Richard Stallman Reportedly Steps Down As Head Of The GNU Project

[computerquip]

Basically, don't ever speak your mind openly or have an opinion outside of what everyone else thinks. It will be distorted until you're a monster that everyone rejects or you kill yourself.

They didn't even quote him correctly on any news outlet that I can find. They either quoted entirely incorrectly (meaning they aren't actually quotes) or they would take two words at a time and piece them together, then distort the meaning to mean something entirely different.

Not gonna lie, I'm becoming exhausted with the witch hunts and the close-minded hateful attitudes. I don't get what people are hoping to achieve by it. It's incredibly depressing.

[oiaohm]

I'm really not a fan of what he says, but these witch hunts are just wrong. Regardless of his opinions and views, Richard Stallman has done amazing things for the FOSS movement and we can't pretend that didn't happen.

What happened to innocent before proven guilty?

https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84

Sorry like it or not Richard Stallman did a full blown own goal. So its not a question about proven guilty. He is guilty of doing something a good leader should not.

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

Like I don't like the way this site is write up exactly. But when you look at the links there to Richard Stallman own site you will see this bad behaviour as been going on for a long time.

Because hes Richard Stallman he has got away with it. One day that was going to end.

This is not a witch hunt as such this is a case of a person doing the same offence multi times and not learning from it and now he is being punished with Richard stallman.. Its important when it comes to any form of reported assault to a leader of that project that that leader does not attempt to justify it away.

Richard Stallman is a good activist has done a really good job in this role to a point. In fact some of the bad behavour of Richard Stallman has been getting in the way,.

Remember it rare that a good activist makes a good leader because a good leader has to be able disregard their own personal options and work from the facts.

A good activist works with emotion so make the idea they pushing press home more and being controversial to get media attention is allowable for an activist.

Yes there are things Richard Stallman should have been pulled up on sooner. His personality does not make him suitable to be a project leader that important issues like assaults or work place health and safety issues have to go by.

I hope that Richard Stallman is able to step down from the project leadership role and move like into PR marketing manager role. He has been a round peg in a square hole for a long time. He has need a manager above him to say X is not really public suitable.

Richard Stallman has fallen victim to the historic problem of the "Peter Principle" by Laurence J. Peter, 'which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence".' Richard Stallman like it or not has promoted well above his level of competence so now he need a demotion to correct this mistake. Problem is the demotion should have happened almost 2 decades ago. Its one of the most common problems is being unwilling to demote a person once they show they are not suitable for X role. Yes is really hard to demote someone like Richard Stallman when they are a founder of a group like GNU and have placed themselves in position they are not competent todo.

Linus Torvalds has had a bad language problem but he is not incompetent at the level he is with the Linux kernel so this is retraining because is a minor issue.

Richard Stallman is demotion with that as the only option because he is truly incompetent at the level he is particular when it comes to rapes and assaults as a project lead issues like that a project lead need to be able to handle carefully and correctly. Yes demotion from position is better than him ending up in future in jail for aiding and abetting a crime because he handles his leadership position incorrectly due to his personal bias.

Reality here Activist and project lead are a rare successful combination and Richard Stallman is not one of the rare ones who can pull it off. Remember todo both roles as one person will require kind of split personality because the project lead requires one kind of personality in problem solving and the activist requires a different personality in problem solving to be effective. This is not something rare to FOSS this is something that happens many times over where a activist attempt to be a project lead/CEO with some point it going horribly wrong.

[Guest]

That's open source. Today more than most days, it should be clear that open source has nothing to do with freedom, or defending the person that made open source possible. (With scant exceptions of course https://lists.debian.org/debian-deve.../msg01641.html)

Not really,... GPL is a viral license, while it enforces user's freedom to acquire sources for all derivates and dependant works, it removes the freedom of companies/developers to protect their inventions (as they must opensource it, if based on GPL library).

The most of consumers doesn't care, if it's opensource or not, but if it works. Small companies want to protect their development, at least for some time, to have R&D paid back and also have money for future R&D. So, they won't base solutions on GPL libraries. Therefore, viral aspect of GPL license cuts of many possible adoption paths of library, and community bullring.

For example, Apache license enforces companies/developers freedom to be able base own solution on it, whether it's opensource or not. It also protects author (from contributors) and users with patent grant clause.

[fsfhfc2018]

sidenote: Too many trolls around everywhere these days

Yes, and they have far too much power in the media and influence over public opinion.

