# Richard Stallman character assassination



## bodefuceta (Sep 14, 2019)

Yeah, it's finally happening. If you don't know who RMS is, here's an excerpt from wikipedia.



> *Richard Matthew Stallman* (/ˈstɔːlmən/; born March 16, 1953), often known by his initials, *rms*,[1], and occasionally upper-case *RMS*, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a manner such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License.
> 
> Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to create a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software.[2] With this, he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including, among others, the GNU Compiler Collection,[3] GNU Debugger,[4] and GNU Emacs text editor.[5] In October 1985[6] he founded the Free Software Foundation.
> 
> Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft, which uses the principles of copyright law to preserve the right to use, modify, and distribute free software, and is the main author of free software licenses which describe those terms, most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license.[7]



RMS is a severely autistic man who vastly improved the world we live in. In fact I wrote this text inside GNU Emacs, on a GPL licensed OS, compiled with GCC, all his creations.

Here's an article on the incident. 

Stallman is known for being particularly picky about word definitions. You can find many of such instances on his personal website. In this case, he talks on the definitions of sexual assault and rape, whilst defending his deceased colleague Marvin Minsky, accused of such in association with Jeffrey Epstein. In my opinion, he is absolutely correct on the broadness of the term "sexual assault" not being in helpful at all. It's being used without evidence that Minsky acted against the consent of any person. On his assessment of statutory rape, I think he's correct but very wrong in legalese, because some places are stupid enough to have an age of consent above 15 or so.

Stallman is a fan of Bernie Sanders, and deep into leftist/SJW narrative, as nearly 100% of his new attackers. But he prefers using his own very precise words, his projects use his own code of conduct (far better than the infamous contributor covenant), made a couple of jokes that weren't appretiated, and is a straight white male. That's enough for this to happen, apparently. Some people like this are pressuring FSF's director board for RMS's removal.

If he does get kicked and desecrated, at least we'll always be able to use his software, thanks to the freedom provided by licenses he created. As an asperger I used to get shunned in school, but this is way worse, it's hard to recover from. This world is harsh for those on the autism spectrum, and this anti white male crazyness make it much more unfair. I have to hide most of my ideas or surely something similar happens, this madness is hitting the third world even harder.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 17, 2019)

Aaaand.. it's succesful. He already resigned from MIT and FSF. 

Remember kids, what you write now may make you lose your job 16 years later. Even if it's reasonable. Beware of surveillance too, you might not even need to publish something to have it leak. Especially now one of the most influential anti-surveillance people is basically forcibly retired.


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## Taleweaver (Sep 17, 2019)

Let's see...unless I'm mistaken, this is how the situation happened chronologically (note: please correct if I'm wrong on the facts)

1. a late MIT alumni, Marvin Minsky, had sex with a seventeen-year old (Virginia Giuffre) at an Epstein party
2. Epstein also funded parts of MIT, including Joi Ito's lab
3. the sex scandal breaks out, especially after Epstein's suicide
4. Ito covers up the origin of the funds, but keeps them
5. this is discovered (also the first part, I assume). A discussion breaks out over this whole situation. Ito quits in the turmoil.
6. in the discussion, RMS is one of the opinion that Vigrinia isn't automatically a victim because of her age.
7. this thread is made public, censoring all names but of RMS
8. RMS quits MIT and FSF


I'll be honest: I hope I'm missing something important, here. Because...well...okay, sure: America has long since lost it claim to "land of the free". But since my childhood, I sort of positioned you guys somewhere in the "average" category.

But if this whole situation is genuine, then it's getting awfully close to becoming a thought-controlled state. I mean...firing people for saying that 17-year olds might potentially CONSENT to sexual encounters? That's just nuts. 


(oh, and for the record: yes, I've heard of Stallman. He's a fucking living legend in the open source community)


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## alevan (Sep 17, 2019)

I don't like RMS, I think in 2019 the whole RMS thing is keeping back innovation. But even then, this is like a bad joke. At least, he resigned with dignity. Even tough, this should not be happening in the 21th century.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 17, 2019)

Taleweaver said:


> Let's see...unless I'm mistaken, this is how the situation happened chronologically (note: please correct if I'm wrong on the facts)
> 
> 1. a late MIT alumni, Marvin Minsky, had sex with a seventeen-year old (Virginia Giuffre) at an Epstein party
> 2. Epstein also funded parts of MIT, including Joi Ito's lab
> ...


That's the gist of it, I should mention there's a couple more things Stallman said that are triggering people.
1 - He argued against using the term "sexual assault", both in Minsky's case and in general. Because it is too broad to be actually meaningful of what happened.
2 - He used the term "harem". To refer to Epstein's girls, which is probably accurate.
3 - He wrote in 2003 something along the lines that most laws should not exist. And went on to explain basically what I consider the libertarian non-violence principle in regards to sexual laws. He changed his opinion on this since. Chelsea Clinton's newspaper headline was like "Stallman thinks pedophilia should be totally legal!!" or something like that.

It seems people were rather discontent with Stallman at MIT. There's been hysteria going around since one of the female students published a blog on Stallman being some sort of enemy to modern feminist society. A woman can say "he figuratively raped me!" in most western universities and whoever she accused would be shunned forever, something like that has happened in the brazilian university I did my doctorate in, it's the result of irrational glorification of women that surely is not exclusive to america. Honestly, I'd understand Stallman leaving there because who wants to work with such people, and his position was something honorary anyway.

But the FSF? That's basically rms' child. I know john sullivan is very competent, but he's no rms. He doesn't have the sheer presence to inspire people toward free software in a keynote or interview. He hasn't been the de-facto representative of free software for decades. And rms is gone because of some Twitter crusade? Heck, I doubt rms even touches twitter with it's proprietary services. This makes me want to contribute to GNU. Maybe I'll switch from NixOS to Guix and see where I can help from there.

Also, rms is not an open source legend, he dislikes open source. What you meant to say is free software.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 17, 2019)

There's also the fact that the sum of the past 10 years of Stallmans contributions to FOSS have been "whine about GNU/Linux*" and "abuse position as leader of the FSF**" (and submitting occassional PRs to emacs).

