I think there’s a few important things to understand:<p>1. There probably wouldn’t be free or open software if not for Stallman. We could argue it was inevitable, but frankly, Linux (the OS) wouldn’t have been built when it was without his efforts. At the time of gcc development, even compilers were big money.<p>2. Stallman is definitely on the autism spectrum. Nothing wrong with that, but one of the primary indicators are social issue. It’s not at all surprising he’s rigid, pedantic, etc. having met and organized event(s) with Stallman, he’s definitely a character, but I’ve never really seen him be outright mean. Simply put, he can be off putting, not politically correct and argumentative, but that’s kinda his baggage.<p>3. Free and Open source are definitely not the same thing. As we have seen from Amazon jacking peoples work and not giving back. Exactly what Stallman argued would happen has burned a large part of the open source community. Not saying there’s not a lot of good, but the concern was definitely warranted
> Stallman is not exactly what I would call a shining example of the human race, and unsuitable for any sort of leadership position in particular<p>But here's the thing: He DID become a leader, mostly because of his confrontational nature and strength of conviction (which is how most leaders for change do things - they step on lots of toes). He DID lead these organisations (rocky or not - doesn't matter) and they DID become a strong force in the software world. To call him unsuitable for a leadership position is just ignoring history and his ability to attract followers.<p>You may not like him as a person. You may be creeped out by him. You may dislike a lot of what he says and does (and really, who doesn't?). But removal without due process flies in the face of everything that makes us civilised. The normal process is to issue warnings/rules with consequences, and then implement those consequences when they're ignored. This is how we do things fairly - a shot across the bow first. The alternative is mob rule and capricious, changing ex-post-facto justice, which has time and time again been demonstrated to never end well.
> Luckily, the backlash against this has been significant, including an An open letter to remove Richard M. Stallman from all leadership positions.<p>"Arrest this man, he talks in maths"<p>If you think someone needs to be cancelled because you think they're 'creepy and obnoxious': grow the fuck up.
Few of us are great, and few of us are the devil. RMS has contributed greatness to the world, even if, like me, you're not a huge fan of him personally. I appreciate all he has contributed and can also recognize he isn't perfect.<p>All of the crybaby trolls have done zilch compared to RMS.
maybe people we find obnoxious should be able to have a life and job and opinions we don't like<p>maybe being OK with that is part of being a mature adult
I find amusing that the circles that are verbally more open to neuro-diversity are also the ones that stigmatize Stallman more, considering him, "poor choice for a leadership".<p>Yes, strange people say socially uncomfortable stuff and behave weirdly. Often they say stuff that is not socially acceptable. We can manage this, I hope. Especially considering his real contribution to changing computing as we know it.
>My new idea is that the install fest could allow the devil to hang around, off in a corner of the hall, or the next room. (Actually, a human being wearing sign saying “The Devil,” and maybe a toy mask or horns.) The devil would offer to install nonfree drivers in the user’s machine to make more parts of the computer function, explaining to the user that the cost of this is using a nonfree (unjust) program.<p>I'll disagree that this is "cringe" (which is a word that I hate, unrelatedly), it's actually pretty funny and probably a good way to communicate their message while still conceding the compromise, in my opinion. But that's mostly a small disagreement and obviously not the main point of the article
>“you should not be using hacker but cracker”<p>Totally agree with RMS (and this word is not RMS' invention: <a href="http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/crackers.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/crackers.html</a> ) Also I agree with "global heating" instead of "global warming" and almost all of his neologisms.<p>>Stallman’s views in general on computing are stuck somewhere about 1990.<p>You might think that compiler theory has advanced at least a little bit since the publication of the book of Dragon - but my opinion is that it is not.<p>> The “GNU Operating System” (which does not exist, has never existed, and most likely will never exist[1])<p>How about emacs?
Still argues for removing RMS, using a creative 'baity' title.<p>Part of the general effort to get RMS removed, flagged for being part of a seemingly concerted PR campaign, nothing new here.
i was so shocked when i found the open letter project trending on top of the github chart.<p>i have a feeling that stallman promotes other stuff that many people don't really like, and they managed to cherry pick one thing about marvin minsky and focus all the fire on that. rms is some sort of bernie sanders with a technological brain. like aaron schwartz, he's pragmatic, and that is dangerous.<p>frankly, i just won't trust anything trending now as aaron schwartz's name was taken from the list of founders of reddit recently and reddit has gone... well there are threads and forums about that too.