- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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FYI: if you are an active apologist for Stallman in this thread, you will be indefinitely banned from Beehaw. to the extent that Stallman has salient critiques of anything he’s under fire for (as @t3rmit3@beehaw.org notes), his use of those critiques is almost exclusively to advance horrible, indefensible, actively harmful ideas. if you actually care about the merits of these subjects, nothing he argues is actually best argued from him. almost anybody else would be better served as a mouthpiece. and it is just incredibly silly to stand by the guy who took until 2019 to retract his belief that pedophilia isn’t harmful to children just because, as a foundational belief informing that position, he reasonably thinks we infantilize people between the ages of 12 and 17 too much
Aside for all his pedophile view points, he is correct about infantilizing 12-17 year olds. We have helicopter parents removing every roadblock for children, they grow up not knowing how to plan or resolve conflict.
Aside for all his pedophile view points, he is correct about infantilizing 12-17 year olds.
…you’re just repeating my point back to me, and why Stallman is the worst mouthpiece for this position.
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There is a very real discussion of the way that we have conflated “minor” (a legal status) and “child” (a developmental state), and used that to infantilize adolescents who are very much not children…
but that discussion is not about sex, it’s about the way that people abuse that legal status in order to deny adolescents normal choices that they are developed enough to make, such as what books to read, medical decisions, what they do with their property (or even the ability to own property), etc.
Stallman is using that very legitimate discussion as cover to argue about whether children (i.e. pre-adolescents) should be able to have sex with adults.
He is, at best, the worst kind of provocateur, doing this because he knows it riles people up, so that he can feign some position of superiority about not being upset about his very intellectual /s take, and at worst, desiring to enable or normalize pedophilia and hebephilia.
Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights. – stallman.org, 5 June 2017 “Possession of child porn”
I’ll honestly be surprised if he doesn’t end up being revealed to be in possession of CSAM.
Entirely possible but he’s also a stubborn man obsessed with his own ideological consistency and absurdly precise (if not commonly understood) language. He’s clearly a creep but having kept up with him over the years I think it’s similarly possible that those statements aren’t self-serving and are instead sincerely held dominoes 15 down the line from following the implications of some core principles.
That doesn’t make them not disgusting and also does not mean he should remain the voice of our movement, of course.
Wise people know when to adjust core beliefs to not get into a situation like this, but I’d say that there’s at least a bit of intention here.
Oh absolutely, if following the trail of your beliefs leads you to a conclusion like this it should be a reason to interrogate those core beliefs and/or recognize where other core beliefs take priority, and not doing this is a major failure on his part that I’m sure is largely motivated by ultimately not really caring that much about sexual violence. It’s just that the pattern of reasoning here is so consistent with his approach to every other issue that he writes about that I think it’s reasonably likely that he just defends possession of CSAM on principle (as twisted as that is) rather than as as a defense of actions he’s made. This is not a defense of the man, to be clear, just a guess as someone familiar with his idiosyncrasies. What we know for sure from his own mouth should be more than enough to condemn him and get him the hell out of the FSF. Having a man who actively defends pedophilia in a leadership role in any capacity is an embarrassment and a failure of the organization as a whole, even if he also laid the intellectual foundation for its mission.
yeah kinda like Aaron Swarttz made some sus statements but he was still relatively young. never got vibe he was pedo, just did not undersatnd the issue.
I’ve no idea what Swartz said on the subject and I’m not sure if this implication is intended by you but I would not characterize rms as just being uninformed. There’s lots of evidence in this piece that he encountered information and testimonials from abused parties and nevertheless landed at the conclusions he did. I don’t know if he holds CSAM or not but I do know he is long past the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his words.
Stallman doesn’t seem to get that pedophilia is wrong because of the hierarchy of power, and the power imbalances between older/younger people, not because of some inherent wrongness about being attracted to a prepubescent person. This is shown by how he condemns some pedophilia, but is accepting of 12+/past puberty. (I despise this logic, because it would also make gay sex and sodomy wrong, as well).
I find this deeply ironic, because his primary issue with proprietary software is the way that it gives developers levels of power over users. From his article Why Open Source Misses the Point
But software can be said to serve its users only if it respects their freedom. What if the software is designed to put chains on its users? Then powerfulness means the chains are more constricting, and reliability that they are harder to remove.
