[Latty]

Any article that just dismisses the issues with Stallman as a smear and tells you not to listen to them without showing why they are wrong instantly seems to have little intent to engage on the facts.

This reads like an absurd conspiracy theory. Stallman had some good ideas about software, it doesn't mean he doesn't have bad ideas about other things (like consent), and if so we should continue to pursue the good ideas and throw out the bad.

No individual is FOSS software, and equating the two is foolish at best.

[koonsolo]

Show me the text where he has a bad idea about consent. And then show me how his statements are false.

I guess you refer to this text:

On MIT's internal Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) listerv, Stallman had seen the description of a protest of Marvin Minsky which said Minsky was "accused of assaulting" one of Epstein's victims. Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario" is that "she presented herself to him as entirely willing" -- even if she was coerced by Epstein into doing so -- whereas the phrase "assaulting" implies the use of force or violence, faciliating what he calls "accusation inflation... Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism."

So please explain to me how this statement is false.

[Latty]

My point was that this article makes no attempt to address those issues.

However, I do happen to believe there is an issue, as I outlined in a sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26646676).

Statutory rape law is a trade-off because proving sexual assault is hard and we value protecting children from abusers more than we value letting people sleep with children. If you disagree with that, yes, I believe you are not suitable to hold a leadership position at any organisation that needs to protect it's contributors, some of whom will be children.

[koonsolo]

First of all a "child" is defined as the age between birth and puberty, so you might want to update your own usage of that word.

Secondly, the bigger part of the world seems to agree nowadays that 16 seems to be a reasonable age of consent.

US is very conservative in this regards, depending on the state. So basically it's OK that a 50 year old has sex with a 16 year old in 1 state, but when you cross the state border, two 17 year olds having sex is illegal.

So you claim that a person pointing out these absurdities should not be allowed in a leadership position?

[Latty]

Sure, replace the word "child" with "minor" or whatever, I'm not a lawyer here, it's clear what I mean from context.

The point is that once the rules are set, you follow them because to do otherwise means either you are an abuser, or you are willing to do things that are indistinguishable from an abuser, giving them cover and breaking the rules that are designed to protect minors. Either way, you are endangering minors.

Stallman didn't just talk about the numbers being different in different places and the issues with that, he talked about a specific case where someone had done this in a place where it was illegal, and claimed that it could have been OK.

There is no room for that if you want a leadership position where you need to protect those people, it endangers them by refusing to always hold those who break the rules accountable.

[koonsolo]

As a leader you indeed need to protect people, and when someone is accused of "assault", I think it's OK to put things in perspective. He gave a clear objective description of the situation, and nobody can claim his observations were wrong. Remember that the accusation was "assault", and I agree with Stallman that this was too harsh given the circumstances.

I want my leaders to stand up for reality. If you prefer your leaders to be "think about the children", then that's up to you.

[Latty]

You can absolutely claim he was wrong, we are talking about a case where it was assault. A minor can't consent under the law. Claiming it was consensual is an excuse that the laws specifically says does not hold because it abusers will always say that, and the responsibility is on adults not to have sex with them. It doesn't matter if there was consent given or not, the person committed assault because the society chooses to have a rule where that is the crime when the other person is a minor. Either way, minors were harmed because it allows abusers opportunity.

Refusing to enforce that rule is absolutely wrong, and it is disqualifying for a leadership position. You are now using "Think of the children" as a thought terminating cliche in reverse, where any attempt to protect minors is unreasonable.

[jstanley]

> it doesn't mean he doesn't have bad ideas about other things (like consent)

But does he have bad ideas about things like consent?

[Latty]

Well, my point was that this article actively avoids answering that question.

From what I can see, yes, he does. He seems to take the position that children should be able consent to sex with adults, which fundamentally makes contributors less safe, and in my opinion is worthy of removing him from positions of leadership.

His comments (from https://web.archive.org/web/20210325013844/https://stallman.... ):

> Due to the vagueness of the term "sexual assault" together with the dishonest law that labels sex with adolescents as "rape" even if they are willing, we cannot tell from this article what sort of acts Maraj was found to have committed. So we can't begin to judge whether those acts were wrong.

> I see at least three possibilities. Perhaps those acts really constituted rape — it is a possibility. Or perhaps the two had sex willingly, but her parents freaked out and demanded prosecution. Or, intermediate between those two, perhaps he pressured her into having sex, or got her drunk.

It is fundamentally dangerous to offer abusers the opportunity to claim it was all willing, which is why the law makes it always rape. If you choose to break that law, that's on you and you deserve to be treated as an abuser.

This position of regarding the ability to sleep with under-aged people as more important than defending under-aged people from abusers is one incompatible with keeping a community safe, in my opinion.

[sildur]

He has since changed his view on the subject [1]:

> Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.

> Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

[1] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

[jaywalk]

> fundamentally makes contributors less safe

Please explain the actual link between contributing to free software and sex with minors.

[Latty]

I contributed to plenty of open source projects as a minor, interacting with maintainers and other people in the communities around them.

Grooming and abuse is a real problem. If Stallman thinks it can be justified to sleep with a child if consent is given, then he wouldn't act to defend a child in that situation if they were being preyed upon unless it was clear to him it was abuse.

That's not good enough. There should be no wiggle room because abusers can abuse that. That's why these laws exist, and that is the standard we should hold projects to, to allow children to safely contribute.

[jaywalk]

Why would Stallman, personally, be in a position where he's the only one who can defend a child in that situation? Your hypothetical doesn't make any sense.

[Latty]

The "only one"? It doesn't matter if other people might do the right thing, if he doesn't, he shouldn't hold the position.

If someone reads this, it makes them think they won't be taken seriously when they come forward if they are abused. That both makes them less likely to do so if they are abused, and less likely to even start engaging with the community.

If they do come forward, Stallman has indicated he may not take them seriously. Given that he's arguing about this with others in leadership positions, even more than that he might pressure others to do so as well.

Everyone in one of those positions should be taking such an allegation seriously, and if they don't, they shouldn't hold that position.

[sh1989]

I wrote a proper response to this, then deleted it.

Because seriously, you're asking why a clear demonstration of how someone doesn't understand/is ignorant of power dynamics isn't a sign that person shouldn't be anywhere near positions of power and influence?

And maybe the explaining that needs to be done is yourself.