[rtperson]

I think you're missing an important distinction here: Stallman has not, in fact, died. The writer of the article is talking about a living person. That fundamentally changes what you're allowed, in polite society, to say about him.

[redthrowaway]

Bingo. Stallman, and many of his supporters, are just missing the nuance. You simply don't say, "I'm glad he's gone" a day and a half after someone dies. Even if you are, and even if you don't mean you're glad he's dead. It's one of those unspoken rules of human interaction that Stallman just doesn't seem to get.

[dorian-graph]

I'm not particularly interested in Stallman and most of his ideas and comments. I like open source but I don't think they've completely figured out the philosophy yet and of what roles it has—this is another story, but, ..

How do people on HN generally feel with the idea that we allow ourselves to be offended/annoyed OR we should act rather than react. There will forever be people who say things like this that some group of people do not like but is it not their choice to either have a knee-jerk reaction or to craft an intelligent reply or ignore the person?

Basically, I don't like to allow myself to become annoyed or offended even though I've been in more than enough situations, even recently, to allow that.

[redthrowaway]

My concern is not with being offended (I wasn't), but with the fact that's it's just a very stupid thing for a public spokesperson to do.

[bryanlarsen]

Which is why Stallman explicitly said "I'm not glad he's dead".

[stock_toaster]

People may be reacting to it regardless, possibly even subconsciously, because it was placed (and sounded) like a 'hedge' phrase.

[MostAwesomeDude]

So, uh, in recent years, Ken Lay, Strom Thurmond, Jack Valenti, Saddam Hussein, and Ronald Reagan all died. Quite a few people were extremely unkind to them immediately after their death, and with far harsher words than "I'm glad he's gone." People do simply say these things.

Fidel Castro is widely believed to be in declining health, just like Steve Jobs a few months ago. People have been saying that they'll be glad when he's gone for a while; do you think that they'll suddenly go quiet when he passes away?

[ars]

Just because they do doesn't mean you should.

When redthrowaway said: "You simply don't say" he was describing how people should behave, not how they actually behave.

[redthrowaway]

I actually wasn't talking about the moral dimension at all, I was talking about unspoken rules of human interaction and how they affect one's suitability as a public spokesperson.

For what it's worth, I agree with you that it's just not something you should do.

[redthrowaway]

With the exception of Reagan, none of those people were well-liked. In the case of of Reagan, he was about equally loved and reviled. With Jobs, even most of those who didn't like him had a grudging respect for him, and acknowledged the contributions he'd made.

You can get away with saying you're glad someone's gone if there are enough people out there who feel the same way. You can't if there aren't. You can't boil it down to a logically consistent principle or moral value; it's just one of the vagaries of human interaction. You can debate the merits of such an unspoken law, but you can't deny its existence.

Stallman broke that law, and that's why his comments were viewed as distasteful, whereas you could say anything you wanted about Bin Laden after he died.

[hugh3]

It's okay to express gladness about the death of the truly evil (Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden).

It's not okay to express gladness about the death of people with whom you merely disagree, or who might have done things of which you disapprove (Strom Thurmond, Jack Valenti, Ken Lay, Steve Jobs).

The dividing line is something along the lines of "Did this dude actually murder people?" (And no, I'm not interested in discussing any particular borderline cases.)

[skeptical]

And who get's to decide what who the 'truly evil' are? In my opinion, putting Fidel Castro in the same set as Bin Laden or Sadam Hussein is unfair, yet for you he is evil just like those other two. I could present a sh*tload of evidence that things are way more complicated than that. But it's not up to me to decide for everyone else.

Now, I think RMS could be more reasonable, it's not a nice to drop such negative and strong sentences about someone that just passed away. But my opinion remains the same concerning sadam hussein, we cannot just decide he is evil and then everything goes.

Saying that you're not interested in discussing particular borderlines cases, in your case means you're not interested in discussing any case at all, since every case has its particular borderline. Your opinion becomes of little or zero value if you're not willing to discuss it. Just saying.

[MostAwesomeDude]

I find it extremely telling that you added Osama bin Laden to the list. I did not mention him.