Here is a web site that defends Stallman:
https://stallmansupport.org/richard-stallman-honors-and-awar...
I take no position.
I'll be extremely charitable and assume you meant to link to the site in general as a rebuttal, and not specifically to the webpage that just lists his awards, because saying that someone's misdeeds don't matter because they also did great things is a rather gross viewpoint and a continuing insult to the people who are victims both of the "Great Men" and the wannabe-"Great Men" who feel safe doing such acts in the belief that future greatness will similarly exonerate them.
The page that's most responsive to what's brought up is here: https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai.... However, I feel that it doesn't really debunk the core accusations here, which is essentially that Stallman's views on what constitutes consent just aren't acceptable in today's world.
I was just trying to find something that took the other side. As I said, I take no position on these accusations. I simply don't know enough.
It's a good awards list, but I'm not sure industry and ecosystem awards are the right way to judge something like this. Compare and contrast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein#Awards_and_ho...
This is really great work getting all of the evidence into one place. Really helpful, thanks. I really like the focus on the victims.
I am a previous PhD student who worked under Marvin Minsky, and I do believe that there is no evidence that Minsky was present for any sexual misconduct, and some of the quotes about Minksy do not mention that there is no evidence of Minsky's sexual misconduct. I believe the quotes about Minsky unfairly harm Minsky's reputation.
Again, this is great work, and I'm mostly nitpicking from my very particular perspective as someone who has worked directly under Minsky.
We reviewed our references to Minsky throughout the report and felt that we could indeed improve the presentation of the quotes which mention him, and we have done so.
However, I will state just for the record here that our researchers have looked into the allegations regarding Minsky and do not feel comfortable exonerating him or standing up to defend his reputation, as it were -- we find the evidence plausible, but not conclusive. But our report is about Stallman, not Minsky, so we have not made a point of it in the report.
Back when RMS was writing the GNU utilities, if you weren't willing to have an occasional chance encounter with him in the same building, you were limiting your options for a productive computer science career.
I'm half serious when I say he's the reason so many women at MIT went to biotech instead, and so we can thank him for mRNA vaccines.
But that is no longer the case. Refusing to be in the same room as him will in no way retard your progress in computer science nowadays. If anything, it enhances your prospects.
So I don't see a problem with having a space marked "Beware the RMS," where he can keep on with his work and the people who can put up with him, do. I don't see a problem with that space being marked "FSF" either. Namespace is a large space.
Whether you find the people who want RMS to resign obnoxious or not, this is a very well documented and clear-headed collection of what they think (and convinced me) is wrong with the man
I think it is good that people put in a lot of effort to collect this in one place. The report opens with a very strong perspective:
>The case against Stallman is clear, and yet the free software community has failed to act, in particular at the level of institutions and leadership but also in the form of grassroots support for Stallman. Many defenses of Stallman rely on a comfortable ignorance: ignorance of the scope and depth of Stallman’s political campaign against women and victims of sexual violence, or a comfortable belief that Stallman ceased his problematic behavior following his 2021 re-instatement in the Free Software Foundation. Some believe that Stallman’s speech has not caused material harm, or that his fringe views are not taken seriously; we provide evidence to dismiss all of these arguments in this report.
One thing I have consistently encountered when discussing contentious topics with people is that intentional ignorance is a tactic. One cannot be held responsible for acting one way or another on an issue if they do not know anything about it. Women I know in industry report this as by far the most common reaction of male coworkers to one of their colleagues facing allegations of sexual harassment. They don't know anything about it, it seems complicated, they haven't followed it closely, they don't want to get involved, etc. It is very frustrating and I am glad the report has identified this phenomenon and is pointing out this has been going on for long enough that it cannot be reasonably deployed by anybody.
Character assassination by anonymous cowards.
The Free Software movement has been completely routed. MS owns GitHub. The farmers fighting for the "right to repair" their tractors are the "front" of the "battle" for user empowerment. But sure let's beat the shit out of the dead horse that's actually a real live old man with cancer who wrote fucking Emacs, see if that helps?
I am concerned about the fact that we don't know the identities of any of the authors of this web page.
There are people who find it very enjoyable to destroy someone's reputation (for basically the same reason that there are people for whom murder is such a turn-on that they cannot stop themselves from doing it till they get caught).
Also, there might be ways to profit or personally benefit from a campaign like this. E.g., one of the authors of this web page might covet one of the titles or jobs Stallman currently holds -- for themselves or for a friend. E.g., Stallman or one of his supporters might be approached in the coming days with an offer: I can make this web page disappear from public view, but it will cost you. Basically any rival has an incentive to try to get you fired and to destroy your reputation.
I suspect that we as a society should adopt the general rule that anonymous attacks on the reputation of a person should be ignored. In the absence of such a rule, anyone can keep on waging campaigns of reputation destruction (in pursuit of getting ahead somehow or of a twisted kind of enjoyment) with little to no cost or risk to themselves. The attack can include lies, and even if the lies are discovered, again there is no cost or consequence to the attacker.
It seems that you are worried about cases but there are no witness/proof that is where the truthfulness of accusations is in doubt. No such thing here, they are basically quoting him and putting related quotes together. Almost like someone writing a book review of a philosopher or something.
You could say "what about out of context quoting!?" but he seems quite consistent in his ideas and it would be quite a coincidence that so many excerpts expressing the same idea are taken out of context.