There's also the fact that if I bring up FOSS to any friends who are "vaguely" into tech or _are_ into technology but just never interacted much with FOSS, the usual response is to the extent "isn't that the thing with the guy who eats gunk from between his toes". Not... a good look.

Like, this is _aside_ from his entire issue with defending a potential pedophile because said pedophile was his friend/boss.*** It's true that Vice miscited Stallman, but in spite of that, you can't deny that Stallman was at best engaging in behavior that he should have *known* would stir up trouble (and don't give me the "he's autistic, that makes it okay" crap, I know several autists and it's just flat out offensive to autists to say Stallman can be excused because he has autism) and at worst could be interpreted as "Stallman is a pedophile" (note; dont think he is one, don't say that I said he is one, because that's not what _I_ think. I just think that this sheltered epitome of a neckbeard has finally realised that the real world tends to respond with _consequences_ if you behave like an asswipe.)

--
*Amongst other meaningless bullshit that essentially boils down to "boohoo, I don't like terminology x".

**I'll just cite two major parts of this that jump to mind
1. He abused his position as leader to force keeping in a dated americanocentric pro-choice joke/reference in the documentation for the abort() function that was barely funny to begin with after the maintainers of glibc voted to remove it.
2. The consistent tedency for GNU Foundation projects to refuse any form of contribution that increases compatability with existing software, which is a _major_ issue when it comes to promoting FOSS (the "its not compatible with anything else" problem -> your tools might be the best in the world, but if nobody is compatible with them, what good does it do) to the layman can be traced back from the early "spite" hacker culture from the 90s, aka the one Stallman came from and he's most often found as the one propagating it. The problem is... the world has moved on from this "spite" hacker culture and Stallman still wants to live in the 90s. Modern day software development is much more founded on "working together until we reach an agreement", and Stallmans behavior in general is an antithesis to that. Which y'know, if Stallman wants to keep living in the 90s, that's on him, he does what he wants to do. But in this situation, his behavior is actively impacting the capability of Free Software to grow****.

***Stallman has lived at the MIT CSAIL for the past several decades because Minsky sponsored his continued state of being there. There is definetly a conflict of interest going on here, irregardless of Stallmans past comments.

****It's important to understand that Stallmans vision of "Free Software" is closer to a "not invented here" vision than a "we'll slowly migrate them all over" vision. I shouldn't have to explain that a "not invented here" vision is _never_ gonna work.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



bodefuceta said:


> 3 - He wrote in 2003 something along the lines that most laws should not exist. And went on to explain basically what I consider the libertarian non-violence principle in regards to sexual laws. He changed his opinion on this since. Chelsea Clinton's newspaper headline was like "Stallman thinks pedophilia should be totally legal!!" or something like that.


Stallman only changed his opinion on September 14th, the original accusations were published on September 12th.

He might have changed his views, but it doesn't excuse his behavior in this situation.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 17, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> "Stallman is a pedophile" (note; dont think he is one, don't say that I said he is one, because that's not what _I_ think. I just think that this sheltered epitome of a neckbeard has finally realised that the real world tends to respond with _consequences_ if you behave like an asswipe.)


This is some creepy Orwellian argument. As if it's just fine to exercise all your freedoms, or even have all freedom in the world - just to perceive some totalitarian authority regards you as unfree from consequence, removing the need to regulate what's actually permitted, towards punishing you for whatever they don't appreciate. "No freedom from consequence" is another way to say "we'll punish you for whatever reason we want".



Ev1l0rd said:


> 1. He abused his position as leader to force keeping in a dated americanocentric pro-choice joke/reference in the documentation for the abort() function that was barely funny to begin with after the maintainers of glibc voted to remove it.


Used, not abused. While the joke is not funny, there's a good reason why he can do this. Not all free software projects benefit from having majority based decisions, GNU is one of them and i think python is another you can read more on.



Ev1l0rd said:


> 2. The consistent tedency for GNU Foundation projects to refuse any form of contribution that increases compatability with existing software, which is a _major_ issue when it comes to promoting FOSS (the "its not compatible with anything else" problem -> your tools might be the best in the world, but if nobody is compatible with them, what good does it do) to the layman can be traced back from the early "spite" hacker culture from the 90s, aka the one Stallman came from and he's most often found as the one propagating it. The problem is... the world has moved on from this "spite" hacker culture and Stallman still wants to live in the 90s. Modern day software development is much more founded on "working together until we reach an agreement", and Stallmans behavior in general is an antithesis to that. Which y'know, if Stallman wants to keep living in the 90s, that's on him, he does what he wants to do. But in this situation, his behavior is actively impacting the capability of Free Software to grow****.


Honestly this is a topic for a very long discussion. I could write about how Microsoft's EEE hasn't engulfed GNU-or-Linux precisely for this reason. There are very deep thought processes on compatibility and licensing of GNU and many other free software that seem hard for the layman to understand but in the end are better decisions for the project. Like, including exFat support in the Linux kernel would be catastrophic (not really because many would just fork it out), but the majority of people would think it's a good idea and commend Microsoft for suggesting this kind of bullshit. I could talk about specific projects if you want.



Ev1l0rd said:


> Stallman only changed his opinion on September 14th, the original accusations were published on September 12th.


Unless you can find him repeating that opinion recently, September 14th is only when he mentioned the change.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 17, 2019)

Someone in a few years and the ability to go up against some flavour of establishment orthodoxy is going to be able to have an academic dream time at some point in the future.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 17, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Someone in a few years and the ability to go up against some flavour of establishment orthodoxy is going to be able to have an academic dream time at some point in the future.


I wonder who.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 17, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> This is some creepy Orwellian argument. As if it's just fine to exercise all your freedoms, or even have all freedom in the world - just to perceive some totalitarian authority regards you as unfree from consequence, removing the need to regulate what's actually permitted, towards punishing you for whatever they don't appreciate. "No freedom from consequence" is another way to say "we'll punish you for whatever reason we want".


What you're describing is a state. The issue with *your argument* is that neither MIT nor the FSF are considered states.

