An anonymous reader writes: Debian Project Secretary Kurt Roeckx has announced the results of a closely-watched vote on what statement would be made about Richard Stallman's readmission to the Free Software Foundation's board. Seven options were considered, with the Debian project's 420 voting d...
I feel like weāre talking past each other here: I do agree! That is, indeed, part of my very point. Heās been criticized many times, but hardly ever changed (we come back to that later).
I never intended to insult you, by the way, if that came of as such. I very much enjoy the discussion.
However, how would you word a letter like that, when you know, from decades of experience, that the person will likely not change their behavior the same way they didnāt for years? Without implying that the person either a) lacks capacity to reason or b) is outright malicious? You ask for solid evidence, but ā¦
The problem here is that many of the things are done, due to the nature of the org, in private. To add a personal story of my hackerspace at university: RMS was in the city and we allowed him to stay for a day in our room at university. Little did we expect him to not move out at all. The only way to get him out again was to pay for a ticket to the next conference. Sure, one can add this to the huge list, but unfortunately I hardly can provide āproofā. Nobody collects such things.
But, proof is not needed as we donāt want to judge him in front of a jury. The FSF in almost all accounts does already know what the people are talking about. This letter is not addressed to the public to hold condemnation and grudge against RMS, but addressed to those who know of the incidents. Usually this would be an āinternal investigationā, however the FSF doesnāt do such thing.
Proof definitely would be nice, absolutely. But asking for proof of things that happened internally is asking for the impossible. Thatās why I donāt judge people who hold him dearly, they are very much allowed to do so.
I even understand if he feels insulted or attacked. Heās confronted with the accusation that heās not what he thinks to be. In fact, Iāve been rightly accused in the same way, and honestly, it was hard, very hard. Sometimes, Iād say, it was wrong, but sometimes the other person was indeed right. They couldnāt always provide proof, but they called out behavior in a message to me and I knew what they were talking about. The next step, though, wouldāve been to call me out publicly, in case I didnāt change.
Itās not about ādeserving punishmentā but protecting others, and the FSF, from harmful behavior. And, while I agree that his changed view on child consent isā¦ a good thing to say the least, itās a very bad thing if peopleās identities (e.g., trans, non-binary people) are invalidated and disregarded (despite scientific evidence!) because heās being pedantic about words. His hybris to think that, just because āwordsā he has more knowledge on this topic than leading psychologists is telling. But worse is that trans or non-binary persons shouldnāt need to defend their very existence and identity at every corner in life. At some point (after decades of years) they cannot be expected to still talk and discuss with him, in very tiring and disrespecting discussions, what and who they are. Mind you, itās great if minorities go out and tell people how it is to be X, but these people should be allowed to just live their life at some point.
And RMS with his stances in the FSF isā¦ not exactly a nice space for most of them. Proofs would be nice, and him changing his opinion would be nice as well. But this is much work that we can, perhaps, expect of the society as a whole but not from the minorities that are already discriminated against.
And I agree that, in theory, the letter should demand just revoking him as a spokesperson. But do you seriously believe that this would stick? He basically made him member again w/o consulting with the board before ā¦ he speaks when he wants, and just not making him spokesperson wonāt change that. Unfortunately.
First of all: sorry for the huge wall of textā¦ as you can guess I also enjoy the discussion.
Oh sorry, thatās not what I meant.
It was an example to illustrate why I called some of the accusations of the letter āinsultsā, I didnāt want to imply that you insulted me. I should have said āsomeoneā there (in fact I think I did it in a later edit but I might have been too lateā¦ ugh).
Why not just state the facts and let them speak for themselves?
Intentionally hurting people would definitely be a cause to remove him. I expect thatās actually against the FSF code.
The thing with making a public open letter like this is that you need to convince not only the FSF but also those that you are asking signatures from. Specially if theyāre also being asked to boicot the FSF donations and events.
Then it shouldnāt be surprising to see a counter-reaction from those who do not have account of those incidents and who do not think the accusations are deserved.
Like you said, this should not have been about ādeserving punishmentā but about protecting others. Yet the letter seemed to be seeking punishment for his behavior without really talking much about the victims, the harm and what caused it.
