[rzwitserloot]

From the linked article:

> Our opponents wish to destroy Free Software

> Our opponent’s true target is not Richard Stallman; their real aim is to destroy the FSF by thoroughly infiltrating it (like they already have with organisations like the OSI and Linux Foundation). These people even started an online petition calling for RMS’s forceful removal and for the entire board of directors at the FSF to resign from their posts.

So, you're either forced to defend Richard Stallman and accept what's going on over there, or __YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF ALL OPEN SOURCE__.

What a load of trash.

[dang]

Your comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Would you mind reviewing them and sticking to the rules? This is exactly the kind of thing they ask you not to post here.

Everyone needs to follow the rules regardless of: (1) how right they are; (2) how right they feel they are; (3) how wrong someone is; (4) how wrong they feel someone is; and/or (5) how provocative something was.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[gopiandcode]

> So, you're either forced to defend Richard Stallman and accept what's going on over there, or __YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF ALL OPEN SOURCE__.

Firstly Free software != open source, so you probably meant free software in your original quote.

Secondly, while there may be people who have legitimate concerns about RMS, the authors of the open letter have chosen not to highlight these claims but rather to rely on mischaracterisations and easily debunked lies. By supporting the open letter you are supporting these lies and thereby supporting an attack on free software.

Maybe this is not the most productive characterisation of the situation, but the creators of the open letter were the ones that chose this framing by choosing to propagate such falsehoods. We must stand up against such disingenuous actions, and can view them as none other than some kind of motivated attack on Free software.

[iocert]

You are not forced to defend him, in fact Leah calls some of Stallman's statements "idiotic" herself.

But she is intellectually mature enough to see that most humans have had 5 stupid views over 30 years, and Stallman was just honest enough to write them down.

You don't need to defend the views (some of which have already been retracted), but you have to accept Stallman as flawed human being.

Stallman is currently still the only candidate who is uncompromising enough to drag the technological Overton Window in a good direction.

So I don't think the article is trash at all, it is a refreshing, honest, bold take on the current elephant in the room: Corporate influence on free software.

Such people inspire me to write free software.

[Nursie]

> You don't need to defend the views (some of which have already been retracted), but you have to accept Stallman as flawed human being.

This (the holding on to his views of 15 years ago, which he has since come to understand are wrong) is a major issue in the modern world IMHO.

That's not to defend Stallman's more recent gaffes, or even those older ones. But it raises a question - we know people can learn, grow and change. At what point does society start to accept that something said online in the past is no longer representative of the living person?

Because if it's "never", we appear to be gearing up for a future where politicians can only be people who have never set a single rhetorical foot wrong, and have been on-message since the day they came of age. And that scares me because such people are probably psychopaths or puritans.

[kodah]

> But it raises a question - we know people can learn, grow and change

I think we are starting to learn this. I believe this at my core because I've observed myself and others, but when I feel some type of way it's not always the first idea in my mind.

[ryandrake]

I hope I never become famous, because someone will surely trawl through my 25 year old USENET posts and probably find something to hang me with. Probably something that was benign and harmless back in the 90’s but now offensive.

I wonder what future discussion-archaeologists will find 25 years from now in our HN posts that by 2046 becomes offensive!

[caslon]

I mean, the OSI is filled with people who work for proprietary companies, and open source was made to make free software enterprise.

And the Linux Foundation has a bunch of people from companies that also promote largely proprietary technologies...

So...yeah. The FSF is the last beacon of morality here, in its own strange, beady-eyed way.

I'm not a huge fan of Stallman, myself (I have had many arguments with him), but the people opposing him are pretty awful people largely pushing proprietary software, actually.

[geofft]

> I mean, the OSI is filled with people who work for proprietary companies

So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.)

Also, if we're going to claim that working for a proprietary-software company means you're not a member of the free software movement, the movement is very small indeed.

> and open source was made to make free software enterprise.

That may be the case, but the FSF has a long history of saying that you can work on free software for profit, too. Frankly, that's why the FSF exists separate from the GNU project - to be a place that you can order physical media with GNU software from and expense it.

> but the people opposing him are pretty awful people largely pushing proprietary software, actually

This is untrue of the authors of the open letter - you should look at their stated positions on free and proprietary software. (It might be true of some of the signatories, of course.)

[caslon]

> So is GNU, though. For instance, https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html identifies the affiliations of most of the GCC steering committee, and they're generally proprietary companies. (Several work for Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM.)