They're respectively: a private research university and a political lobbying group. Both of which are capable of making independent decisions on who gets to work for them and consequentially who gets to represent them. Keep in mind that MIT and the FSF both decided _on their own merits_ that Stallman was no longer someone they wished to represent their respective groups. They could just as easily have decided to ignore the complainers and just carry on, business per usual.

But they _didn't_, which means that those who work for these organizations must've looked at Stallmans comments (and knowing them, they probably also accounted for Stallmans general behavior over the past decade, which really boils down to "grandpa yells at cloud" since this isn't his first public gaffe) and decided that they didn't like those comments, so they let him go.



bodefuceta said:


> Used, not abused. While the joke is not funny, there's a good reason why he can do this. Not all free software projects benefit from having majority based decisions, GNU is one of them and i think python is another you can read more on.


You're talking about the concept of *BDFL* here correct (for those who aren't aware: BDFL = Benevolent Dictator For Life, it's a common concept found throughout early FOSS development and is still common in small scale projects, where one person is in essence the "go-to" guy for publishing new releases and deciding what code gets merged)?

The problem is... Stallmans _isn't_ a BDFL for glibc. He doesn't sign off on releases for glibc, he doesn't actively participate in it's development, he's at best for the merits of a normal FOSS project a major contributor whose contributions mean that his opinion does have to be given weight, but not strictly followed. Instead, glibc follows a common style for many larger FOSS projects: There is a board of maintainers, each of whomst is distributed across smaller teams designed to handle various parts of the project. For example, those involved with building glibc for certain distributions are a part of the distribution maintainer team, but are also considered a part of the general board of maintainers. So glibc _was_ governed by a majority/democratic decision making process.

Python isn't one of those either anymore. Guido van Rossum stepped down back in 2018 after his BFDL status caused a nasty discussion where van Rossum wanted to push a specific feature through, which he ultimately did get, but he realized that the experience was very negative for him so he stepped down.

For other examples as to why BDFL is considered a failure, look no further than avconv and ffmpeg, where a BFDL had a consistent bad habit of overcorrecting and often alienating new developers, which led to a very nasty forking situation, where Ubuntu 14.04 (which is an *LTS* version mind you so it'll be supported for a while), ships with avconv instead of ffmpeg and calls ffmpeg deprecated. Keep in mind that avconv as a program is widely considered to be inferior to ffmpeg due to internal hassles. This would have been something that could have been avoided, had the BFDL in question stepped down from his position (which he later did).



bodefuceta said:


> Honestly this is a topic for a very long discussion. I could write about how Microsoft's EEE hasn't engulfed GNU-or-Linux precisely for this reason. There are very deep thought processes on compatibility and licensing of GNU and many other free software that seem hard for the layman to understand but in the end are better decisions for the project. Like, including exFat support in the Linux kernel would be catastrophic (not really because many would just fork it out), but the majority of people would think it's a good idea and commend Microsoft for suggesting this kind of bullshit. I could talk about specific projects if you want.


Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is something I knew would've come up, but the thing is... EEE isn't practiced anymore.

You're referring to a strategy Microsoft employed in the early 90s till the early 2000s that was indeed designed to kill FOSS projects. However... they got sued over that, several times in fact. As a result, they haven't been employing this strategy since 2007. *They don't do this anymore.
*
Your claim about exFAT support is inaccurate. Microsoft isn't implementing exFAT support. What is happening is that someone located a leak by Samsung and started working on kernel support for exFAT. The thing you're fuddling up is that there were concerns about merging this into the kernel since Microsoft didn't give a statement on if they could legally use code that was based on a leak. They gave a statement saying that whilst they would not provide the code themselves, they support and accept the agreement of merging exFAT support into the linux kernel.

Characterizing this as EEE is a gross mischaracterization of the actual situation.

But yes, I'll admit you're correct that the old culture was resistant against EEE, and that is for the better. The thing is... culture changes. EEE isn't a thing anymore, Microsoft realized they can't keep their head in the sand forever and pretend like FOSS doesn't exist or is evil and is now actively working on OSS projects themselves (hell, at the rate they're going currently, it won't be long before everything that _isn't_ the NT kernel will be OSS).



bodefuceta said:


> Unless you can find him repeating that opinion recently, September 14th is only when he mentioned the change.


I mean, the original mailing list did have this particular quote:



			
				Richard Stallman said:
			
		

> "I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17."



The "whether the victim was 18 or 17" being absurd to define as rape, when the subject is about _statutory rape_ seems to suggest that Stallman up until making this statement still held the belief that voluntary pedophilia was correct, by his casual dismissal of the age of consent.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 17, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> What you're describing is a state. The issue with *your argument* is that neither MIT nor the FSF are considered states.


Absolutely not. I'm describing an 1984-inspired authoritative entity, which may or not apply to a state. The distinction is particularly thin in regards to the SJW community - they are a very homogeneous group whom, in power, would very likely work under the same logic as a mob.



Ev1l0rd said:


> [...] those who work for these organizations must've looked at Stallmans comments [...] and decided that they didn't like those comments, so they let him go.


Or they were harassed to the point having the best leader wasn't simply worth it.



Ev1l0rd said:


> (and knowing them, they probably also accounted for Stallmans general behavior over the past decade, which really boils down to "grandpa yells at cloud" since this isn't his first public gaffe)


To whoever else may be reading this, make sure you check rms' personal page and recent interviews/keynotes. Surely a man with very distinct opinions, but there's no way around calling this kind of statement anything other than malicious characters assassination. It's happening a lot on the internet, and people who only read comments like these are bound to fall for such trickery or even worse, repeat it. Ev1l0rd does not deserve an intelligent answer, but stepping down to this level would be detrimental to other readers in a public forum.



Ev1l0rd said:


> The problem is... Stallmans _isn't_ a BDFL for glibc. He doesn't sign off on releases for glibc, he doesn't actively participate in it's development, he's at best for the merits of a normal FOSS project a major contributor whose contributions mean that his opinion does have to be given weight, but not strictly followed. Instead, glibc follows a common style for many larger FOSS projects: There is a board of maintainers, each of whomst is distributed across smaller teams designed to handle various parts of the project. For example, those involved with building glibc for certain distributions are a part of the distribution maintainer team, but are also considered a part of the general board of maintainers. So glibc _was_ governed by a majority/democratic decision making process.


glibc is part of the GNU project, and while the term BDFL is never used, and there are board of maintainer guidelines, it's effectively under a hierarchy which rms is/was on top. This is hardly ever a consideration, but was made very clear in the glibc manual case.



