FSF, RMS Issue Statements Over Libreboot's Accusations

[starshipeleven]

Freedom of speech doesn't apply to private communication between individuals. People are free to tell you to shut up, just as they are free to not listen to you in the first place.
When will people learn this? Unless the government is standing on your porch because someone doesn't like what you're saying, your freedom of speech is undisturbed.

Obligatory xkcd comic about free speech:

[SystemCrasher]

Freedom of speech doesn't apply to private communication between individuals.

Don't you mind I only had chance to refer to public speeches, in first place? So even if this statement is true, it going to be completely irrelevant. Phoronix is public forum, mailing list is public either.

More interesting is the fact Leah is crazed enough to apply freedom of speech in halfassy way. She calls the names of the "offenders" and takes quite some efforts to attack 'em, but conceals details about "victim" using bulling prevention as excuse.

For me it looks like it could violate rights of mentioned persons the following way:
- Assuming someone is guilty without proving that in court.
- Discrimination based on gender/status in regard of who should have freedom of speech and who should not. Obviously "victim" gets elevated rights.

To make it worse, no satisfactory proof has been represented ever. So what if preception of "bully" and "victim" would turn out to be just a matter of personal preferences of Leah, for example?

People are free to tell you to shut up, just as they are free to not listen to you in the first place.

I believe my freedom to force them to listen to me violates their freedom not to do so, therefore I would agree to this statement in general. As long as it does not goes down to behavior recognized as illegal (e.g. threats).

When will people learn this? Unless the government is standing on your porch because someone doesn't like what you're saying, your freedom of speech is undisturbed

For me it looks like Leah believes freedom of speech and privacy right should only exist for her friend, while "offenders" do not deserve the very same rights. That's what I call double standards. Especially when the whole story is shady and nobody bothers self to actually prove "offenders" did something wrong. Just plain namecalling and yelling they're "bad". Without any proof. I'm sorry but I think it is really wrong way of doing things and lacks decency. Funny enough, FSF members shown really surprising level of decency and trolling resistance. Honestly, while this story is utter BS, there is something to learn from it. Some FSF members did really good attempts to stop the conflict, where any reasonable being should stop and reconsider own actions. Since it failed to work despite really noteworthy attempts, I conclude Leah gone rampant and can't be argued with at all. Somehow I believe its Leah fault. Total inability to control self and being deaf to what other humans are telling is an issue.

[starshipeleven]

Don't you mind I only had chance to refer to public speeches, in first place? So even if this statement is true, it going to be completely irrelevant. Phoronix is public forum, mailing list is public either.

Nope, both forum and mailing list are NOT public places in that sense. They are private places that are open to the pubblic to come in and are technically unmoderated/uncensored, not the same thing.

From a purely legal standpoint, you are still a guest in someone else's PRIVATE property. So yes, you can be asked to gtfo if you do something the owner does not agree with, and yes, you are expected to comply, just as you would as if you were in a physical place.
There are laws that impose the owner to ban from his forum the usual things, racism, discrimination, child porn and whatever other illegal stuff (or face the consequences himself), but no laws that impose the owner to let everyone say whatever.

Public places in that sense (i.e. places where you can use free speech, as long as you aren't too annoying anyway) are usually physical places like a street or a plaza or whatever where the place is actually owned by the state or something. Also state-owned forums should theoretically apply, if the state isn't smart enough to have them run by a third party so they can be policied properly without risk of raising free speech issues.

More interesting is the fact Leah is crazed enough to apply freedom of speech in halfassy way.

I'd say it's applied in a batshit insane way, just saying.

For me it looks like it could violate rights of mentioned persons the following way:
- Assuming someone is guilty without proving that in court.
- Discrimination based on gender/status in regard of who should have freedom of speech and who should not. Obviously "victim" gets elevated rights.

imho bolded part is the main one and can be used in court to auto-win any defamation cases.
Technically speaking she is acting correctly towards the "victim" (not revealing the name), while acting very wrong towards the other guys.

Imho discrimination makes the bolded part a more severe offence, but it isn't self-sustaining.

IANAL, btw, so don't take that as legal advice.

I conclude Leah gone rampant and can't be argued with at all. Somehow I believe its Leah fault. Total inability to control self and being deaf to what other humans are telling is an issue.

A conclusion I agree with.
It is a bit scary tho that happened overnight without much warning that she was unstable.
It's like zombies, people that suddenly turn brain-eating monsters.

