[curryst]

Let me start by saying that most of my knowledge of this is from reading news posts and comments, I will not pretend to have an in-depth knowledge of this situation.

However, as a counterpoint, do you really want to live in a world where the leadership is not determined by how skilled you are at your craft, but how well you conform to a conventional morality? RMS has done some things that don't conform to that morality, and some things that go against my own sense of morality.

He doesn't lead a religious organization. He doesn't lead a political party. He was leading technical organizations, and seemed immensely successful in doing so. I have never once heard of him doing anything that was counter to the goals of those organizations.

Why do his personal beliefs even need to be brought into the equation? Do we really intend to digress back to some kind of Puritanical morality where your ability to do anything is first judged by your piousness, and secondly by your ability to perform the job?

Personally, this has somewhat diminished my interest in both the FSF and the GNU organizations. If witch hunts based on your personal sense of morality are going to be an entrenched part of joining that community. What I look for in a technical community is just that: technology. I'll save the witch hunts for organizations that purport some form a moral compass.

[ckaygusu]

> Let me start by saying that most of my knowledge of this is from reading news posts and comments, I will not pretend to have an in-depth knowledge of this situation.

I'm in the same boat. I've been eyeballing things I've been seeing about him on HN as of late.

> However, as a counterpoint, do you really want to live in a world where the leadership is not determined by how skilled you are at your craft, but how well you conform to a conventional morality? RMS has done some things that don't conform to that morality, and some things that go against my own sense of morality.

I won't look at this in a binary way. True, I'd choose to live in a cave, rather than in a community where all leaders are selected solely on their social conformance. However, work or any other activity where it is done with a group, people bring merely more than their skills. They do bring their culture, their personal touch as well, and under circumstances where this social side is extremely irritating, it could override a decision on whether to include this person into the group. That being said, how much we should care about one's persona is a complex problem and I am refraining presenting an opinion about it. From the looks of it, in this particular instance, people think it was significant enough.

His resignations are going to be a net loss for everyone, but I refuse to believe this damage has been inflicted by the community. He is the sole responsible of his mouth. If you want to bring change, then the burden of being accepted lies with the individual, him, not the community.

[tptacek]

What's "conventional morality"? Where's the line between a moral fashion and something more fundamental? If there's no one line, then isn't this all just an exercise in line drawing, and aren't the people who refuse to associate with Stallman simply drawing their own lines?

[yabadabadoes]

> aren't the people who refuse to associate with Stallman simply drawing their own lines?

It seems to me like he has enough allies to continue all of his organisations with some replacement of those who wont associate with him, so it seems to me like people are drawing lines for other people.

I have mixed feelings about his running of the organisations on a technical level, but I have more reservations about organisations after such a social coup. Similarly, I find Brendan Eich's political views distasteful, but I am more inclined to draw a line against interacting with Mozilla than Eich over people drawing lines for other people, and I would definitely shun Mozilla had they removed Eich for expressing political thoughts without making actual monetary donations.

I've worked with people far more distasteful in far more areas of their belief and behavior than those two, and I would rather the nonsense stop than empower one more moron on the web to bring someone to "justice". How is this mob going to sleep at night in a few months?

[tptacek]

I'm not sure how they're meant to draw lines for other people; if they don't have a critical mass, Stallman can simply ignore them. If they do, he can't lead effectively, and it's their own personal lines that are the problem.

[yabadabadoes]

So you think a critical mass of people who actually work with Stallman in the FSF and Gnu did some secret ballots then discussed this with him their shared decision or you think a critical mass stopped showing up at work (is that online?) each independently?

More realistically, he was hounded by a loud minority with most people shruging and waiting. Given that his situation with MIT is somewhat more complicated and he has a limited amount of resources for handling simultaneous emergencies..

[tptacek]

I think people who have come into professional contact with Stallman have had these problems for a very long time, and Stallman's extraordinarily ill-advised comments about Minsky and Epstein crystalized them.

[krapp]

>However, as a counterpoint, do you really want to live in a world where the leadership is not determined by how skilled you are at your craft, but how well you conform to a conventional morality?

We already live in that world. Within the boundaries of the law, any behavior which interferes with an organization's business, creates an intolerable work environment, or might invite a lawsuit or negative publicity can be grounds for dismissal regardless of a person's competence. Morality, politics and optics have always mattered, and matter more for leaders than others, because leaders are expected to embody an organization.

Stallman is an example of someone being given far more leeway than others when it comes to the effects of his his "unconventional morality."