You would expect someone who is so in tune with the hierarchies that appear with software developers, publishers, and users, to also see those same hierarchies echoed in relationships between people of vastly different ages, but instead, we get this. I’m extremely disappointed.
These failures to understand hierarchy and power, are exactly why Stallman shouldn’t be in a position of power. Leaders should continually prove that they understand hierarchy and the effects of their actions on those below them. Someone who doesn’t understand how their power could affect another, shouldn’t be a leader.
I had heard that his behavior was problematic, but I was unaware of the depth of the issue.
Not just problematic, but consequential too:
Richard Stallman has also embarked upon a decades-long political project to normalize sexual violence. Under his ideological leadership, the free software movement is unsafe, particularly for women. Women represent just 3% of the free software community,2 compared to 23% of industry programmers generally.3 This is no accident. There is a pervasive culture of sexism and a stark lack of accountability in free software, and it begins with Stallman’s unchallenged and reprehensible behavior.
Yeah, that’s what I meant. I guess problematic means more objectionable, but I mean that it presents a serious difficulty within FOSS culture.
holly molly… girls got cuties?
Are those small oranges currently in season?
i think proper nomenclatures are mandarins and i think so?
I hate that this happens, because he’s a goddamned prophet when it comes to software freedom, the harms of proprietary dev models and related stuff, he’s also in mastodon and regularly posts about international news i see no one else mention, but damn there’s just no coming back from all this shit, how the hell would you share stuff he has said with all this gross stuff staining him? Goddammit, Stallman, you were supposed to be at least an OK person!
Responding mainly because I second this and feel the same way.
The ethical bar is so low and yet he still chooses to not clear it.
I knew he had said problematic shit, but this is disturbing.
I dunno. RMS is a software developer. I think we should listen to him on matters related to software. For other topics, I listen to other people.
It kind of reminds me of ASD symptoms, not reading social cues properly, etc. So from the viewpoint of inclusion we maybe should not go too hard on these negative aspects and focus on the positive sides?
It kind of reminds me of ASD symptoms, not reading social cues properly, etc.
i know you mean well but, respectfully: having autism or another disorder (if Stallman even does) is probably not the reason why Richard Stallman has historically defended what amounts to pedophilia; why he continues to defend bestiality and necrophilia; and why he has extremely malformed opinions on what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual assault. and even if it is, that’s an explanation and nothing more. it does not excuse or make acceptable his behavior or the consistency with which it has skeeved other people out. he deserves to be strongly rebuked, as anyone else would, for his refusal to take accountability in this situation.
from his stand point the kids gave consent, he did not seem to grasp that due to age or vulnerabilty/power differential they can’t consent. It is like he is thinking of it like a code problem not a human problem. i.e. IF (Consent=true)(AllOK) else(NotOK)
When he should be thinking of it like “Invalid certificate. Issue date in future.”
Ha nice
Him being physically incapable of understanding the taint of coercion might also explain the years’ long delay in releasing the AGPL? Interesting.
I think we should listen to him on matters related to software. For other topics, I listen to other people.
Completely disagree. No matter what he might have expertise in, he has entirely invalidated his voice by taking the stances he’s taken and the acts he committed. Even listening to his hard technical knowledge gives him validity.
This all comes back to the same abhorrent shit that has permeated the tech industry, and FLOSS particularly, that we should never consider soft skills or anything else about a person, that they can be the most vile, toxic person possible, but as long as they’re a good developer, It’s Fine. But it’s not fine. It’s never been fine, and we should not normalize continuing to have people like this in our midst just because they’re a good dev, or that they once made some good technical points.
Your comment strikes me as particularly harmful and misguided because autistic people are often specifically targeted for abuse and even seen as deserving of abuse.
I am sort of grateful, because you’ve unintentionally really made it starkly clear to me. We should not platform unrepentant enablers of abuse regardless of their prior contributions, it simply causes too much harm.
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Drew DeVault (sway, sourcehut, hare… creator) wrote an article on this exact topic, asking autistic people on mastodon what they think of it. The tldr is that autistic people (those who answered) hate this excuse because they rather know when they make people uneasy to try to adjust, and also that if we need to tolerate this kind of discourse to make room for a minority of autistic people, then we are not doing a good job because it makes a lot of people really uneasy.
An anonymous hit job that reads like it was written by Ehmke. We should give this any credence because…?
