Excellent. This entire incident has been re-enforcing of how willing the media is to lie and how little people care when the lies support a narrative they believe in.<p>Here is what reporter Edward Ongweso Jr. wrote for Vice [1]:<p>> Early in the thread, Stallman insists that the “most plausible scenario” is that Epstein’s underage victims were “entirely willing” while being trafficked.<p>Here is what Stallman actually wrote:<p>> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.<p>There is literally no way to read the previous sentence as Stallman arguing that Epstein's victims were entirely willing.<p>People like Edward Ongweso should be the ones losing their jobs, not Richard Stallman.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-protest-over-mit-media-labs-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein" rel="nofollow">https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-re...</a>
I don't want to get into the weeds discussing the ins and outs of the various things that have happened with RMS and the FSF. I have my own opinions on whether or not these moves were warranted. Separate from that I guess my largest worry is that this is another step on the road to a complete neutering of the Free Software movement, and the increasing corporate enclosure of the software commons.<p>The one thing I feel like everyone would have to agree on with RMS is that he was strident in his belief in the Free Software movement and refused to compromise in ways that initially seemed intransigent, and were later revealed to be prescient. I worry that both Gnu and the FSF will move more and more toward being co-opted by the corporate "open source" movement as people less obstinate that RMS take charge and let themselves and the "overton window" of Free Software be dragged further into the realm of captive corporatism.<p>Of course the counter to this is that retaining RMS as the leader alienates enough people to weaken the movement equally, and that may be true, I don't have a crystal ball. What I do know is that he published The Right to Read in 1997 and a year later we had the DMCA and things have only accelerated from there.<p>I guess we'll see where the road takes us, but as someone who remembers the excitement and energy that surrounded the web, linux, firefox etc etc, it feels like nowadays open source reigns supreme and it's all just a bunch of free work for corporations to scoop up, stick a web interface on (or containerize), and give back none of the same freedoms they make use of. I just hope we don't look back on this moment (from our locked down walled garden devices) as when the real decline of a <i>true</i> free software commons started.
For context, I think it's an answer to this open letter from GNU developers: <a href="https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/" rel="nofollow">https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...</a>
This might be a noob question but can someone explain me how mailing lists are used in software projects. I keep seeing these archived emails that are posted. Could someone fill me in?
This whole issue, it hurts. Why do we need lynch mobs to bring justice? That is precisely what we need courts of law for. Yet those are overburdened because lawyers and judges are expensive because law is complex.<p>It just makes me so sad. I'd like to learn the truth about this whole issue, and see justice served, but without an official and thorough situation it all remains hearsay and such.
Glad to see this. I don't want GNU to be rebranded into a mediocre open source project from radical free software symbols, and only someone who bites his fingers after scratching toes like Tux has the least possibility to appease corporations with those sugar-coated pills named "open source".