[SystemCrasher]

Nope, both forum and mailing list are NOT public places in that sense. They are private places that are open to the pubblic to come in and are technically unmoderated/uncensored, not the same thing.

It seems we've just got different notion of "public". I've referred to the fact speech has been available to general public, not property rights.

From a purely legal standpoint, you are still a guest in someone else's PRIVATE property. So yes, you can be asked to gtfo if you do something the owner does not agree with, and yes, you are expected to comply, just as you would as if you were in a physical place.

Sure, sure. I.e. one is free to speak but server owners are free to provide or not to provide their resource for this speech at their discretion. This said, ahem, idea to attack FSF using their own servers (mailing list runs on FSF servers, rifght?) looks interesting and I'm surprised by levels of decency, tolerance, patience and willingness to resolve conflict by peaceful means FSF ppl have shown. Whatever, but is serves as excellent example of how one should try to spin conflicts down. If that fails I wouldn't blame these ppl for sure. They clearly did their best, to degree I really appreciate their skills and patience.

There are laws that impose the owner to ban from his forum the usual things, racism, discrimination, child porn and whatever other illegal stuff (or face the consequences himself), but no laws that impose the owner to let everyone say whatever.

Sure thing, and to make it even more funny owner could place server anywhere in the world and delegate control to somebody else, so sometimes its not even easy to understand which set of laws should be in use. But its fairly common sense that it is up to owner of server to decide what's going on their resource as long as it is not obviously illegal e.g. where server hosted, domain registered and so on. Ironically, its FSF who owns mailing list servers if I got it right XD.

Public places in that sense (i.e. places where you can use free speech, as long as you aren't too annoying anyway) are usually physical places like a street or a plaza

Or just your own server, lol. Though some ppl clearly abuse this and make very questionable or untrue statements, as seen on what http://zammit.org/libreboot-screwup.html tells vs what libreboot.org .

Either way, I do not believe boasting double standards where e.g. Leah is allowed to speak whatever and those she attacks without posting any proof are only allowed to be bullied that way is a correct way to go, especially in opensource world. Fighting for equal rights is one thing. Fighting for elevated rights and crippling others rights to make them second class citizens is entirely different thing. And when some ppl do not know where to stop, one turns into another. Horrors, oppression and unjust judgement takes place. Somehow I've got impression it is exactly the case. Since some groups of people are very prone to this kind of attitude, maybe it explains why many ppl who do not belong these groups are negative about these groups. Ppl like Leah who are so prone to going rampant on each and every opportunity are just troublesome.

or whatever where the place is actually owned by the state or something. Also state-owned forums should theoretically apply, if the state isn't smart enough to have them run by a third party so they can be policied properly without risk of raising free speech issues.

Sounds like attempt to work around freedom of speech and replace it by some vague "policies" pushed by some questionable entities seeking for questionable goals. Which shouldn't be "smart" but rather "illegal". I think it is fair that if state spends its money on running forum, it is perfectly fair to demand laws of the state to be the policy governing resource use. "Policied properly" implies some treachery. If laws are flawed, state is better to take efforts to correct these laws, isn't it? When some smartass seeks for some "policies" it pretty much clear that smartass pursues own goals. Which got nothing to do with law, justice or something. Just pushing personal preferences as "law". Which is wrong kind of attitude. At most some laws maybe need to be amended, but it is not up to some smartass creating some "policies".

I'd say it's applied in a batshit insane way, just saying.

Internet is batshit insane. Leah attacking FSF using FSFs servers is batshit insane. Most server owners would just ban such wrench out of their servers. Just because they can and because it is THEIR servers, so it is up to them to decide what's going on. Yet Leah seems to think its okay to be like this, but somehow thinks others shouldn't be able to behave that way. I'm honestly surprised to learn FSF isn't like this even when attacked such a strong way.

imho bolded part is the main one and can be used in court to auto-win any defamation cases.

If Leah or someone believes there is something which violates law, they're free to go to court and prove it. If its a case, lets punish bastards and so on. But I'm really not okay with someone like Leah substituting judges and court in such a non-civilized, aggressive and grossly inappropriate ways.

Technically speaking she is acting correctly towards the "victim" (not revealing the name), while acting very wrong towards the other guys.

