Richard Stallman Reportedly Steps Down As Head Of The GNU Project

[Guest]

I can't find the update on the linked news page, when I try searching for it word for word. Was it pulled back?

[Guest]

the fact that being a dick is not a felony doesn't mean people can't point out that a dick is in fact a dick and choose not to associate with him. and Stallman's behavior goes way beyond just being a dick. you can't expect to defend things like pedophilia without any social consequences.

First of all, the way society sees pedophiles makes it nearly impossible for them to seek help even if they want it. The second problem is that this isn't the first time rms has said something offensive, even about this topic. If it's really not acceptable, he would've been kicked a long time ago.

I feel like the idea of free speech is dying, and the idea of people having their personal opinions is just gone. One slip up, and they will get rid of you.

[moilami]

Me thinks the software's main characteristics needs to be the quality in all of it aspects - functionality, security, scaling..e.t.c.
"Free" and open source solutions often shines above others - and cause not simple budget reasons. Isn't it good ?!

Yeah, which is not surprising because Free Software can focus things other than spying the user or feeding him with advertisements. Also many people do not know how bad the monopoly operating system was around when the millennium changed. It was just horribad. It was not even beta quality. Also there is more overhead in proprietary software, which is why it could be argued that proprietary software tend to be ineffective way to develop software. It works as a dev model because it also tend to be practical way to develop software and because society is like a dinosaur regarding the ability to adopt new software.

Further it has been shown that software is being weaponized a'la Huawei. Software is more political than ever before, which in turn make Free Software more important than ever before, which it though already was since spyware went mainstream.

[GI_Jack]

Well, you could say Linux has now become mainstream, and witch hunts are mainstream too. But this doesn't seem like a "community" thing, but rather a corporate takedown of RMS. techrights.org has been connecting it to the Department of Defense and IBM, which I can't confirm, but wouldn't be a little bit surprised about.

Would not surprise me. This happened the week after Snowden dropped his book. Fits in the profile of Fed behavior. They are going to take down everything in tech that would have inspired snowden, or as much as supported him. They are just fucking mad, and this is "pushback" against the tech community.

Oh, and vast majority of the alfred e neuman "what me worry" attitude towards personal security as of late doesn't inspire much confidence.

[Lecedy]

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?

Although this is my interpretation, I'd say freedom that GPL enforces is that of trust: an assurance that you know how your code is being used. On most permissive licenses, for example, owner of the code is incapable of being aware of me writing 'sane' program based on their code and put malicious or undesirable behavior alongside it.

So, should someone be allowed to use another's code to perform actions unknown to the original author? Should we trust everyone who will adopt the code in their commercial program will never attempt to include a function that would be detrimental to the rest of the community?

GPL, in turn, would force such programs to reveal their source - allowing others to modify the source to remove undesirable behavior or re-release version with such functions removed.

[Niarbeht]

"Live and let live" vs "Conform or be canceled"

Who will win?

Free association.

If a bunch of people who work with a douche tell the douche to leave, that's none of your damn business unless you're either the douche, or one of the douche's co-workers.

[rabcor]

This is just sad, is free software relaly going to die by the hands of extreme leftists? It's both extremely ironic and extremely sad.

[e8hffff]

Richard Stallman is into too many 'ISMS. Not good. Computing/Software should be non-political other than commercialism vs freedom.

[Redfoxmoon]

Free association.

If a bunch of people who work with a douche tell the douche to leave, that's none of your damn business unless you're either the douche, or one of the douche's co-workers.

Doesn't really work when your community finds itself bathing in parasites, and the parasites are the ones telling you to leave, eh?

[paulpach]

In my opinion, RMS does more harm than good nowadays, and I would rather he wasn't the head of these stuff.

That said, in this particular case, all he did was defend his friend. In summary "Minsky did not know she was being coerced" , which is not a particularly bad thing to say.
His word choices were very poor, he is defending his friend by arguing over the definition of asault, which is bound to ruffle some feathers. There is also context around his previous remarks. But still, the reaction was blown out of proportion.