Ev1l0rd said:


> Python isn't one of those either anymore. Guido van Rossum stepped down back in 2018 after his BFDL status caused a nasty discussion where van Rossum wanted to push a specific feature through, which he ultimately did get, but he realized that the experience was very negative for him so he stepped down.


Sure, I just mentioned it because there seems to be more historical literature on the governance model.



Ev1l0rd said:


> For other examples as to why BDFL is considered a failure, look no further than avconv and ffmpeg, where a BFDL had a consistent bad habit of overcorrecting and often alienating new developers, which led to a very nasty forking situation, where Ubuntu 14.04 (which is an *LTS* version mind you so it'll be supported for a while), ships with avconv instead of ffmpeg and calls ffmpeg deprecated. Keep in mind that avconv as a program is widely considered to be inferior to ffmpeg due to internal hassles. This would have been something that could have been avoided, had the BFDL in question stepped down from his position (which he later did).


This really only showed how bad ubuntu is, I already didn't use it around that time but certainly this kind of thing didn't help their case.



Ev1l0rd said:


> You're referring to a strategy Microsoft employed in the early 90s till the early 2000s that was indeed designed to kill FOSS projects. However... they got sued over that, several times in fact. As a result, they haven't been employing this strategy since 2007. *They don't do this anymore.*


Do you also believe Microsoft loves linux? Actually, do you work for Microsoft? There's all kinds of malicious things Microsoft does to this day that free software maintainers should be very wary of. Just recently I had a very bad experience with LSP on emacs and wonder if it was not intentional.



Ev1l0rd said:


> Your claim about exFAT support is inaccurate. Microsoft isn't implementing exFAT support.


Please, where is it inaccurate? Because I absolutely did not write Microsoft is implementing it.



Ev1l0rd said:


> The "whether the victim was 18 or 17" being absurd to define as rape, when the subject is about _statutory rape_ seems to suggest that Stallman up until making this statement still held the belief that voluntary pedophilia was correct, by his casual dismissal of the age of consent.


Now this is the most absurd thing I've read in a long time. Doing or feeling whatever towards a 17 year old is in no way related to pedophilia.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Absolutely not. I'm describing an 1984-inspired authoritative entity, which may or not apply to a state. The distinction is particularly thin in regards to the SJW community - they are a very homogeneous group whom, in power, would very likely work under the same logic as a mob.


As someone who spends a _lot_ of time investigating groups of various forms (and would call himself a sceptic), to designate a group as homogenous is almost universally incorrect.

There's still miles away from 1984 over a group of activists who go against the preconceived norms and notions of our society (in fact, do you realize how easily it's possible to twist this argument and point out that sticking up for the established power and not wanting those speaking against it to come out and well... speak against it and note that you're essentially supporting the status quo which can be drawn out into the same society that 1984 was criticizing) than an authoritative entity with absolutely zero control. After all, you're free to ignore them. They won't arrest you for ignoring them, you won't be persecuted either. You can just... carry on with your life assuming what you're being called out for isn't illegal.

It's just that carrying on kinda gives of a certain image that some people might not want to associate themselves with, so they take action.

Only the spineless would just sit by and decide that if they're under fire, the status quo is the only good permanent solution.



bodefuceta said:


> Or they were harassed to the point having the best leader wasn't simply worth it.


I've looked and examined RMS leaving the FSF. From what I could find, a member of the Open Source Center of the United Nations who has been a member since 2004 made a public call for issuing the procedures for Article VI, section 7 of the bylaws after revoking his own membership.

Leaks of the FSFs internal members board indicate that the general view was "Stallmans public behavior was appalling enough and this isn't the first time and quite frankly I'm done supporting FSF as long as Stallman helms it since he's more of a hindrance to the cause", followed by many members (a number of which are longtime) withdrawing their support.

Whilst it doesn't appear the vote itself was leaked, I assume that these arguments and resignation of FSF members have caused the section in question to be invoked, and Stallman clearly didn't get to keep his position.

So... if you can find any "harassment" of FSF members about this situation, I'd love to hear it. They disagreed, they left the FSF, they stated their reasons why in an internal thread and asked the directors to invoke Article VI, section 7 in public (which is probably the best way to go about this, considering the fact that it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they tried private discussion first). He clearly wasn't the only person with similar feelings on the matter and as a result, the directors called it to a vote.

Boom, badaboom.



bodefuceta said:


> To whoever else may be reading this, make sure you check rms' personal page and recent interviews/keynotes. Surely a man with very distinct opinions, but there's no way around calling this kind of statement anything other than malicious characters assassination. It's happening a lot on the internet, and people who only read comments like these are bound to fall for such trickery or even worse, repeat it. Ev1l0rd does not deserve an intelligent answer, but stepping down to this level would be detrimental to other readers in a public forum.


When... did I assasinate his character? I claimed that Stallman holds many opinions that most human beings would agree are considered weird. Grandpa yells at cloud usually is a suggestion that someone lives in an age where their behavior doesn't really match that age anymore. Stallman still wants to live in the early days of the 90s internet and his continued insistence on doing so is _definetly_ a grandpa yells at cloud situation since he looks like a fool for doing so.

But sure, I'll be fair: https://stallman.org/ here's stallmans personal page.

And to be even more fair, I'll also include Stallmans page on how he computers: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html and his views on Facebook: https://stallman.org/facebook.html . Of note in the first page is that Stallmans choice can at best be described as archaic and it locks him out of a lot of places on the internet, with him taking the "if I can't see it, I won't bother trying to see it" approach (which is how he probably never responded to a lot of criticism leveled his way in the past, because he's typically on mailing lists that agree with his viewpoint or on conventions where part of his rider rules are "dont bugger me about non FOSS stuff" and he tends to throw tantrums when he is confronted with non-FOSS stuff).

