[tptacek]

The case against Stallman, from the sources I've read, seems to be that he has a reputation for harassing women, so much so that there was a longstanding joke about placing ferns in offices to ward him off (he apparently finds them powerfully aversive), and that his defense of Minsky dovetailed in a particularly unfortunate way with some very stupid things he's said in the past about pedophilia (for instance, that consensual pedophilia should be legal).

If you put it to Twitter or a message board whether he's a "decent human being", you're going to get answers like "he's among the very best human beings because free software" and "he's among the very worst human beings because pedophilia".

I think it's worth interrogating whether "is Stallman a decent human being" is a question worth asking. The operative question is "is Stallman the right person to be leading the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project".

[anatoly]

He doesn't have a reputation for harassing women, he has a reputation for weird off-putting behavior towards everyone, with many stories of being really bad at social etiquette towards men and women, not reading social cues, and getting away with behaving like a spoiled child. At the moment he was branded (falsely and maliciously) in the media with being an Epstein defender, a social media moral panic mob rose up against him, in which stories from women feeling uncomfortable with him predominated. It went into the general frenzy of "this asshole drove countless women away from the computer industry over the years" very, very quickly.

And yes, Stallman wrote twice in the past that he thought consensual pedophilia was not particularly harmful - about three lines worth among many thousands of entries in his inane "political blog" that approximately nobody reads or cares about (and on which of course nobody commented or cared about at the time they were made). These lines were lovingly collected and placed, with some other examples of his wrongthink, e.g. on the geek feminism wiki years ago. They did not play a significant role in creating the moral panic - the initial Medium article with the lie about him saying Epstein's victims were entirely willing didn't have them. The articles in the media with headlines like "Star MIT Scientist Calls Epstein Victim Virginia Giuffre "Entirely Willing"" mostly didn't include them, though a few did when the journalists went to dig for more fodder.

Thomas, I've never met you, but admired your writings over the years. Seeing you defend the mob against Stallman with well-worn platitudes like "He is welcome to his thoughts and opinions, and everyone else is entitled to their freedom not to associate with him as a result" is particularly saddening.

[tptacek]

You say that, but I hear differently, from people with firsthand experience. My suspicion is that you believe Stallman doesn't harass people because you want it to be true, not because you honestly believe it is true.

[einpoklum]

Please provide references regarding Stallman's supposed reputation for harassing women - I have not heard about this (though TBH I have not looked into it).