What is Richard Stallman up to?

[deck_luck]

On September 16, 2019, Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board of directors

https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns

Stallman said the “most plausible scenario” is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was “entirely willing.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm74...n-comments

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3k...ly-willing

[Cthulhu]

Stallman is a weirdo. Despite his contributions to FOSS, he's a bad representative of the community.

[leon.p]

Stallman is a weirdo. Despite his contributions to FOSS, he's a bad representative of the community.

Agreed. He had some good ideas reagarding ethical / moral computing and digital rights, but a lot of his other ideas and views are far less respectable, to put it mildly.

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However, "Stallman said the 'most plausible scenario' is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was 'entirely willing.'" is actually not true. That comes from one of the news agencies reporting on this. He openly called Epstein a "serial rapist" and thinks that he "deserved to be imprisoned".

What sparked this debacle is that Stallman wrote (on a public mailing list) that he believes that his friend, who he was trying to defend, did not know that the victims were held on the island against their will.

Obviously that is not any better.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not defending him or his opinion(s) on this.)

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What do we learn from this?
Do not have any non-fictional heros, I guess...

But even if this did not happen, I would still be glad that he is no longer head of the FSF. I was never really happy with him being the defacto face of the Free Softwaare Movement. Let's hope the next FSF-president is not only saner, but also has better rethorical skills. And let's also hope the the reputation of Free Software does not suffer, as we are already fighting an uphill battle.

[deck_luck]

Is that Stallman again?

[TarsolyGer]

(DISCLAIMER: I am not defending him or his opinion(s) on this.)

This is a very sorry state of public life when you have to say this. I think defending the right to the freedom of thought and speech should be something we should do for everyone, even for those whose thoughts and speech we find reprehensible.
I would be of the opinion, that no matter what Stallman thinks on any of these issues that has nothing to do with his job at the MIT or the FSF should be irrelevant of his employment there. The problem is that (to the best of my knowledge) he voiced these controversial opinions in his capacity as the employee on an official mailing list, and I think this detail makes it a fireable offense.
And also, if I have to say it I'll say it, I'm not agreeing with Stallman or defending his opinions.

[leon.p]

This is a very sorry state of public life when you have to say this. I think defending the right to the freedom of thought and speech should be something we should do for everyone, even for those whose thoughts and speech we find reprehensible.

That disclaimer has nothing to do with free speech. I simply added it to make it absolutely dead obvious that I do not defend nor agree with him on this. Yes, that should be obvious from the text, but since there are a lot people online who take everything out of context I added it because I am not in the mood for a discussion about this.

Even ignoring the disclaimer, this is not a free speech issue. Free speech and freedom of thought mean that citizens can voice their opinion without needing to fear thought policing by the governent. Contrary to popular believe, it does not mean that anyone has to respect mentioned opinions. Nobodies freedom of thought and speech is endangered here.

I would be of the opinion, that no matter what Stallman thinks on any of these issues that has nothing to do with his job at the MIT or the FSF should be irrelevant of his employment there.

Technically yes, but he always represents (or represented) the Free Software Movement, even if he talks about things not related to free software or digital rights.

Someone who chooses to writes a multi-paragraph email to a public mailing list in which he argues about the semantics of words which carry a strong emotional payload on a highly explosive topic monitored by predatory media outlets, which is totaly unrelated to free software, while possessing neither the nessecary rethorical skills to make absolutely clear what he wants to say nor the maturity to accept that he actually knows basically nothing about the topic, is not suited to represent this movement, in my opinion. In that case it is even totally irrelevant what he actually wanted to say. Yes, Stallman most likely only wanted to defend a friend of his, but because of his extremely poor choice of words this clearly and strongly backfired. Since he is the face of Free Software, that falls back to the entire movement.

Is it fair that "Vice" and "The Verge" told lies about what he said? No. But that is irrelevant, the damage is done (Despite, what he actually wanted to say wasn't that harmless either...).

The problem is that (to the best of my knowledge) he voiced these controversial opinions in his capacity as the employee on an official mailing list, and I think this detail makes it a fireable offense.

As not only a known activist, but also as a Visiting Scientist at MIT, Stallman always represents someone. Either it is the Free Software movement, the scientific community or MIT.

No group wants a representative whose opinions and views strongly contrast with the rest of the group members opinions and views. And the uncomfortable truth is, that Stallman always held believes incompatible with most people invested in Free Software. We just ignored that because it was easier.

[TarsolyGer]

No group wants a representative whose opinions and views strongly contrast with the rest of the group members opinions and views. And the uncomfortable truth is, that Stallman always held believes incompatible with most people invested in Free Software. We just ignored that because it was easier.

Yeah, exactly. I think Stallman has already proven himself to be ill-fitted for the role of being a spokesperson for anything through his career. It is just weird that these are the things that remove him from the position, not his frantic shouting and swearing on stage while giving a presentation, or the utter disrespect he treats journalists with. Which are things DIRECTLY related to his job, while these Epstein things are not.

[Cthulhu]

"I believe what you are referring to is GUN/Rape."
- t.stallman