An anonymous hit job
it’s literally his own words all the way down here. if it’s a “hit job” it’s entirely Stallman’s own fault for being a freak with morally abhorrent takes. one of the first things mentioned here is that he had to retract the position that “voluntarily pedophilia” doesn’t harm children (a category of person he defines as anyone under about 13)! any reasonable person would find this abhorrent and Stallman a horrible person for ever having defended said position in the first place, because it is genuinely abhorrent to defend something like that. that’s just child abuse.
Not defending pedophiles, but there was a time when 13 was considered adult. It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.
Anything can be taken out of context.
Not defending pedophiles, but
you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.
there was a time when 13 was considered adult.
and? Stallman is not talking about a previous time at any point here. also: that previous time was bad anyways. why would we want to–especially with respect to age of consent–go back to considering 13-year olds and younger to be adults? they cannot meaningfully consent to sexual relations with adults; it’s just child abuse. all of this is why Stallman’s words are abhorrent.
It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.
Stallman is not talking about teenagers. he explicitly distinguishes children (again, people <13 for him) from teenagers (people 13-17).
you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.
Wise words to live by.
You’re free to look at the context that they frequently link to, it doesn’t help. His political notes that contain the majority of his public musings are typically very brief and the quotes used typically replicate the entirety of the original text or cut off changes of subject.
Stallman is very clear in his beliefs.
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it’s entirely Stallman’s own fault for being a freak
Takes notes
i mean, whom among us has not said such things, without retraction, as:
Cody Wilson [who at the time of his charging was 30] has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16. […] The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood. Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.
Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights.
A national campaign seeks to make all US states prohibit sex between humans and nonhuman animals. This campaign seems to be sheer bull-headed prudery, using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal hurts the animal. That’s true for some ways of having sex, and false for others. For instance, I’ve heard that some women get dogs to lick them off. That doesn’t hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?
and whom among us has not had to retract such positions as:
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
these are obviously positions that everyone would take the fall for if they had a blog.
It looks pretty well cited to me. The fact that it was written anonymously doesn’t really take away from that.
It really kind of does. If the author is so ashamed of the work that they won’t sign it, that speaks volumes.
Ummm or the authors are concerned about retribution because stallman and the FSF are very powerful in the FOSS community, and I think it’s reasonably likely that they would be sued (seemingly with poor grounds) or harassed online for publishing it.
This would only really make sense if they were trying to throw around the weight of the authors, which they clearly are not. Who makes these points is irrelevant when it’s simply highlighting rms’ own words and linking to them directly. Why should I care who wrote it?
You can say that speaks volumes about the character of the author (though you are the one assigning said “shame”). You were asking why this report deserves credence. The points raised in the report have citations such that you can decide where you fall on the presented issues.
Not so anonymous, see my other comment: https://phtn.app/post/programming.dev/20566574?thread=0.12859284#12859284
Stallman pushed false propaganda about BSD for ideological reasons because the BSD developers allow freedom of choice to let people do what they want with their own computers and BSD developers don’t fight proprietary software, they simply don’t allow it as part of each BSD base operating system. Stallman and his followers think they know better than UNIX developers which software everybody in the world should use.
It’s because of his kind that I only support open source software and comdemn free software and the politics of free software. A whole complete BSD operating system is 100% open source compared to the generic Linux kernel. Why doesn’t the Linux-libre develop their own drivers like BSD develop drivers and commision hardware companies for specs for the BSD’s to write their own drivers?
I catch a lot of shit for my distaste of GPL. I don’t think I should be able to tell you what you can and can’t do with my source code. I’ve released it into the wild. If I put caveats on it it’s not really free.
While I understand where you’re coming from, I believe that it distracts from a massive positive effect that the GPL has: the way it ensures collaboration. Lots of contributors to GPL software do so in the knowledge that they are working on something great together. I myself have felt discouraged to contribute to MIT licensed software, because I know that others might just take all the hard work, make something proprietary of it and give nothing back.
I see GPL as some sort of public transaction, it is indeed more limiting than MIT and offers less pure freedom in that sense. But I just love how it uses copyright not for enforcing licensing payment for some private entity, but enforces a contribution to the community as a whole. I find this quite beautiful.
I agree with you 100%, no exceptions. Strongly agree. I say the GPL is socialist. What those people don’t consider is that there are many countries in the world where no court will take a case over a software license.
The ISC license is a libertarian license.