[AdrianBc]

Yes stallman is guilty of toxic behavior... is he practically the poster child for toxic behavior. At multiple levels even. So no this is not some SJW witch hunt... its just him finally getting what is due despite years of his position and fame holding it back.

While I do not agree with some of the opinions of Stallman, I do not remember of anything he ever said that could be assessed as "toxic behavior".

When you utter such insults towards someone, the burden of proof is upon you to provide detailed sources to support your allegations. Otherwise it is better to shut up.


In the present case, I did not search everything that was said about it, so I might miss something, but in what I have read Stallman was not guilty of anything because he only tried to defend correctly a dead colleague, who was thus unable to defend himself.

I have not seen any proof that Minsky did something wrong, because the primary source only said she heard that Minsky was offered a girl, without having other information about what happened, while another source said that Minsky refused the offer and was actually offended by it.

Therefore Stallman was right to defend Minsky until any real evidence is provided against him and all criticism of Stallman that I have seen was not based on what he actually wrote.

[GaryTheGravelGuy]

Hey Richard, you can crash on my couch, I can even give you your own room if you want it.

[AdrianBc]

You lot do realise he's an underage sex apologist, right? He might've done heaps for the free software movement, but he's still a toxic figure. Good riddance.

Even if you are not alone, because another poster wrote similar insults that have no basis in reality, that does not make you right.

Therefore I will repeat this common sense rule. When you utter such insults towards someone, the burden of proof is upon you to provide detailed sources to support your allegations. Otherwise it is better to shut up.


It is obvious that what you have written, "underage sex apologist", is based on hearsay and that you have not read what Stallman has written.

Unlike you, I have read the e-mail message of Stallman and there was no apology of underage sex.

Stallman only correctly wrote that Minsky cannot be accused of wrong doing without any evidence against him. The source on which the allegations against Minsky are based only said that she heard that Minsky was offered a girl and she did not have any information about what happened. Another source said that the offer was declined and that Minsky was offended by it.


Until more evidence is produced, Stallman was right to defend Minsky. Showing the lack of evidence against an alleged beneficiary of "underage sex" does not make one an "underage sex aplogist".

[Danny3]

I bet that all these atacks on the best people of free software, now Richard and in the past Linus are coming from greedy corporations like Microsoft.
I'm tired of all these fake news waves that puts mud on good people.

[fsfhfc2018]

Of note is that the link (the anchor portion of the link) is now dead:

From the Phoronix article: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-j...9_(GNU_Project)

This no longer mentions resigning from GNU. It did previously: http://archive.is/36Jgx

-----

Not really,... GPL is a viral license, while it enforces user's freedom to acquire sources for all derivates and dependant works, it removes the freedom of companies/developers to protect their inventions

It's a well-known fact that free software advocates dispute the concept of the freedom of monopolies to take freedom away from users. "Not really" in your post just means "I have a different opinion than free software advocates." Considering that copyright/restriction (or lack thereof) of software throughout most of human history is on the side of software freedom, perhaps your "Not really" could prove that there is a natural right to the temporary monopolies outlined in Article I, Section 8 (where Congress is granted the ability to create laws that restrict such freedoms.)

It's a compromise designed to "Encourage the progress of science and the useful arts" and not a freedom (or right) at all.

[ElectricPrism]

This is going too far. Should he be accountable in a position of speaker in relation to M.I.T? Yes, and FSF? Maybe. But GNU?

I see nothing wrong with him contributing to the mechanical development process as an intellectual apprised of the free software world and libre values.

The man seriously is partially mentally disabled with ausburgers or some other social inhibition whereby he literally doesn't understand why people react the way they do without extensive information, and he's highly intellectually theoretical about his thought processes which is what landed him in this hot water to begin with theorizing publicly about his deceased MIT Associate creating an inappropriate scenario.

I was mad the first time he said dumb shit about the concept of mutual pedophilia years ago and have sworn off using GNU when possible, partially because of the zealot style harassment GNU people have renaming Linux into GNU/Linux even though counterparts exist like BusyBox and Linux. It became apparent he's a dumbass with an impediment and I forgave him but didn't validate his nonsense, I then accepted he has contributed greatly to our 2019 state of Linux and strongly feel he should be credited for his positive actions over the years. These days I consider him and GNU mostly relics of the open source world, still useful but not the "only" option. And I'm grateful that distros exist that don't rely on one option -- not entirely relying on GNU, Nano, GCC, or even Linux (as I understand it you could for a while build Gentoo with a BSD kernel)

People should know this man is incredibly smart and incredibly dumb or disabled at the same time.