tl;dr: https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns
In the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, controvery arose about dealings between him and the (also now-late) MIT AI scientist Marvin Minsky, and about MIT administration actions related to Epstein.
Richard M. Stallman is intimately associated with not just the Free Software Foundation (that he created) but with MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) operation. Fairly recently, there was a discussion on one of CSAIL's unadvertised and privately archived mailing lists, csail-related, where Stallman posted comments.[1] Those comments (mostly about matters peripheral to the late Dr. Minsky) became known to MIT alumna, grad student, and mechanical engineer Selam Jie Gano, who is said to have been sent them by a subscriber. Ms. Gano was very incensed by Stallman's views that she asserted were, among other things, 'defending Epstein'. She publishes an essay on Medium entitled 'Remove Richard Stallman. And everyone else horrible in tech': https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
She also provided what is asserted to be the entire thread to Vice.com's regular 'Motherboard' feature, which published a rather inaccurate piece based largely on her allegations, though providing a curated copy of the mailing list thread with all participant names except Stallman's blacked out.
Article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-s...
Direct link to Vice.com/Motherboard's curated thread copy: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-09132019142056-0001.html?emb...
Quite a number of other outfits have picked up the story in various ways. Stallman responded by objecting (with perfect justification, as far as I can see) that in no way was he defending Epstein; that this is just not at all what he said.
The persons now running Software Freedom Conservancy took advantage of this squalor by 'calling for' Richard to retire from the free software organisation & movement he created (unsigned because they have _that_ little moral backbone). https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us/
There was also pressure for Richard to resign from his position at CSAIL (where ISTR he's been Visiting Professor). He has now done so, citing 'pressure on MIT' -- along with resigning as President and Board of Directors member at Free Software Foundation.
IMO, this affair (e.g., things like the unsigned editorial from the jackals at Software Freedom Conservancy) has opportunism written all over it.
One of the less-sucky bits of news/analysis (apparently just before things came to a head) was here: https://fudzilla.com/news/49393-stallman-defends-himself-over-epstein-commen...
https://lwn.net/ have not yet caught up with events, and can be expected as usual to be guarded to a fault when they do.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/ has some discussion, but likewise has not caught up with events.
[1] None of what I'm writing here imply endorsement of Richard's assertions in the mailing list thread, by the way. In fact, I very much do not concur with some, and would have, among other things, politely corrected his factually incorrect understanding of the legal concept of 'assault'.
The persons now running Software Freedom Conservancy took advantage of this squalor by 'calling for' Richard to retire from the free software organisation & movement he created (unsigned because they have _that_ little moral backbone). https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us/
IMO, this affair (e.g., things like the unsigned editorial from the jackals at Software Freedom Conservancy) has opportunism written all over it.
What's the basis for your interpretation/speculation of this being used opportunistically, specifically by the Software Freedom Conservancy?
Claude
Quoting Claude Jager-Rubinson (cjr@grundrisse.org):
What's the basis for your interpretation/speculation of this being used opportunistically, specifically by the Software Freedom Conservancy?
(On an unsigned editorial, really?)
Observation of deteriorating behaviour from that and some other non-profits allegedly serving open source / free software (very notably SFLC and Linux Foundation, both rather worse IMO).
If you expected me to work to convince you, you are likely to be disappointed.
On Tue, Sep 17, 2019, at 1:38 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Claude Jager-Rubinson (cjr@grundrisse.org):
What's the basis for your interpretation/speculation of this being used opportunistically, specifically by the Software Freedom Conservancy?
(On an unsigned editorial, really?)
Lack of signatures means that it speaks for the board of directors and executives of the Conservancy. Just like a newspaper editorial. They aren't signed either but speak for the entire editorial board.
Observation of deteriorating behaviour from that and some other non-profits allegedly serving open source / free software (very notably SFLC and Linux Foundation, both rather worse IMO).
If you expected me to work to convince you, you are likely to be disappointed.
Fully agree about SFLC and LF. I'm just wondering if I missed something about the Conservancy? (Aside from that trademark dispute with the SFLC a few years ago, although I still don't really understand what was going on there).
Quoting Claude Jager-Rubinson (cjr@grundrisse.org):
Lack of signatures means that it speaks for the board of directors and executives of the Conservancy. Just like a newspaper editorial. They aren't signed either but speak for the entire editorial board.
Where I come from, you would not publish a piece _specifically_ calling for the removal of the founder of your effort without putting your name explicitly at the bottom. It lacks character. I am thus disappointed in this conduct, but would rather not pursue this matter further, as obviously the entire subject is a volatile matter.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 5:22 PM, Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com wrote:
Where I come from, you would not publish a piecespecifically calling for the removal of the founder of your effort without putting your name explicitly at the bottom. It lacks character. I am thus disappointed in this conduct, but would rather not pursue this matter further, as obviously the entire subject is a volatile matter.
Some of us are concerned about being run out of the F/OSS community for speaking up.
