“We urge those in a position to do so to … refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF”
If you need to argue, one could argue that the intent of the letter is to remove Stallman from powerful positions so he can no longer cause harm to the industry. Given the scenario, this looks more likely.
These things affect free software deeply, although the effects might emerge after years and in ways that will not be so obvious. But I believe that in the long term the effects of this event will be good: the letter has finally created a list of people who are averse to the Free Software Foundation (if you like the FSF but you simply want to remove Stallman you don’t sign such a letter).
Well, yes, some people did ask to remove their signature from the nasty letter:
Much less from the opposite letter:
I meant … has anything changed in the real world since the extensive previous discussion in this forum (i.e. is there any new information?) and has anyone changed position on this issue who is a participant in this forum?
The point is that on most contentious issues the people who choose to participate in online discussion have made up their minds and are never going to change their minds. So if, after “300” existing posts in this forum on this subject, nothing was achieved, I am wondering whether another “100” posts will achieve anything.
Had there been discussions in this forum already about that letter or the GNOME Foundation signing it?
Um, yes. Search would bring up: https://forums.puri.sm/t/stop-sponsoring-the-free-software-foundation/12757 (182 posts in 4 days) and https://forums.puri.sm/t/richard-m-stallman-resigns-upd-and-returns/7091 (427 posts) and https://forums.puri.sm/t/comment-on-the-open-letter-to-remove-rms-based-on-the-gnu-kind-communications-guidelines/13192
Thanks for the links. It is interesting how nobody noticed that the letter presents itself as a nasty letter against Stallman, but then asks to boycott a piece of the community and its software. Very tricky letter. Eeew.
By the way, since it is also about Stallman after all, I saw he did make a public appearance last month:
At 2:31:25 he complains that the kill switches of the Pinephone are too inaccessible…
You’re saying that you’ll want to pay back with the same currency. Are you sure you really want to do that instead of giving a better example?
I totally agree with the critics about the cancelling of Stallmann that is taking place.
But to reply with stopping communication and starting to cancel back? To which world will such a debate culture lead?
I really read a lot about the cancel Stallmann open letter and I’m still shocked about it. But there are two cultural developments working hand in hand:
They both make each other stronger each time we take part in one of these behaviours.
So let’s please keep talking to each other, making arguments, helping to understand the world, helping to understand each other.
Thank you for your message, which I agree with.
When I run software I want that it is free, but I also do not want that its developers try to shame me for running other free software that, for obscure (or wrong) reasons, they are trying to boycott. If they start doing that, I cannot really consider it “mine”, unless I fork it so that it stops judging me for the free software I run.
I am sure Stallman wouldn’t even care. If you look at GNU, they never develop software for functionalities for which a free software program already exist; even if it is not GNU, as long as it is free software all we have that functionality. So I am sure Stallman is fine with GNOME even despite the attacks.
But I am not Stallman. I do care about what the developers of the software I use have to say. I do not have the time to fork GNOME, but I will support whoever will do that with the intention of standing by GNU.
But that is exactly the opposite of what I made my argument for: my point of view is that you should keep contact to the GNOME project, support it and if there is an opportunity ask about their reasoning (understanding) and offer your point of view (debate) and your arguments.
The people with the GNOME project are probably not ‘bad’. They are humans, probably a lot of them sympathetic and likeable. All humans make mistakes (if this is one) and we should interact to learn of each other.
Do not fork, but send merge requests with your opinion to change our world and not start building your own version! If everybody starts their own fork of world, we’ll all be lonely.
I agree with “let’s please keep talking to each other, making arguments, helping to understand the world, helping to understand each other”. Forking is a way of talking, maybe not the first way you try, but it can be the right way, especially if done for good principles. I don’t think at all GNOME people are evil, I only think they are severely misguided. Forking is also a way to make your voice be heard (see the story of how EGCS got incorporated into GCC). I cannot feel any closeness with the GNOME Foundation after that letter, but I do feel still close to GNOME (as an object) and (parts of) the GNOME community. As I said, I will not be the one starting a fork.
Yes, I missed all these old discussions. I had commented about that two messages ago.
Bad behavior is on a spectrum. It’s very easy to have behavior that drives women out of the industry, even 100% legally. Should all behavior be criminalized? Obviously not. Mistakes happen. Should the standards be higher for more prominent community members? Obviously.
