October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
  • alyaza [they/she]M
    25•1 month ago

    he’s not particularly relevant at this point, but even this one note (and its retraction) feel like they should put to bed whether or not Richard Stallman should have any influence over anything:

    Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.

    I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

    [Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects. These conversations eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and adults should not do it.]

    like, bro, what are you doing. beyond being abhorrent, this is the sort of nonsense Reddit used to be infamous for and it made the website fucking rancid. why would anyone want to share a political movement with Stallman when he has to be debated out of positions like “you should not have sexual relations with people under the age of 13.”

    • The Nexus of Privacy
      11•1 month ago

      Yeah it’s a very thorough report and makes it very clear just how little excuse there is for FSF and Stallman’s other defenders to continue to enable and support his behavior. Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

      • alyaza [they/she]M
        9•1 month ago

        Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

        hilariously you can see some of the reflexive defense of him over in the FOSS thread of this article. way too many people feel obliged to run defense for this guy and it’s just cringeworthy to watch

  • Lvxferre
    25•1 month ago

    There are a few things that Stallman really does not get.

    1. Power over an individual reduces their ability to consent, and adults have considerable power over teens.
    2. The discussion about having those teens accessing pornography should be handled separately. It’s simply not the same matter.
    3. Pornography and nudity are not the same thing.
    4. No matter how bad witch hunters are, this should not be used as a defence for the alleged target of their witch hunts.
    5. “Normal” or “natural” are not the same as “should be taken as morally, ethically, or legally acceptable”.

    Once you take those things into account, you notice that most of the things that Stallman talks about the topic aren’t just immoral, they’re outright idiotic.

      • Lvxferre
        5•1 month ago

        Agreed.

        And that’s extremely shitty because it stains all his views over freedom of speech and libre software, even the sensible ones.

          • Lvxferre
            6•1 month ago

            what can we do?

            The link itself offers a good first step: Stallman himself should be encouraged to step down, and if he doesn’t the FSF should remove him from its board.

            Furthermore we should be backing up both things and, in their failure, backing up a competing entity.

            This should be done in a subtle way, though - without causing unnecessary drama. I know, easier said than done.

            A silver lining on everything here is that his saner views are likely to be backed up by other people in the libre software movement.