The second page has a lot of useful criticisms against Facebook, but of note is the consistent petty name-calling he does to users of Facebook in question (calling them useds), which means I'll never be able to really use the page in an argument unless I'm trying to piss off the other person (which you shouldn't do, it's not a nice thing). And that peculiar bit can be found more or less across his site. Stallman behaves a lot like some teenagers do when they learn about FOSS: They get incredibly obnoxious about it, consistently deride non-FOSS software, even if its for valid reasons and tend to go Lalalala cant hear you when confronted with someone who just chooses to not go FOSS (or keep bombarding them with arguments) and also engage in the same petty name calling.

Most teenagers however go through this phase (hell, I did myself), but Stallman just seems to, presumably as a part of his origins in the early hacker culture want to cling on this concept and keep doing it, even as people tell him that it's not helping his case.

As for "I don't deserve an intelligent answer",



			
				World politics rule thread said:
			
		

> *2) Everyone is entitled to an opinion, whether or not you think it's wrong.
> If you disagree with someone, please use logic and rational arguments to contradict them.*



I deserve the same right to get an intelligent answer as the fact that I can expect to give an intelligent answer when countered.

As a matter of fact, you so far haven't really relied much on "rational arguments and logic", but mainly on appeals to emotion and accusations of an SJW conspiracy.



bodefuceta said:


> glibc is part of the GNU project, and while the term BDFL is never used, and there are board of maintainer guidelines, it's effectively under a hierarchy which rms is/was on top. This is hardly ever a consideration, but was made very clear in the glibc manual case.


Whilst it's technically true that RMS could posit himself above the rest, and he did so in the manual case, the official maintainer guidelines do not make mention of the fact that RMS could posit himself above them. The fact that he did swing his metaphorical dick around to get his way is _not_ something that reflects positively on Stallman in the slightest after essentially universal maintainer consensus agreed that the joke should have been removed (with some iirc even expressing confusion on it being there in the first place).

Also, may I quickly point out that the joke is left leaning and if I go under the assumption you're accusing me of being an SJW (not a weird liberty based on the "I'm trying to character assassinate RMS here" ramble about how I don't deserve intelligent responses), wouldn't the removal of said joke _hurt_ my agenda? (Just to iterate -> I'm not an SJW.)



bodefuceta said:


> Sure, I just mentioned it because there seems to be more historical literature on the governance model.





bodefuceta said:


> This really only showed how bad ubuntu is, I already didn't use it around that time but certainly this kind of thing didn't help their case.


The fault was in debian as well, which has far longer lifecycles than Ubuntu does. The ffmpeg packager for debian was on the avconv side of things, which caused the problem.



bodefuceta said:


> Do you also believe Microsoft loves linux? Actually, do you work for Microsoft? There's all kinds of malicious things Microsoft does to this day that free software maintainers should be very wary of. Just recently I had a very bad experience with LSP on emacs and wonder if it was not intentional.


Kindly refrain from the shill accusation. Secondly, it's a matter of fact they do. They repurposed Microsoft NT (Windows) to be a loss leader because even they realized it's not worth their income anymore to spend time on that horrid crap to try and make it profitable. Microsoft gets its money these days from it's server software. Azure Cloud in particular stands out because it's for the most part running Linux under the hood. The existence of Azure Clouds linux boxes means that Microsoft has an vested interest in keeping Linux as good as it can be.

Hell, they even have their own official linux distro: Azure Sphere.

LSP was designed to work for VS Codes usecase only initially. That's why you had a bad experience with it. It was a standard designed for one editor that was later changed to work for multiple editors. Of course that means support is a bit wonky at first since other editors still need to adapt to it in a friendly way.



bodefuceta said:


> Please, where is it inaccurate? Because I absolutely did not write Microsoft is implementing it.





bodefuceta said:


> Microsoft for suggesting this kind of bullshit


Okay, you never said they're implementing it. You're however suggesting that they are responsible for it happening in the first place, and I'm stil not sure what the harm would be. Apologies for the misphrasing, point still stands.



bodefuceta said:


> Now this is the most absurd thing I've read in a long time. Doing or feeling whatever towards a 17 year old is in no way related to pedophilia.


This is a cultural thing. Even if you live in another country where the standard is different, it's important to keep in mind that the overwhelming major consensus in the United States is that culturally, anything below 18 is considered pedophilia, particularly if the other person in the act is in his 70s.

In spite of that if the cultural argument here doesn't convince you, the fact that Minsky was accused of having a sexual encounter with a 17 year old at an age where he was significantly _older_ than 17 (keep in mind that the fact that the Virgin Islands, where this occured has a hard law of "anything below 18 is pedophilia and statutory rape") would at least by sensible people be seen as creepy.

If we were to look at the law, the case would be open and shut since the law is purely concerned with the age of 18 and none of the potential exceptions (which at most means a 5 year difference for horny teenagers) would apply to Minsky.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

Obviously this discussion became too broad and your attention span isn't keeping up. If you'd read again what you said and compare with the arguments I'm making, it should be clear you're not really attempting to counter them anymore. A detailed reply would be a waste of my time. If there's any point in specific you want to talk about, let me know.

Also, remember GPLvX or later, folks. Some of rms' most prominent detractors actually work for intel and etc, things may get ugly. The "or later" is the worst thing rms ever done, it's abhorrent and I actually called for his resignation over this, but the way he left only makes it worse.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Obviously this discussion became too broad and your attention span isn't keeping up. If you'd read again what you said and compare with the arguments I'm making, it should be clear you're not really attempting to counter them anymore. A detailed reply would be a waste of my time. If there's any point in specific you want to talk about, let me know.


Pretty sure I did provide proper rebuttals for each of your arguments. This is just posturing.



bodefuceta said:


> Also, remember GPLvX or later, folks. Some of rms' most prominent detractors actually work for intel and etc, things may get ugly. The "or later" is the worst thing rms ever done, it's abhorrent and I actually called for his resignation over this, but the way he left only makes it worse.