The only constant is change! Just wait.
Who would have thought the Las Palma volcano would erupt? I finally got flood insurance. The house may not withstand a 100 foot tsunami across the Atlantic from the Carnary Islands, but at least I’m insured!
This is a nice critique of that letter:
(By the way, this is the guy who administrates the hate letter repository: https://github.com/neilmcgovern – unless the guy shares the same name and the same face with the executive director of GNOME, GNOME did more than just signing that letter)
Stallman may do things that drive women out of the industry. But this is why I went overboard in referring to Stallman’s ‘victems’ as poor innocent helpless female victems. That’s what they’re not, or shouldn’t be. Do we want fragile women who are not equals and who seem to need special protections from the men, just to co-exist? Or should the community (any community) have empowered women who are valued for their coding skills as the men are, and not because they are women? Let the whole community acknowledge privately amongst themselves that Stallman is an asshole if that is the case. For Stallman, a degree of ostracism may be what he wants and/or needs, whether he likes it or not. I know that if the women in any particular group that I was a part of all tended to not like me or not want to associate with me, that I would feel terrible about it and want to make amends and regain their favor. But instead of letting that happen to Stallman, the men make it all political, do things to destroy the organization, and go overboard trying to assert their male instincts to protect the women as an excuse for other political problems in the organization that they are not dealing with. This is or should be a non-issue if the men who are pulling this crap would just grow up. For the women, all it takes would be one brave woman to make an appropriate comment publicly and at the right time and place, to put Stallman in his place if that is what is needed. Let the whole world laugh at him at once because of how the women treat him or because of what one woman said about him to purposefully humiliate him if that is what happens. Most of us wouldn’t be able to take much of that kind of treatment by virtually everyone. And if it never happens, then Stallman’s actions must not have been that bad to begin with.
The whole thing is a frameup, we shouldn’t even discuss about the content of that letter (there is no content). The whole thing is an artifact. Of course, it is possible, probable maybe, that Stallman did some wrongs in his interpersonal relationships during his life, but the letter is not about that, the letter’s purpose is only that of mobilitating an angry mob – as that critique explains – without expressing a real content. If you pay attention, the letter never shows facts, only insinuations and a sparse collection of sentences written by Stallman about the most disparate topics.
After reading the whole package you are brought to think that Stallman is a monster, but if I ask you “Okay, so what did Stallman do?”, you will not be able to answer. It is basically a manipulation experiment. That letter is one unique fallacy from the beginning to the end.
It is horrible that people who claim they defend free software have signed that stuff. It is interesting to read this old discussion on this forum, where a user tries to push Purism in front of a choice that must be decided immediately (something like, “Purism, sign that letter and sign it now, or you endorse the monster”), which is a classical blackmailer’s technique (“Don’t go to the police, don’t speak with anyone, speak only with me and do everything now”). I wonder what kind of cold, calculating and unempathetic mind was able to orchestrate the whole stuff.
I believe that GNOME and who signed that letter will pay in the long term (in part they are already paying, after all they are serving the punishment of having such leaders). But differently than them, I won’t ask for the resignation of anyone: the moment GNOME stops representing me I simply stop having anything to ask them. Style is important.
I was writing about a worst case possible scenario which has nothing to do with anything Stallman actually did. Even in that worst case scenario, the claims against Stallman do not warrant what is being done against him. The guy is probably completely innocent. And per my scenario, no one is acting as if he has done anything wrong as they would in that scenario. Once again, where are his victems? They don’t exist.
I am not sure I understood this sentence. You mean that even if the letter is 100% wrong nothing can guarantee that it is wrong on purpose, right?
If that is the meaning of what you wrote, I disagree. That kind of rhetoric is well known and can only be calculated. The effect that they wanted to obtain can only be intentional. Insinuating without proving, chosing what to say and what not, proving only unimportant things, and so on, that letter can be written the way it is only on purpose. You can stab a person by mistake (for example by falling on them while you carry a knife), but you cannot stab a person twelve times, decapitate them and end up burning the body by mistake.
I meant to say that even if the claims against Stallman were true, that the current smear campaign against Stallman would not be the right way to address those issues. That being the case, the claims against Stallman are probably not any more valid than the smear campaign itself.
There are more than enough credible sources by now.
If you’re dismissing those, then the burden of proof is on you. Where’s your evidence?