The Epstein quote is taken out of context and his controversial opinion about age of consent (which isn't even that different from the opinions held by esteemed philosophers like Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir) was retracted publicly by him years ago.
> I suspect that we as a society should adopt the general rule that anonymous attacks on the reputation of a person should be ignored.
That policy would have allowed Richard Nixon to keep the office he stole.
The alternative opinion: https://stallmansupport.org
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You haven't read it and you should, maybe it would cut down the paranoia. This is not an attack on the free software movement and this is clearly from people who do care about the free software movement values.
I've skimmed through it and see nothing much to actually be concerned about. We all know Stallman is a rather strange, socially awkward man with some oddball views that go against the grain.
A document berating him for being a weirdo, while shrilly exaggerating all the "evidence" in an effort to destroy him and everything he's built over his lifetime, is not particularly useful or necessary.
The purpose of this is clear, and it's very telling that it's being fired at Stallman from the shadows by the unknown and unaccountable.
It seems to me that the purpose of this report is not to say "look, that guy is a weirdo". But rather, to point out in excruciating detail how he is enabling vile behaviours (like normalizing possession of CSAM, pretending like making out with 14 year olds is not sexual abuse, etc) in the FOSS community, by being a very visible figure head that some people look up to.
But he isn't enabling any of that. You're spinning a narrative that is fundamentally untrue.
Please read this[1] while keeping in mind that a 14 year old does not fit into Stallman's definition of "child":
> I don't think it is wrong to distribute "child porn" images, even when they [depict] children rather than adolescents. However, making them is wrong if it involves real sex with a child. For the sake of opposing sexual abuse of real children, I suggest that you boycott the images that involve real children. Imaginary children can't be hurt by drawing them.
In other words: pornography involving 14, 15, 16 year olds is all good according to Stallman. He is enabling all of the above by changing the definition of what child pornography is, responding to someone who emailed him asking for advice, and then posting about it publicly.
Strange, socially awkward people who make other people uncomfortable to the point of triggering their threat responses tend not to keep their jobs for long in the real world. We even have a name for them: creeps.
There's a reason why codes of conduct, especially the Contributor Covenant, are de rigueur in the open source world. They help keep the creeps and the fash out, and make the work environment more harmonious.
RMS is a creep who's been grandfathered in because he came from a time when creeps were much more tolerated. Times have changed, and so have values. We are far less tolerant of creeps, no matter how talented they may otherwise be because they disrupt the working environment unacceptably. It's time for that grandfather clause to end.
Codes of conducts are political weapons to be used against those disfavored by the powers that be and ignored when the elect violate them.
Drupal and Larry Garfield years ago, and most recently Python and Tim Peters.
It would be great if we could get rid of all the neurodivergent people in tech, they’ve been far too comfortable in digital spaces.
Neurodivergent people can be taught appropriate standards of conduct and basic human respect. Sometimes you gotta spell it out for 'em, that's what the CoC is for. But you don't just give people a pass for making others uncomfortable or afraid "because muh neurodivergence". Especially in a position of leadership. Leading is a skill. If your disability really prevents you from exercising that skill, you don't get that position. Sorry.
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Given the subject matter, anonymity is used to protect sources. It's pretty well-understood how people who allege sexual misconduct get disproportionately destroyed by the adversarial process we used to try and find truth in society.
Anything more to these allegations than there was last time?
Or is this yet another chapter of someone's envy resorting to character assassination instead of finding contentment in their own work?
If these people succeeded in their apparent goal of making RMS less popular, do they think the world will love them for it? Why aint they signing their name?
> If these people succeeded in their apparent goal of making RMS less popular, do they think the world will love them for it?
Sometimes one does the right thing not because the world will love you, but because it is the right thing.
Bullying an old man with cancer over off-colored jokes made half a century ago and opinions that he publicly retracted is "the right thing"? That's absurd.
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I assumed this was you again, actually.
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seems like a rehash of the same hit piece they tried to pull off back in 2021
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Given that much of the tone of the discussion here is not only dismissive of the report but the link has been actively suppressed via flagging, I don't think it's credible to argue there is some kind of organized anti-RMS "manipulation" happening here.
(I don't think there's some kind of organized pro-RMS manipulation happening, either. I think there's a fairly large segment of HN readers who minimize credible reports of RMS's reprehensible behavior because of his past accomplishments and his importance to the free software movement.)
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The anonymous authors of this website have instructed people on other websites to come here and downvote any and all comments that speak in favor of RMS:https://mastodon.social/@report_press/113305688857205037
This is telling. They don't want discourse, they want to silence and bully everyone who disagrees with them so only they are allowed to speak.
All they have is anonymous accusations with zero proof, an off-context quote regarding an MIT professor, off-color jokes made 50 years ago and a couple of (retracted) opinions that are no worse than the things being said by prominent philosophers like Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir.
> The anonymous authors of this website have instructed people on other websites to come here and downvote any and all comments that speak in favor of RMS
Would you please quote the exact words that made you think the authors are inviting people to downvote people who speak in favour of RMS?
>If you want to discuss our report on Hacker News, you will have to help us overcome the systemic reactionary bias on HN.
The message is clear: HN has a "bias" (according to them) and their readers must take action in order to discuss it.
It could be that readers here disagree with them, it could be that readers don't buy their attempt at character assassination, instead they play victims as if there was a grand conspiracy to keep a homeless old man with cancer at the head of a nonprofit.