I agree, the "or later" part sucks in the GPL and it's the one thing I remove whenever I use GPL (and don't forget to do it). Although that's not because Stallmans "detractors" will try to neuter the FSF, but because at least up until recently, Stallmans technological hermit behavior meant I couldn't be assured that he wouldn't cock up the license in a newer version.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> Stallmans technological hermit behavior meant I couldn't be assured that he wouldn't cock up the license in a newer version.


I see you're only 19 years old. I saw the birth of free software myself, and to me it's clear that the very opposite is true, it's a perception that came from experience. I understand you think this way but make sure you listen closely to the elders. Not me, I'm just some random person on the internet. But the actual people with vast experience. RMS and others had balls of steel and that's what it took for GNU/Linux to even be usable. The people who just randomly attack others on twitter and never produce useful stuff aren't humanity's best friends, even if they cater to your young person or queer or whatever's feelings.


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## Fat D (Sep 18, 2019)

The "or later" clause is a tool to limit the damage that strong copyleft licenses inevitably do as far as fragmentation by license incompatibility is concerned.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

Fragmentation is far better than a potentially pozzed license.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> 3 - He wrote in 2003 something along the lines that most laws should not exist. And went on to explain basically what I consider the libertarian non-violence principle in regards to sexual laws. He changed his opinion on this since.


Now that link is interesting, because he clearly studiously updates his old posts (going back to 2003 on that link,) even many many years later (up to 2018.)  You say he changed his opinion ever since, but hm, he did not feel the need to update that statement.  Well GEE, why not?  Can you prove he changed his opinion since?  Because that lack of correction suggests otherwise ROFLMAO


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

yuyuyup said:


> Now that link is interesting, because he clearly studiously updates his old posts (going back to 2003 on that link,) even many many years later (up to 2018.)  You say he changed his opinion ever since, but hm, he did not feel the need to update that statement.  Well GEE, why not?  Can you prove he changed his opinion since?  Because that lack of correction suggests otherwise ROFLMAO


Sir, may you do the needful and write like a human being? It's rms who said he changed his opinion. Unless YOU can prove otherwise this is a ridiculous accusation.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Sir, may you do the needful and write like a human being? It's rms who said he changed his opinion. Unless YOU can prove otherwise this is a ridiculous accusation.


Well I DID offer proof, the proof is he meticulously updates posts from FIFTEEN YEARS BACK, yet he doesn't update THAT?  I'm wondering if you could please link me to him changing his mind on that ROFLMAO


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

I only see updates due to broken links. You're just full of shit. Here's a 2004 version of the page.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 18, 2019)

As far as I know, Stallman doesn't typically retract his political views from his personal page fwiw.

That entire section is afaik automatically handled using a script anyway, not by the manual HTML editing he otherwise does on his site.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> I only see updates due to broken links. You're just full of shit. Here's a 2004 version of the page.


So what's your point?  in 2018, he clearly wanted his 2003 page to reflect accuracy.  He CARES about his content from all the way back in 2003.  But he's willing to let THAT stick around with no change?  Thank you for the rapid responses, but please take a minute and find the correction that I asked for ROFLMAO


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

yuyuyup said:


> So what's your point?  in 2018, he clearly wanted his 2003 page to reflect accuracy.


That's the whole point. The page *accurately* describes what he wrote in 2003, it's an archive.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> That's the whole point. The page *accurately* describes what he wrote in 2003, it's an archive.


Right.... an archive that he wanted to keep up-to-date, with up-to-date links, so when people go back to see his content, they can see the sources he's referring to.  He CLEARLY intended for his own blog to be scrutinized, at least for fixing broken links.  And you think things like his views on sex crimes don't deserve to be amended, even though you INSIST (with zero proof ROFLMAO) that he changed his position.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

yuyuyup said:


> Right.... an archive that he wanted to keep up-to-date, with up-to-date links, so when people go back to see his content, they can see the sources he's referring to.  He CLEARLY intended for his own blog to be scrutinized, at least for fixing broken links.  And you think things like his views on sex crimes don't deserve to be amended, even though you INSIST (with zero proof ROFLMAO) that he changed his position.


What, how? I'm just saying he wrote it himself. Is the concept of an archive too hard for you to understand? Perhaps you think if he edited something it'd just disappear from the internet, so you'd do it yourself and are puzzled by him not doing it? Or perhaps you're some sort of radically politized individual who's just ready to lay accusations and undermine anyone who one day wrote something you don't like?


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> I see you're only 19 years old. I saw the birth of free software myself, and to me it's clear that the very opposite is true, it's a perception that came from experience. I understand you think this way but make sure you listen closely to the elders. Not me, I'm just some random person on the internet. But the actual people with vast experience. RMS and others had balls of steel and that's what it took for GNU/Linux to even be usable. The people who just randomly attack others on twitter and never produce useful stuff aren't humanity's best friends, even if they cater to your young person or queer or whatever's feelings.


What about the numerous (current and former) FSF staff members who all made statements to the extent of "yes, FOSS is good, yes the FSF is good, but it's in _spite_ of Stallman, not because of him"?  I've linked/reposted a HN comment below that links to a large number of these.

If I go by your assumption of "listen to your elders" (ignoring my personal objections to the idea that age gives you automatically more weight on an argument), then surely those that have directly engaged with Stallman and are both former and current active advocates for the FSF and FOSS in general should carry the most weight in a situation to determine whether Stallman supports their cause or not?

It's those opinions specifically, as well as my own research into Stallmans behavior ever since the rank pulling on glibc occurred that led me to determine at least my own conclusion: That Stallman does the FSF/GNU more harm than good. 

I'll make clear, he certainly was important in it's early days, but mentalities and the world have changed over the past couple decades and Stallman seems to want to cling to his old mentalities rather than adjust to the rest of the world, which means that at least from my perspective means his consistent behavior (which I characterized like a teenager before and I'll stick with that) is limiting the ability of the FSF to spread its message and generally leads to FOSS being seen as a second rank by most people compared to proprietary software, which really is a shame because the potential of FOSS could be so much more, but up until yesterday was almost solely focused around the views and opinions of one individual. The FSF removing Stallman would mean that FOSS is no longer as strongly tied to Stallman, which hopefully will mean that it becomes easier to give FOSS the first rank spot it deserves (not that there aren't many other issues with FOSS teams, but Stallman was _easily_ the most prolific one.)



			
				sp332 said:
			
		

> Former board member https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html & https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1172293871109320704
> 
> Founder of FSF's GPL Compliance Labs https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505
> 
> ...