Red Hat releases most things under free licenses and as far as I know everyone on the GCC steering committee from Red Hat was there pre-acquisition. That said, I don't love the GCC steering committee for many reasons (many of which admittedly were before most of their appointments). You are right, though, that much of the steering committee for GCC isn't pro-freedom as much as it is pro-convenience (and in the case of SiFive, is a very proprietary company).

...also, the GCC steering committee isn't representative of all of GNU.

> Also, if we're going to claim that working for a proprietary-software company means you're not a member of the free software movement, the movement is very small indeed.

This is true! I wouldn't say working for one excludes you (though it kind of does), but I would say working for one is incompatible with leading the free software movement or having moral ground to coup it.

> That may be the case, but the FSF has a long history of saying that you can work on free software for profit, too.

You can! It really is wonderful. Nothing I said conflicts, there.

> Frankly, that's why the FSF exists separate from the GNU project - to be a place that you can order physical media with GNU software from and expense it.

Half-truth, but close enough. Again, this doesn't conflict with anything I said.

> This is untrue of the authors of the open letter - you should look at their stated positions on free and proprietary software. (It might be true of some of the signatories, of course.)

That isn't actually true for all of the authors; one I can recall offhand, Garrett works for a company making proprietary software of the worst kind: the type that can kill people. And that's on top of a long history of opinions far more controversial than anything Stallman has been accused of, let alone done (the guy mocked a man who the UN has admitted was being tortured, for example).

[geofft]

Pre-acquisition Red Hat was awfully excited about supporting proprietary software whose intended purpose is to kill people: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article213676919....

My point here is that you can always pick a partitioning and then backsolve ethical principles that support that partitioning. "If you work for a company that sells proprietary software, you're ineligible to be a leading voice in the free software movement" has never been a principle - otherwise IBM and Google would never have had a seat. "If you work for a company that makes software that can kill people, your ethics don't line up with ours" hasn't been a principle either - RMS in fact has advocated for multiple militaries to use free software, see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... . (Garrett's employer, for what it's worth, makes software that kills people when it breaks, i.e., the better he does his job, the fewer people die. I don't think it's easy to claim that about a military!)

The only real established standard is that you advocate that free software is a matter of ethics/morality/liberty and not simply one of convenience, and as far as I can tell, all the coauthors do so.

[caslon]

Thanks for pointing this out, I had forgotten this! Yeah, Red Hat has been rotten for a long time. I don't like it; I think it's been a terrible company for many years; but I do think it's never released non-free software, which was the bit I am mostly concerned about on this particular topic.

I do agree that they have no real moral ground to stand on. Forgive me for pointing this out, but given they're one of the organizations that signed the letter... (Though they sort of have more casus belli to than most that signed the letter.)

Seriously, though, thank you for pointing this out! I really genuinely appreciate it (and also appreciate that you're civil here).

Ah, you stealth-edited; give me a second to read that one.

> otherwise IBM and Google would never have had a seat.

Google has never had a seat at anything other than OSI, and IBM only purchased one.

> "If you work for a company that makes software that can kill people, your ethics don't line up with ours" hasn't been a principle either -

Obviously didn't claim this. I pointed out Garrett worked for a proprietary software company that made proprietary software that kills people. Specifically, I noted that this was worse than normal proprietary software, because if you're going to have the lives of others in your hands, they should at least know the rulebook you're playing by.

> RMS in fact has advocated for multiple militaries to use free software

This is consistent with everything else I've said. I personally dislike militarized forces to the point of being skeptical of most veterans, but proprietary software doesn't make sense for a military any more than using American bombs would make sense for North Korea.

[geofft]

Yeah sorry about the stealth-edit, I realize the first sentence by itself sounded kind of like a gotcha and I wanted to make a more substantial point :)

I'm referencing the GCC steering committee - IBM (actual IBM, not just Red Hat, mostly because they support GCC on their mainframes) and Google (presumably for gold, gccgo, etc.) have been involved for many years. (I don't mean they have seats on the FSF board or anything, that may have been unclear. I just mean their employees have leadership positions in a flagship GNU project, and at least for those two employees, their involvement in GCC is even part of their day job.)