Tell me your opinion on one thing. I’ve considered that if Torvalds changes the license to AGPLv3, meaning servers have to publish their source code, it would an extremely quick collapse and abandonment of Linux. The GPLv2 Linux kernel can have binary code in it, but a AGPLv3 must be 100% open source, and Google would ban Linux on all corporate systems, Microsoft would ban it, CISCO would ban it, IBM would ban it, a complete implosion. What do you say?
But if all those corporations adopt one of the BSD’s operating systems, due to the BSD and ISC license, the corporations can ignore those licenses and develop on more complete, stable, secure, long term reliable system. Linux is a collection of various parts forced together. BSD is a complete operating system from a single couple of developers who all have commit access to every part of the system.
I’ve considered that if Torvalds changes the license to AGPLv3, meaning servers have to publish their source code, it would an extremely quick collapse and abandonment of Linux.
AGPL evolved out of people saying, “my SaaS application isn’t being distributed at all, it’s just living on my server, so I can use your copy-left software without releasing my source alterations, and not violate the (GPLv2) license, because the license is based on distribution”. If the Linux kernel itself went AGPL (which isn’t what AGPL is even for), it would mean that modifications of the kernel would have to be published by whoever is doing the modifications, even if that kernel was only being used in a SaaS capacity, but most companies aren’t modifying the kernel and then offering that modified software over the network, they’re just running software on top of the upstream kernel, and AGPL higher up in the chain doesn’t touch that software, just like the current Linux kernel GPL doesn’t automatically apply to some python code you run on your Linux server.
Android, Amazon Linux, and IOS (the Cisco one) would just not move to the AGPL kernel (since you can’t retroactively apply it to already-released kernels), and probably continue their own forks as totally separate as they already do.
But the 99% of companies who are just using stock Linux distros e.g. stock Ubuntu to run their SaaS applications wouldn’t be affected. It definitely would not see the use collapse overnight.
But if each corporation forked their own kernel, after a few years of customizing the code to their needs, they would each be developing their own operaging system so all software would only run on company systems and would not be compatible with customer’s systems.
No, their derivatives are not running on top of another person’s OS, they are themselves the OS. Hardware doesn’t make itself compatible with Linux, Linux makes itself compatible with hardware (by using or creating drivers). Those other companies do as well (or own the hardware stack as well, like Cisco).
My argument is if Linux goes AGPL3 which causes each company to fork the last GPL2 release, than after a few years of each company maintaining their own forked version, they will each evolve into their own operating system designed for their corporate software rather than all coporations using a single operating system that each develop their software to run on that OS.
But if they choose to develop on top of BSD then they will never be constricted by meaningless pointless software license.
I am an ISC supremaist for the sake of individual liberty.
This doesn’t reflect how that works right now, though, nor how AGPL would affect most corporations.
You listed 2 companies (Cisco and Google) that maintain their own forked Linux versions (IOS and Android). Neither of those OSes are server OSes already. They’re router and mobile phone OSes.
The other hundreds of thousands of companies don’t even touch the kernel, and would not be affected. It would not change the landscape at all to move it to AGPL.
What is socialist about GPL?
Being forced to open source seems like a pyramid scheme. Better examples of socialist and libertarian politics are licenses like MIT or BSD. They embody use without damage.
Stallman seems to have a flawed understanding of hierarchy and power. He exhibits such in the infectious GPL and pedophillic political takes. I purposely avoid GPL or derivatives when considering libraries.
I say socialist because of forced redistribution of any code changes, nobody is allowed to keep any new development for themself to use.
The argument that GPL helps everybody to benefit equally and nobody can keep the code for themself, that’s what a socialist says for they government must take everybody’s money to help those in need, except now the ones who had the money previously have become needy themselves and the government has all f the money and it’s not helping anybody.
It safer for software developers to bad GPL to protect themselves from any troubles and develop on any other operating system where they can choose what code to share and what to keep secret.
Look at how well Sony has done with FreeBSD on Playatation 4 and 5 with the BSD license. The Playstation system stays proprietary but they send code to FreeBSD for any network and server issues. Maybe Sony refused Linux for PS4 due to GPL to protect company secrets.
I say socialist because of forced redistribution of any code changes, nobody is allowed to keep any new development for themself to use.
You have a flawed understanding of socialism
eh… fuck this guy (RMS)
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