Quote block above sourced to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000374


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## bodefuceta (Sep 18, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> I'll make clear, he certainly was important in it's early days, but mentalities and the world have changed over the past couple decades and Stallman seems to want to cling to his old mentalities rather than adjust to the rest of the world


I think this is a central point what you're saying and commend you for mentioning it, though it's just completely wrong, the mentalities are exactly the same, only the way to show it changed. Honestly, it entails a deep philosophical introspection, and I'm just an "old" engineer with english as third language, on a game forum of all places. Normally I'd suggest you read up on some author like Mario Ferreira dos Santos but not even sure if it's translated. I wish I could help more and suggest you take this thought and search elsewhere.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> What, how? I'm just saying he wrote it himself. Is the concept of an archive too hard for you to understand? Perhaps you think if he edited something it'd just disappear from the internet, so you'd do it yourself and are puzzled by him not doing it? Or perhaps you're some sort of radically politized individual who's just ready to lay accusations and undermine anyone who one day wrote something you don't like?


Okeydokey, let's examine that link:

_Sex between an adult and a child is wrong) 

 Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. 

 Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why. 
_
ok well first off that "correction" was made AFTER the blog post was pointed out.  Well gee, how convenient.

Second off, actually reading that 2003 link, he says a BUNCH of fun stuff that he failed to address in his defense of himself; in that 2003 link (that YOU provided, by the way) he suggests that INCEST should be LEGAL ROFLMAO.

_All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding.
_
ALL OF THESE ACTS SHOULD BE LEGAL.  HMMMMMMM he didn't really address THAT in his hilarious "defense" of himself.  So, basically, great job defending an incest guy.


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## Joom (Sep 18, 2019)

yuyuyup said:


> So, basically, great job defending an incest guy.


And you're imposing your morality here, and totally missed the point. Morality, unfortunately for you, isn't subjective. You're also throwing strawmen around like confetti. If you're gonna be a morality troll, you're gonna have to do better than this.


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## yuyuyup (Sep 18, 2019)

Joom said:


> And you're imposing your morality here, and totally missed the point. Morality, unfortunately for you, isn't subjective. You're also throwing strawmen around like confetti. If you're gonna be a morality troll, you're gonna have to do better than this.


"Imposing your morality here."  Really?  I'm not really sure I'm going out on a limb to say that incest is universally accepted as horrifically WRONG.  If you want to go down that road, by all means, tell me how incest is defensible.  I'm not asking much to ask what the man's current position on incest is, considering 15 years ago he was just fine with it (according to his blog at least ROFLMAO)


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 19, 2019)

Joom said:


> And you're imposing your morality here, and totally missed the point. Morality, unfortunately for you, isn't subjective. You're also throwing strawmen around like confetti. If you're gonna be a morality troll, you're gonna have to do better than this.


Uh... Morality is by it's very design subjective. It's the values we impose on the world around us, which is influenced by our upbringing, the society we live in and those around us.

That said, there's some shit that's universally fucked up. In the topically relevant situation; incest is nigh universally seen as wrong in Western culture (unless you're from Alabama), also if we're on stallman anyway, the same can be said for bestiality and necrophilia. (again, unless you're from Alabama.)

So is this imposing morality? Yes. But the mere existence on laws on these matters are imposing morality. Which is a good thing. Without laws we'd fall into anarchy.


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## Xzi (Sep 19, 2019)

I can sympathize with both sides of this conflict to some extent, but c'mon, why would you defend Epstein or anyone associated with him?  He's reviled by absolutely everybody, across all political lines.  Autistic or not, people in the public sphere should have a bit more common sense than that.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 19, 2019)

> Former board member https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html & https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1172293871109320704
> 
> Founder of FSF's GPL Compliance Labs https://twitter.com/NovalisDMT/status/1172573166956437505
> 
> ...


Only now I took my time to look into this and, I am totally not surprised. Twitter is a cesspool of degenerates, where valid concerns are suppressed and madness spreads like wildfire, besides it's proprietary software. Seriously, it's no wonder people have this sort of opinion when they use Twitter as a source of information on the general public. If you actually want to read what people think, use mailing lists.



Xzi said:


> I can sympathize with both sides of this conflict to some extent, but c'mon, why would you defend Epstein or anyone associated with him?  He's reviled by absolutely everybody, across all political lines.  Autistic or not, people in the public sphere should have a bit more common sense than that.


Are you talking about rms?


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 19, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Only now I took my time to look into this and, I am totally not surprised. Twitter is a cesspool of degenerates, where valid concerns are suppressed and madness spreads like wildfire, besides it's proprietary software. Seriously, it's no wonder people have this sort of opinion when they use Twitter as a source of information on the general public. If you actually want to read what people think, use mailing lists.


So... you're dismissing concerns posted by active and former FSF members _just_ because they posted about it on Twitter?

Like, sure, we can ditch the journalists and Sarah Jeong here (since quite frankly, I only included these so I wouldn't be accused of citing the comment out of context). That still leaves several FSF members, the DIAL Community director, a member of the EFF, a former FSF board member and the Free Software Conservancy speaking up about this.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 19, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> So... you're dismissing concerns posted by active and former FSF members _just_ because they posted about it on Twitter?


Do you realize how trivial it is to get FSF membership? I am dismissing them because they are degenerate nutjobs, the kind of people you find when searching up something on twitter. Twitter itself is incompatible with FSF's ideas. It's obvious any FSF member using it is a bad apple.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 19, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Do you realize how trivial it is to get FSF membership? I am dismissing them because they are degenerate nutjobs, the kind of people you find when searching up something on twitter.


The Free Software Conservancy (who didn't post on Twitter), the former FSF board member (who did also post about it on his personal blog) and at least a number of the complaining members have been around for a while.