Technically speaking she attempts to act like judges and court without legal rights to do that and when it turns out others aren't exactly fond of this kind of attitude, suspect strong bias and even ask to file case in court, person just conducts rampant attacks and (ab)uses her resources to do that. So it looks questionable, to say the least. I wouldn't mind actual court case, but then I guess details HAVE to be published and court may or may not agree views of Leah, which is strongly dependent on uncloaked details.

Either way it is AFAIK illegal to call other person criminal without actually proving it in court FIRST. So if court rules out these definitions of "offenders" and "victim" are correct, I'm fine with it. But it is not up to Leah to decide. And I think it is perfectly valid for other readers to demand proof if there're some accusions of something. Just accusions and personal attacks without proof is really unacceptable behavior.

Imho discrimination makes the bolded part a more severe offence, but it isn't self-sustaining.

OTOH FSF ppl insist there was no "discrimination" and person has been fired for different reasons. If Leah believes it isn't case, I guess the only correct way is to file case in court and meet there. Just bashing FSF and substituting judges with Leah and her crazed and possibly biased perception of the world is unacceptable.

IANAL, btw, so don't take that as legal advice.

I guess FSF got enough lawyers on their own. That's one of reasons why I strongly doubt they would readily commit something obviously illegal that warrants other side quick auto-win in court. This together with loud rants, asymmetric judgement and so on is what makes me to assume someone is rather trying to push their personal preferences over truth and laws. Sorry but equal rights imply sometimes we could face decisions we do not like, and we have to live with it. Also these are indirect indicators and it could be plain wrong. But that's what court for, after all. If the goal is to punish offenders and bring justice. If they're really bad offenders, rather than e.g. some nuts who dared to fire Her Majesty the Friend or spotted someting that led to this event, etc. If this happens to be e.g. some personal vendetta, it could happen role of victim and offender could actually swap in no time. Whats so fundamentally impossible in (ab)using one's trans status to bully someone? Looking on how Leah pushing her views over libreboot as "we" while failing to justify who beyond Leah undersigns this, I could readily imagine it is quite possible scenario as well. At least unlike FSF she does not minds banning persons for their views on IRC. If someone have to argue in their favor using bans, I do not believe they have truth on their side and would demand more appropriate proof.

It's like zombies, people that suddenly turn brain-eating monsters.

Speaking for myself I do not get why they can't just calm down. Or if it absolutely fails to work, uhm, ok, let's prove accusions in court to see if it is a case. Though as Stallman said, at the end of day they share goals and it going to be quite stupid thing to do.

[starshipeleven]

Either way, I do not believe boasting double standards where e.g. Leah is allowed to speak whatever and those she attacks without posting any proof are only allowed to be bullied that way is a correct way to go, especially in opensource world.

No, this is the right procedure with high-profile rampant idiots. You let them vent in public and show off how rampant and idiot they are, and they lose any kind of support or credibility they had, and their rants go join the standard internet noise of random insane people posting random shit none cares about.

Eventually, after a long while you can start to treat them like spambots or low-grade trolls (what they are), and simply ban them on sight, but must be done after they have really pissed off everyone.

Sounds like attempt to work around freedom of speech and replace it by some vague "policies" pushed by some questionable entities seeking for questionable goals. Which shouldn't be "smart" but rather "illegal".

Bah, that's double-standarding really, and quit the paranoia, it's about a goddamn forum, they aren't sending police to send trolls to jail.
Everyone can policy the shit out of his forum while a state cannot. Free speech is old and was not designed with internet in mind (internet = extremely high concentration of kiddies and idiots), decent-sized forums need to be policied and moderated or they become like 4chan.
Really, if you play by the rules a state-owned forum can't be moderated. That is bad.

If laws are flawed, state is better to take efforts to correct these laws, isn't it?

Changing laws requires a very significant effort, it may not even be possible in the current political situation, and all they needed is a forum, not trying to fix all the garbage in the laws.

I'm honestly surprised to learn FSF isn't like this even when attacked such a strong way.

That's the proper procedure for high-profile situations. All this can be dealt with by making Leah a martyr by banning her and whatever, or by letting her show off to everyone she is a complete idiot.
What would you choose?

OTOH FSF ppl insist there was no "discrimination" and person has been fired for different reasons.

No I'm talking of your "two errors of Leah" above
"Discrimination based on gender/status in regard of who should have freedom of speech and who should not. "
This is just an accessory of the
"Assuming someone is guilty without proving that in court."

if we go by legal ways.

