventing the wheel over and over again. Worse yet, companies are charging for research that had been done with public funding, freely licensed, or even completed hundreds of years ago. The GPL license is a necessity if for nothing else but to counter those same perverse actions that have been ongoing for a long time and that will continue. The stability, security, and the ubiquity of open source software in today's technological age is a testament to the importance and effectiveness of the GPL **and** its cousins, less restrictive open source licenses.

[azdaha]

This news as far as I understand it was a hoax... the GNU Project seems to be still fine but the FSF is our enemy...

That said it starts to look good for Trump, the Identity Politics retards and Cancel culture Fascists and Femnazis make a compelling case to vote for Trump again. The current Impeachment process is also based on a similar lie than this one, they just took 2 half sentences cut 1000 words in between and fabricated evidence and somehow nobody goes to jail for forgery.

The only candidate that makes a good case that she doesn't support this tactics against Trump Tulsi Gabbard has no Chance to get the nomination therefor Trump will win. Well every country becomes the Politicians they deserve !!!

Yeah...comparing Trump to Stallman, not even in the same universe, much less the same species. The former being a trust-fund baby with no morals or ethical values, using mafia-style techniques and nepotism to enrich himself. Disgusting to even suggest attributing anything remotely similar to Stallman, unless you're entirely lacking of moral fiber and ethics yourself.