I see your point about proprietary software that has the risk of killing people when it goes wrong, but what I'm claiming is that this is a sensible first-principles argument that is being newly introduced. When Red Hat contracts for the US defense apparatus - their largest customer - they know full well they're supporting proprietary and classified code, whose intended purpose is killing people, running on RHEL. (And given that RHEL's business model is support, I would seriously doubt that they never see/access/work on the proprietary code - I would bet they have engineers with clearance to help out with that code.) I think you can make an equally-sensible first-principles argument that this, too, is incompatible with the principles of the free software movement.

But we haven't made that argument, and we've been fine with Red Hat for years, and we've been fine with IBM for years (who has customers that are so distasteful that they had to negotiate an exception for JSON's "This software shall be used for Good, not Evil" license :) ), etc. I'm actually super interested in having that discussion and seeing where it leads, because I think there hasn't been much discussion of free software ethics in the last many years. But I think we can't retroactively apply it to decide who really is able to be a voice for the free software movement and who isn't.

[DetroitThrow]

"though it kind of does"

It absolutely does not, and this has been understood throughout my entire time contributing to free software and participating in the movement. You can't just create purity tests for free software as a convenient way to demonize people when there's literally decades of core contributors and champions who'd then fall in this brand new exclusion zone.

[caslon]

It's hardly an arbitrary purity test; if you see proprietary software as immoral, and the free software movement as a moral movement, then people who release proprietary software aren't part of the free software movement. This has been the case since the ideological genesis of the movement.

You seem to be arguing in favor of the open source movement, which is a distinct one, with far different goals (rather than being a moral movement based around liberation, it's a movement based around profiteering free software).

[DetroitThrow]

"It's hardly an arbitrary purity test"

I never said it was, I said it was one which seems to have been created on the spot as a convenient way to demonize "others" given that the moral movement has never been morally bankrupt enough for the last few decades to exclude individuals based on their participation in proprietary projects.

And no, I'm very explicitly talking about the free software movement, not open source. There is nothing in my statements to suggest that I was talking about open source other than that I'm yet another that didn't meet your ahistorical and anti-freedom purity test.

[meribold]

That steering committee has condemned RMS as well now.

[lelanthran]

> So, you're either forced to defend Richard Stallman and accept what's going on over there, or __YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF ALL OPEN SOURCE__.

Where did they say that, or anything that implies that?

[DetroitThrow]

"Our opponents wish to destroy Free Software" in massive text without highlighting any of the legitimate, less presumptive grievances with Stallman's behavior seems to be a 1:1 drop in.

Or are you concerned about their usage of open source in place of free software? They quite plainly state principles which are also shared with the open source movement are what they're defending, even not accounting for their colloquial synonyminity.

[lelanthran]

> "Our opponents wish to destroy Free Software"

Does not in any way imply that people not defending RMS wish to destroy Free Software.

> So, you're either forced to defend Richard Stallman and accept what's going on over there, or __YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF ALL OPEN SOURCE__.

This quote does, and is mischaracterising the position of the linked article.

[DetroitThrow]

>Does not in any way imply that people not defending RMS wish to destroy Free Software.

From the statement it is understood that you are defending free software by defending Stallman, and those attacking Stallman are attacking free software.

At best this is hyperbolic, abrasive language that makes bystanders at least complacent as the destruction of free software happens by some "Orwellian" conspiracy. Their statement is perhaps even less hyperbolic than the original writer - which I question why'd you examine the commentator with such scrutiny given the hysteria in the article.

[ttt0]

It's not just RMS, they call for the removal of the entire FSF board.

[shadowgovt]

An understandable call, since that is the board which (with no explanation) has re-instated Stallman.

An organization's supporters interpret bad leadership as damage and route around it.

[crispyambulance]

They plainly state their irrational opinion that the resignation was the result of a smear campaign by anti-open-source entities and even list them.

That's just hysterical garbage. RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole and failing to curb his autistic tendencies. As a major thought leader, he ought to know better.

[alpaca128]

> RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole

So what? Steve Jobs was celebrated while he shat on people left and right and even denied his own daughter's claims that he's her father for years. Elon Musk publicly called someone else a pedophile and hired specialists(which turned out to be scammers) to dig up dirt against that person. Linus Torvalds is known for being rather unfriendly to a lot of people, yet I haven't seen an open letter against him after he said "Nvidia, fuck you" in front of the camera.