Also these are indirect indicators and it could be plain wrong.

Don't try to find out the truth about this matter, unless someone publishes some material, there is nothing to work on.

Sure you can see how good person are each of the parties but this means jack, without evidence you can't know.

Speaking for myself I do not get why they can't just calm down.

Leah won't. It's normal, when an idiot is triggered like that he can go on forever.

Or if it absolutely fails to work, uhm, ok, let's prove accusions in court to see if it is a case.

No, that would send the wrong message. FSF is taking the opportunity to show off how tolerant and good they are even if facing batshit insane people.
Even if we ignore for a moment that going by court would likely end up very badly for Leah, showing everyone how the FSF attacks another opensource developer, and also how they win and turn it into a slave to pay fines is probably just as bad a PR hit as Leah being actually right and finding out that they did have some transophobes in there.

Really, Leah hasn't done any real damage to FSF, and the more she talks the worse it goes for her, and the better it goes for FSF.

[SystemCrasher]

No, this is the right procedure with high-profile rampant idiots. You let them vent in public and show off how rampant and idiot they are,..

Somehow I could see FSF trying to do it better than that. I like it. It feels like a really decent way of developed beings to deal with complicated matters. Too bad it didn't worked in this particular case, IMHO they did really nice try. Leah preferred to vent in public. Its kinda sad to see it since they actually share some goals, just like RMS pointed out.

Everyone can policy the shit out of his forum while a state cannot.

I see nothing bad in it. If someone does not looking good... its up to them as long as they do not violate laws. If they do, state should go after them. Other than that, nobody is oblidged to behave the way you would like. Actually Internet is a mirror of real world. Shutting up some asshole does not removes asshole from real world. So if you do not like what you see in Internet, it is real world what needs to be fixed in first place. Just shutting asshole up is lame and only hides the problem while it stays.

Free speech is old and was not designed with internet in mind (internet = extremely high concentration of kiddies and idiots), decent-sized forums need to be policied and moderated or they become like 4chan.

Internet is just a mirror of real world. If you dislike how it looks, it not Internet fault but humans fault. Concealing problem and pretending it does not exists while it have not been addressed looks lame to my taste.

Really, if you play by the rules a state-owned forum can't be moderated. That is bad.

If state does not plays fair by its own rules it starts to look like high-profile gang of criminals and corrupt entity. If state is not happy with its rules, it supposed to change rules. Laws aren't something static. If there is widely recognized problem and it happens to be pressing matter, laws should be amended. Uhm, well, states aren't always perfect and so on, but what you suggest sounds much like corrupt schemes or double standards. I'm not a big fan of this approach.

Changing laws requires a very significant effort, it may not even be possible in the current political situation, and all they needed is a forum, not trying to fix all the garbage in the laws.

If changing laws isn't possible it could mean at least certain part of humankind is ok with attitude and does not consider it bad. And who are you (or other moderator/"policeman") to pretend you know it better? Who gave you these elevated rights? Sure, say, Torvalds gets "elevated rights", but it only works because other members of community want it to be this way. Should he screw it up, he would lose these rights. OTOH self-appointed policemans who pretend they posess ultimate knowledge of what is good and what is bad are annoying and since nobody gave 'em these elevated rights, I consider 'em impostors. Ironically Leah did this mistake as well. Sometimes it is really better to know when to stop, dammit.

That's the proper procedure for high-profile situations. All this can be dealt with by making Leah a martyr by banning her and whatever, or by letting her show off to everyone she is a complete idiot.
What would you choose?

Speaking for myself I like the FSF way of doing the things - they prefer to try to calm situation down as far as they could get it. Really level-headed approach. Leah had each and every option to calm down and reconsider. I guess she still could do that if she wants to. Though I doubt too much ppl would gladly accept such leader of the projects. As I've told once someone screws their role up THAT bad, it going to be hard keep doing it reasonably.

Don't try to find out the truth about this matter, unless someone publishes some material, there is nothing to work on.

Let's agree on that. And if someone is not happy with it they have to go to court I guess.

Sure you can see how good person are each of the parties but this means jack, without evidence you can't know.

Exactly. Yet, both refusal to post evidence and refusal to go to court does not looks good to me.

Leah won't. It's normal, when an idiot is triggered like that he can go on forever.