It'd be a different situation if they say... signed up a month ago on the FSF to force him out, but the overwhelming majority of people complaining seem to have been around for several years.

I'll also point out that the decision to remove Stallman was done by the FSF board, which seems to be not as trivial to get into, which means that those who voted on it must have agreed with the assessment of their members.

Somewhat related: Red Hat, the company behind Fedora, RHEL, the biggest contributor to GNOME and so on has issued it's support for finding a replacement for Stallman.

--
Also, please don't use Nazi analogies to refer to real people (the term originates from _Entartete Kunst_, a strategy used by the Nazis to row people up against modernist art).


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## bodefuceta (Sep 19, 2019)

Wow, that's so many people, that means your argument can't be wrong. Millions of people are talking about it, do you unironically believe in what you're writing anymore?

I know who IBM is.



Ev1l0rd said:


> decision to remove Stallman was done by the FSF board


Source?



Ev1l0rd said:


> Also, please don't use Nazi analogies to refer to real people (the term originates from _Entartete Kunst_, a strategy used by the Nazis to row people up against modernist art).


And we've finally reached Godwin's law. Because I used a word derived from ancient latin.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 19, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> Wow, that's so many people, that means your argument can't be wrong. Millions of people are talking about it, do you unironically believe in what you're writing anymore?


You seem to have overlooked that this is within regards to the "respect and listen to your elders" argument (which _you made by the way_). Well, I found some elders. Multiple even.

Then you just casually dismiss all of them based on the fact they post to Twitter.



bodefuceta said:


> Source?


FSF bylaws: https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/fsf-amended-bylaws-current.pdf

The behavior of the FSFs board is dictated by these bylaws. Article VI, Section 7. There's procedures there for removing the sitting president of the FSF, as well as the procedure for removing the other board members. Long story short: It must be put up to a majority vote by all sitting directors.

There's procedures for these things.



bodefuceta said:


> And we've finally reached Godwin's law. Because I used a word derived from ancient latin.



Uhm no? I never compared you to the Nazis. I asked you to stop using a word that made popular by them and the majority of it's nowaday use on folks is closely associated with either the alt-right or anime culture, and I doubt you're referring to the latter.


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## bodefuceta (Sep 19, 2019)

Ev1l0rd said:


> You seem to have overlooked that this is within regards to the "respect and listen to your elders" argument (which _you made by the way_). Well, I found some elders. Multiple even.


I don't think I told you to listen only to the people who say stuff you want them to and ignore those who understand of the subject at hand.



Ev1l0rd said:


> Then you just casually dismiss all of them based on the fact they post to Twitter.


That's not the full explanation I gave you.



Ev1l0rd said:


> FSF bylaws: https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/fsf-amended-bylaws-current.pdf
> 
> The behavior of the FSFs board is dictated by these bylaws. Article VI, Section 7. There's procedures there for removing the sitting president of the FSF, as well as all other board members. Long story short: It must be put up to a majority vote.
> 
> There's procedures for these things.


He resigned. This is some ridiculous stretch.



Ev1l0rd said:


> Uhm no? I never compared you to the Nazis.


Yeah, compared my words to nazis, 100% different things.

I'm not your father so you can spew whatever comes through your teenage head and expect an intelligent answer just to help your mental growth. Good bye.


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 19, 2019)

bodefuceta said:


> That's not the full explanation I gave you.


You asked me to look for people with "vast experience". A number of the people I linked have had personal interactions with Stallman. Dunno how much "vaster" you want my experience to get.



bodefuceta said:


> He resigned. This is some ridiculous stretch.


Then he chose himself to resign. Like, I don't get what you're aiming at. The way I see it, there are two possible scenarios here:

There was a quick initial poll done with the directors and since the result wouldn't favor Stallman, they permitted him the chance to resign with dignity (this isn't uncommon.)
Stallman realised that his own actions and the resulting impact could instate real damage to the FSF if he stayed on the board.
I personally for RMS would hope that it was the second option, since it would mean that he as a person has grown, but given who and what RMS is, the most likely cause seems to have been the first one.

Anyway, given how you don't seem to be interested in the conversation anymore. I wish you a goodbye as well.


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## xxNathanxx (Sep 27, 2019)

yuyuyup said:


> in that 2003 link (that YOU provided, by the way) he suggests that INCEST should be LEGAL ROFLMAO.


Who gives a shit? Why is it any of your concern whether people marry their brother, their cousin, or someone from the other side of the planet?


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## Xzi (Sep 27, 2019)

xxNathanxx said:


> Who gives a shit? Why is it any of your concern whether people marry their brother, their cousin, or someone from the other side of the planet?


Yikes.  Roll Tide?


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## Ev1l0rd (Sep 27, 2019)

-snip-

Also, because we should in a sense stay _on topic_, it's recently been announced that Stallman has not resigned from the GNU Foundation and seems to plan on doing what he's always done.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2019-09/msg00008.html

--

To be clear: Stallman has *only* resigned from the FSF here (his status at MIT was pretty much "we give you an office", so it's not really a firing as much as a "stop associating yourself with us" deal). If anything, this should be seen as a _net positive_ for those of you who were concerned.

In a sense, this separates the goal of the FSF from Stallmans personal views (something which at least up until now has been a big issue wrt FOSS, where folks seem to revere Stallman as a god of sorts) and permits the political lobbying group to _just focus on promoting/spreading Free Software_ as opposed to also being stuck having to dance to whatever thing Stallman considered an important issue that would result in a pedantic headline that makes the FSF look like idiots (it's akshually gnu slash linux is a big example of something that is by all accounts a Stallman issue that the FSF got dragged along with.)

If you think he shouldn't be the head of GNU, that's neither here or there, but this is at least _something_ for your consideration.


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## xxNathanxx (Sep 27, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Yikes.  Roll Tide?


I must be getting old, because I have no idea what you mean.


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## Xzi (Sep 28, 2019)

xxNathanxx said:


> I must be getting old, because I have no idea what you mean.


It's a reference to Alabama's college football team and the uhh...other events that occur in Alabama on a daily basis.


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