[junke]

So:

    I’ll leave you with three more bits of evidence that things are more complex than the open letter would have you believe:

    1. A competing letter in support of RMS exists and has accumulated considerably more signatures than the letter condemning RMS.
    2. In response someone created a Chrome extension that marks repositories owned by a signatory of this support letter with red text on GitHub.
    3. The announcement of this extension was welcomed with 394 likes on Twitter.

Just tell us why is it bad again?

There is a public repository, with people signing publicly. The plugin does not reveal any hidden information, the only thing it does is make it easier to find out if someone publicly supports RMS. If you look at outliers you may find individuals who equate signing the letter with being a pedo, but I have yet to see a major Twitter account implying so. For me it just means I might not get along with the person since they do not think RMS being in the board is an issue for FSF.

Also, "the mob this", "the mob that", you can't just label people "mob" when you disagree with them.

> That's exactly what these totalitarian wokists aim for: to make people afraid to oppose them.

Look who is insulting people here and making assumptions.

Please, be strong and talk freely, I don't care.

[kstenerud]

The trouble is that one generation ago we as people of the free world abhorred the idea of punishing individuals for their beliefs. Now that has changed.

It's not the first time this happened, and it certainly won't be the last, but it's always ended badly in the past.

[junke]

religious beliefs != informed opinions

Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

[kstenerud]

> religious beliefs != informed opinions

Opinions are beliefs, and beliefs aren't by necessity religious.

> Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

Thank you for the example. This never used to be an issue. 15 years ago, one didn't care what a colleague believed, so long as they conducted business in a professional manner. Nowadays one feels a need to distance ones self at all costs lest one be tarred with the same brush and similarly punished (as we see happening all around us these days - and in fact specifically in your earlier Chrome extension example).

[torthrowaway998]

Stallman has informed opinions on these topics however. He is not some Q nutjob.

As for me, as long as they were being tolerant of others and did not withdraw from public dialogue then sure, I would not mind working with him.

>>That's exactly what these totalitarian wokists aim for: to make people afraid to oppose them.

>Look who is insulting people here and making assumptions.

Is there any other reason for the plugin? I personally know at least two people (not including myself) who did not sign it because they feared of being "cancelled".

[simion314]

>Your boss or project maintainer in an open source project starts spreading conspiracy theories on the internet (Q, Flat Earth, whatever), to the point he becomes a public embarassment. Do you want to continue working with him?

Say I created an open source library and you are a contributor, now you find out that I am a pro-life (or communist or watch dubious japanese adult content), you are free to stop contributing sure, but why should you try to steal my job and project because you don;t like my opinions? You probably will say that is bad PR for my library and my library is very important for the community so you should spread a lot of missinformation about me to force me out and free the library using mod tactics.

[_ktx2]

> For me it just means I might not get along with the person since they do not think RMS being in the board is an issue for FSF.

This is where you and I diverge. I have worked with a lot of people that I think have had bad opinions. People that were leftists and people that were conservative. While I kept in my mind that this person had bad opinions I was usually able to get a beer with them, it didn't mean we'd be fast friends though. Would I draw a line? Probably, notice I left out far-right; because I'm probably not getting a beer with a racist or someone who believes in ethnostates.

I will get a beer with someone who is a devout socialist or communist whose ideals will inevitably end in a lot of bloodshed when property is ultimately seized. I'll still get a beer with someone who has a nuanced opinion on pronouns. Just because I disagree with them does not guarantee me alienating them, because I might be the opinion they need to hear for their views to be swayed, or more practically their opinions in isolation can only become worse.

What bothers me is this idea of enforcing camped friend-groups or work circles. From everything I've learned about Russia, this is exactly what they want you to be believing. Their attacks on US democracy weren't just trying to embarrass the right by giving their extremists power and influence; they were far more foundational. They invested in promoting discourse on the far right and the far left that made discourse seem impossible to a nation that by its own distinction was very friendly to a wide range of views. They attacked the very foundation of American culture.