The world is full of assholes. If I have to choose I'll take the one who actually stood for something and gets his claims confirmed more every year rather than another corporate dude whose main skill is hiding that he's the same kind of asshole, just in a more backstabby kind of way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think RMS is a good choice in any leadership position. However I don't understand the magnitude of the current outrage and don't think it's fully rational. Furthermore, I think without his uncompromising attitude towards Free Software the FSF would not be what it is now.

[pas]

Linus faced the fallout of his communication style recently.

Musk is far from universally admired, many-many people think he is a piece of shit for how he handles his employees, how he overworked the Tesla factory staff to meet idiotic production quotas, how he throw a hissy fit when CA mandated closing non-essential workplaces (so Tesla factories) due to COVID, etc., etc.

RMS consistently pushed himself on vulnerable women on campus.

Are these comparable? Sure, on some level.

Is the FSF better off without him? Well, who knows, but many people seem to think that the answer is a clear yes.

[crispyambulance]

> ...don't understand the magnitude of the current outrage and don't think it's fully rational.

That's a perfectly reasonable position. However, it also implies that you would not conclude it's a plot against free software like that zany OP article does.

Torvalds never got in trouble for the NVIDIA outrage because that was just rage against a particular corporate entity. No one got hurt or personally offended by that. He DID get in trouble for being awful and abusive to contributors in the linux community-- that WAS personal and he paid a price for it after getting away with it for a long time.

RMS also has a LONG history of being a vile personality and it finally caught up with him. Again, he should have known better. His role was as a spokesperson, get GETS PAID for that as a living. There really is no excuse.

I don't know about Musk or Jobs. They had other roles besides being a spokesperson. Perhaps they got their comeuppance coming eventually (or posthumously).

[yesenadam]

> RMS did this to himself by being an abrasive asshole

This seems the actual main issue that got the anti-RMS petition going. (Even the article most in favour of him that I saw, called him by far the most disagreeable person they'd ever met!)

I don't seem to remember this was mentioned in the anti-RMS petition though. Rather, it consisted of a string of claims, which, when you looked into them, were untrue. Flinging mud instead of dealing with the actual problem. That seems unfortunate. As if because they liked the end, the means didn't matter–as if behaving ethically doesn't matter. Well, maybe the people who signed didn't look into those claims, just believed them in good faith. That faith seems unwarranted.

[d_tr]

I do not see the phrase "abrassive asshole" or something similar in the open letter though. I see "misogynist", "transphobe", "ableist". He is clearly not any of these things, so the open letter is indeed a hastily put together piece of garbage. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[iocert]

This isn't true. Many signatories of the anti-Stallman letter are known, smooth careerists who have been climbing the OSS corporate ladder for the last decade.

The don't care about the actual issues at all, otherwise they'd sign anti-Clinton and anti-Gates letters.

Which they won't, because their careers would suffer.

[Scarblac]

> "Our opponents wish to destroy Free Software"

Surely if you're OK with that, that heavily implies you are an enemy of open source? I think it's quite a reasonable rephrasing.

[vitno]

Free Software is not open source and the article points that out as well.

I'm not convinced they want to destroy Free Software either however.

[rbanffy]

> These people even started an online petition calling for RMS’s forceful removal and for the entire board of directors at the FSF to resign from their posts

By reinstating Stallman the board created this controversy and deliberately sabotaged the FSF's mission of defending Free Software. It's ludicrous to imagine they didn't know what the consequences would be.

[DetroitThrow]

Yeah, just now reading the individuals in the petition list, so many are contributors of GPL projects.

If the goal was to defend or strengthen the free software movement, then turning every conversation about the subject into a purity test on the founder's actions instead of on, well, free software seems to run counter to that goal.

And given the return announcement happened at the end of Libre planet without any of their organizers being aware beforehand, which FSF clarified as such afterwards, it telegraphs their awareness that it would be a controversy.

[tomcooks]

If you think Stallman stands for open source you don't understand free software, open source, nor Stallman.

[RichardCA]

I prefer to think of it as the political style you find in European countries with the parliamentary system. You have to form coalitions. The "pure" FSF position is like an ideological pole that some people are closer to than others. When this system functions properly, there is more room for nuance and shades of grey.

Of course the danger is that we end up like Israel. They keep re-electing the same guy who is incapable of forming anything, but no one knows who the successor would be or even how such a person would operate in the current climate.

[BTCOG]

All that Stallman stands for is freedom and open source software. Take that nonsense disinformation of yours elsewhere.

[blaser-waffle]

Please, elaborate. What do all of those actually mean?