There is one thing which does not matches. Idiots are really rare to pursue goals like blob-free boot process. So my best bet is the fact Leah isn't idiot in full sense of this word, maybe just extremely poor social skills, being way too crazy, or something like this.

Really, Leah hasn't done any real damage to FSF, and the more she talks the worse it goes for her, and the better it goes for FSF.

I guess its achievement of FSF. Somehow they've proven to be really level-headed. Whatever, but when RMS tells "it wasn't due to gender" I tend to believe him. At least because I never seen RMS lying or doing treacherous crap and RMS grossly lying to public is going to be really uncommon sight.

[Atomsk]

I see a number of very troublesome things stemming from this accusation overall, so I am just going to cut them into individual sections and attempt to address each of them.

Hearsay
Ultimately because the one making the grand guestures and public accusations against the FSF and it's members isn't directly the one involved, and is just a 'friend' of the supposed victim, what Leah is accusing the FSF and it's members of, is subject entirely to what the supposed victim chose to tell Leah, which distances the truth a step further because Leah isn't directly expressing her own experiences but instead working off of what she has been told.

Weaponizing projects
Regardless of the intent, by divorcing libreboot from FSF/GNU and listing demands that must be met before libreboot will rejoin FSF/GNU, what Leah in effect is doing is taking the weight of her assets and attempting to use them, along with the work of the projects contributers, as leverage to have her demands met without proper investigation or any actual evidence being presented, with the implication that not meeting the demand in some way shows the FSF/GNU to be transphobic or unwelcoming for trans people.

This is frankly the adult version of "it's my bat and ball and if you don't let me keep <chosen role> then i'm taking them inside!".

Name and shame
The descision to hide the "victims" identity while openly listing the accused identities without giving any tangible evidence shows that this is not to be a fair trial but one geared specifically towards public outrage and reactionary social justice, where asking for evidence is considered on par with victim blaming, further establishes a one sided groundwork commonly used in social justice circles to assert guilt without actual evidence, pressuring those involved to denounce those who are accused or face the possibility of being tarred with the same brush.
This is all to commonly used a tactic, and one all too commonly successful when employed through social media, which is likely why Leah wants to kick up as big of a storm about this as possible, as the larger the audience, the more effective the tactic becomes.

Contradictions
So initially we have the claim that the victim was fired for being trans, despite the fact that throughout her time working with FSF, she had always been trans, which is debunked by Leah herself moments later in the initial accusation by bringing up the bullying, asserting that FSF fired the victim after she stood up for herself against two bullies. The lack of any evidence of either suggests that these are just being used as targets against FSF because 'the more targets you have the higher the chance of landing a hit'.

In my personal opinion, no action should be taken unless tangible evidence is provided to support the claims - these essentially stem from claims of bullying and the victim being fired for standing up for herself, which suggests then that both the bullying and defense of said bullying were done through a medium where logs would be accessible - if bullying occured and the claims the victim makes are true, then holding back such evidence makes absolutely no sense, a log showing the abuse would be a heck of a lot more effective.

From what I can make out, and what seems most likely is, the victim through one reason or another was let go from the FSF, angry at this development confided in Leah with the assumption that it was entirely down to being trans, and the mess what we have now is the result, somewhere in between the two sharing their experiences, the victim being fired and the anger at FSF, I suspect a degree of embelishment of the truth took place and the subconcious desire to either shame FSF into re-hiring the victim, or at the very least, having the two who supposidly bullied the supposed victim fired become the end goal.

So again, it's my belief that no action should be taken unless tangible evidence is presented to back up the claims, caving to Leah's current demands without evidence opens up the floodgates for rampant abuse and exploitation by those willing to play such a system to negatively impact the lives of those they dislike or disagree with, or for personal gain at the cost of the truth.

[Guest]

Israel is basically a nazi-state that is actively deporting non-jews to expand in the region because Zod Wants It. I fail to see the connection here.

You would see such connection if you check real nationality of most politicians. Many of US politicians have this fascist nationality you mentioned.

[Anyasz]

About the FSF quote, I think this paragraph should have been quoted:
It is part of our job to celebrate and improve the diversity of the free software world. We have strong anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies to help provide a safe and supportive working environment. We uphold a safe space policy at all FSF events, and we provide scholarships to help people of different identities, and from different regions, attend. The FSF's mission is to defend the freedom of all computer users.