Some of us got pitched out of the FSF for speaking up.
The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] PGP (new!): 4d7d 5c94 fa44 a235 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
Quoting The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] (drwho@virtadpt.net):
Some of us are concerned about being run out of the F/OSS community for speaking up.
Some of us got pitched out of the FSF for speaking up.
If you feel comfortable saying more, feel invited to do so, I guess. For starters, in what specific sense were you 'in the FSF'? At what time, in what capacity, and under what actual name?
And, sorry to bring up an awkward point on the latter matter, but it would be _enormously unfortunate_ if you were to start trash-talking people with real names from behind cover of a blazingly fake one, given that you aren't actually a fictional Gallifreyan. So, trash-talk under your real name, sure, but otherwise, that's pretty skeevy and difficult to distinguish from the worst sort of Internet malicious mischief.
(I was approached at one point obliquely to see if I were willing to be FSF's volunteer sysadmin, and my reply was some polite variant on 'No, not a masochist.')
On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 01:15:44AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
tl;dr: https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns
In the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, controvery arose about dealings between him and the (also now-late) MIT AI scientist Marvin Minsky, and about MIT administration actions related to Epstein.
I'm delighted that they finally found the thing they needed in order to remove him. He's been publicly defending the rape of children for well over a decade, and on those grounds alone, he needed to go.
Best, David.
David --
His reported past views about the age of the consent were IMO problematic, and I do not concur with them. It is also my understanding that you just profoundly misrepresented those views.
But that is absolutely not my headache and not any discussion I care to have, I am not volunteering for any 'defender of Stallman' patsy role, and I'd recommend anyone wishing to look further consult primary sources rather than take the word of Internet armchair editorials. (Upthread, I took care to hunt down and provide direct links to primary information.)
On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 05:35:59PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
David --
His reported past views about the age of the consent were IMO problematic, and I do not concur with them. It is also my understanding that you just profoundly misrepresented those views.
No, I did not. Children cannot consent to sex. Sex without consent is rape by definition.
But that is absolutely not my headache and not any discussion I care to have, I am not volunteering for any 'defender of Stallman' patsy role, and I'd recommend anyone wishing to look further consult primary sources rather than take the word of Internet armchair editorials. (Upthread, I took care to hunt down and provide direct links to primary information.)
Whether he was fired on a pretext is not important to me. What's important to me is that he had pulled shit that should have gotten him fired decades back, and I'm delighted that, at long last, he's out. His enablers, of which I am not accusing you of being one, have yet to be held to account, but they need to be.
Best, David.
Quoting David Fetter (david@fetter.org):
No, I did not. Children cannot consent to sex. Sex without consent is rape by definition.
The former is of course true, but nonetheless, as I said, you substantially misrepresented what the man said, and your non-sequitur objection doesn't change that. People sufficiently interested can consult primary sources, which I provided in my original post as part of great care to stick to fair commentary and good information.
His views aren't mine, so I'm not going to detail the places where you got things haplessly wrong in restating his csail-related postings, because the natural result would be that a lot of -other- people would then become a 'Rick Moen said [foo]' ragemob, and I'm just not nearly that stupid.
Whether he was fired on a pretext is not important to me. What's important to me is that he had pulled shit that should have gotten him fired decades back, and I'm delighted that, at long last, he's out.
Without objection, I note that you changed the subject. And I'm _still_ not interested in arguing with you.
@Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com Thanks for posting the original thread. I just noticed that in your first message and it's one of the few links I've seen that at least shows a snippet of the original conversation and sets the context of the conversation that was regurgitated 20 times over by every editorial.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled rants. As you were.
On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 12:12 PM Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com wrote:
Quoting David Fetter (david@fetter.org):
No, I did not. Children cannot consent to sex. Sex without consent is rape by definition.
The former is of course true, but nonetheless, as I said, you substantially misrepresented what the man said, and your non-sequitur objection doesn't change that. People sufficiently interested can consult primary sources, which I provided in my original post as part of great care to stick to fair commentary and good information.
His views aren't mine, so I'm not going to detail the places where you got things haplessly wrong in restating his csail-related postings, because the natural result would be that a lot of -other- people would then become a 'Rick Moen said [foo]' ragemob, and I'm just not nearly that stupid.
Whether he was fired on a pretext is not important to me. What's important to me is that he had pulled shit that should have gotten him fired decades back, and I'm delighted that, at long last, he's out.
Without objection, I note that you changed the subject. And I'm _still_ not interested in arguing with you.
BALUG-Talk mailing list BALUG-Talk@lists.balug.org https://lists.balug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/balug-talk
Quoting Samir Faci (Dev) (dev@esamir.com):
@Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com Thanks for posting the original thread.
You're very welcome.
Since I posted that thread-opener, Vice.com/Motherboard have replaced the contents at their curated archive of csail-related conversations. The URL I gave still works, but now offers you a choice of PDF or plaintext, and in consequence IMO is now much more legible.