[ikerdanzel]

I know a lot of people that defend RMS and fully agreed with OP. I know a lot of people who don't care that much. As for your final conclusion that "if not you're enemy" I don't fully agreed with. You can be indifferent too. Not a single person that dislike RMS I know of can prove that he committed a crime. The dislikes are purely based on opinionated statements which is part and parcel of free speech. Showed me he committed something bad rather than "oh my feeling hurt because he said something not nice so he must be purged". I classified these kind of outraged people as snowflakes. Yeah, what a load of trash flakes.

[pankajdoharey]

People are multi faceted and the world is gray. One cannot undermine ones contributions to computer science for the sake of PC culture or aggreing to the popular opinion. People voted for trump should we hate those people or just disagree with their views? Popular opinion isnt the arbitor of truth!

[flyinglizard]

The way the ideology behind free software is intertwined and inspired by free speech, one feeds from the other.

[throwaways885]

Yup! You cannot have the FSF without free speech. Creating petitions to excommunicate RMS & other supporters just does not jive with the organisation's founding principles. I'm not going to defend Stallman's comments - they are extremely dubious at best - but I do not agree with trying to bully him out of the movement he helped build.

If he really is problematic, you can just 'fork' off and create your own FSF equivalent.

[EdwardDiego]

Free speech never implied freedom from consequences though - this isn't the government suppressing RMS, it's people reacting to his free speech and deciding that they don't like it.

That's how it works.

[lelanthran]

> Free speech never implied freedom from consequences though - this isn't the government suppressing RMS, it's people reacting to his free speech and deciding that they don't like it.

Good point - looking at the petitions, it's become obvious that the people deciding they don't like RMS's speeach are in the minority.

Is it worth firing an entire board because a minority feels insecure?

On your mind, is tyranny by the minority better than tyranny by the majority?

[EdwardDiego]

...just because it's a minority doesn't mean it's inherently wrong. At the risk of the ghost of Godwin's, black people were a minority in the 1960s, yet still had a good point about their aims.

And as for whether or not the board chooses to listen to the feedback, entirely up to them and their governance structure.

[lelanthran]

> ...just because it's a minority doesn't mean it's inherently wrong. At the risk of the ghost of Godwin's, black people were a minority in the 1960s, yet still had a good point about their aims.

Another good point: if the cancel-culture we are currently suffering under now was practiced in the 60s, black people, women, minorities, etc would never had gotten equal rights.

It's because everyone was allowed to speak that the message came across and won minds. The fact that people are asking for the silencing of their opponents is a good indicator that their arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.

Like it or not, RMS does scrutinise the status quo. Petitioning for exemption from critics makes it hard to support those people doing the petitioning.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> ...just because it's a minority doesn't mean it's inherently wrong.

In this case, at least one of the main points is inherently wrong, because it's based on a lie repeated in some media outlets that Stallman was defending Epstein. But when you actually read his email, you realize it was the opposite.

[themaninthedark]

We are not talking about racial minorities fighting of equal rights, we are talking about a small group of people inside(and outside) of an organization that is attempting a coup.

How small of a minority should be allowed to dictate that?

[rwj]

This argument is full of equivocation. The consequences of speech are exactly what is being debated. An exchange of ideas, then yes. Censorship by the mob (instead of government), then no.

[ttt0]

The people have spoken and decided that they support him.

[capuno]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtXAxk9nDcQ

[jaywalk]

"Censorship is just fine as long as it's not the government doing it!"

[throwaways885]

No, freedom of speech really does imply some protections, such as not getting instantly fired or jailed for your opinions.

As another commenter pointed out, the fact we are having a debate on the subject is the correct way to resolve this situation and decide if RMS should continue to represent the FSF. The larger issue is a tiny minority have decided it is unacceptable to have this conversation and he must go ASAP.

[krapp]

> the fact we are having a debate on the subject is the correct way to resolve this situation and decide if RMS should continue to represent the FSF.

Was there a debate over whether Stallman should have been brought back onto the board of directors? No. Nor was there a vote. It just happened. But I guess democracy doesn't matter when it's the divine right of kings?

[Latty]

If people can't contribute because they are being preyed upon and abused in the community, and the leadership sees no issue with that, they can't contribute and so they are excluded.

If he isn't willing to defend those people, it isn't about his free speech, it is about his inability to do the job and willingness to let others be silenced.