Even if they really did believe that RMS is behaving like that on purpose out of malice/phobia/insanity/whatev, had they made the exercise of assuming that it was a reiterated and constant mistake would have gone a long way to actually get the point across. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Itās also ironic that when they actually try to give examples, the only thing they show are either things that have been later corrected by RMS himself (like the child consent thing, but also the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines) or things that when in context are clearly misunderstandments (he clearly isnāt saying that every single down syndrome child must be abortedā¦) or about that publicly available email thread about Minsky where heās really not saying anything crazy when you actually read through it.
That must have been quite a thingā¦ he also came to my University (ages ago) and I heard some things from the organicers about how particular he was. I donāt really remember the details but I can imagine there are many stories like that. Heās definitelly very quirky. But Iām sure thereās more than one board of directors with a āstrangeā nerd on it.
I agree, but are you refering to this? https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
I get that heās trying to ārespect the wishesā of non-binary people without really understanding what their wishes are. And knowing how particular he is about the correct manner of saying āGNU/Linuxā I can imagine how a conversation about the topic with him could be difficultā¦
My understanding is that seeking a gender-neutral pronoun can actually be the wrong call, even as an heterosexual male I would find it patronizing if Stallman used the gender neutral pronoun on me, so I expect the same would happen for someone who identified as āsheā / ātheyā or any other pronoun. But is it actually transfobic?
The open letter is locked now and they even closed the issue tracker, but before they closed it there was this comment from a trans person who actually thought accusing him of being a transfobe was too much.
But asking for his removal and the disolution of the entire board did not stick either.
And even if it had, he speaks when he wants. Do you believe that not being in the board would have changed that?
If the intention was to play poker and ask for something crazy to try and get anything at all thenā¦ well, it shouldnāt be a surprise for crazyness to be called out and have mixed reactions that result in the real point getting lost, mudding the waters. Sure, in the end it might actually work (thereās already some reaction inside the FSF, if that what was intended) but at what cost? many portrayed this as a āwitch huntā and I donāt think those reactions were completely unjustified. This is not just bad image for RMS is also a bad image for the anti-RMS crowd, to the point that an anti-anti-RMS letter came up with 6000+ signatures.
np, Iām glad this is mutual!
phew, I sometimes have the issue of coming off condescending, which I definitely do not intend :)
Those facts are difficult to state, since they are mostly related to interpersonal evens like the one I stated. Although I agree that this wouldāve been preferable.
I get your point here, but thatās, to me the crux of the situation: These are internal events and often in violation of the FSFās own code. Thus, there shouldāve been an internal investigation, but that didnāt happen. The problem then though is: What now? As with allegations of (sexual) abuse, those things are hard to proof to the public. However, the FSF board very much knows of (most of) the cases they allude to, and they are the addresses.
However, as you correctly observe, itās an open letter since they need to build pressure on the FSF. But they canāt ājust state the factsā for the reasons mentioned. This is, definitely, a difficult situation.
But I donāt think everyone ought to ādecideā to support one or the other letter, especially those completely outside of the circle. As they, indeed, have very little insight into what happened. Itās an ugly situation, I totally agree with that.
Absolutely, it isnāt surprising! The problem with the whole situation is that it should have been solved internally but hasnāt. Such things are predestined to go badly.
In the end, the immediate circle of people affected (including the FSF board) can really judge. But also, in our society, it is simply a fact that everyone needs to position themselves, despite not actually really being in charge.
I didnāt read the letter that way, but I can see how it can be read as punishment. I can not counter this and have to say that this shouldnāt be (wasnāt?) intended. I agree that discussing the problems the FSF had due to RMS would indeed have been a very healthy addition.
Absolutely. In the end, the letter was an act of frustration long boiling and it reads that way.
What I agree with is that they donāt properly differentiate b/w a) clear violations of other peoples personal identity or similar and b) bad PR stunts. From what I know, both things happened, while the former are usually internal issues (thus shouldāve been resolved internally) and the latter, by definition, public. Taking the Minsky statement, what he said was not really crazy but uncalled-for and absolutely unnecessary pedantry. Furthermore, similar wording is also chosen in malice by those who are defending sexual abuse and belittling victims. I do think RMS wasnāt aware of what he did was basically unintentional ādog whistlingā but this is very bad PR nontheless, and thus harmful to the FSF as a whole. Especially if it happens repeatedly, and no āsorryā or ācorrectionā later can, unfortunately, fix the publicity problems that result from it.
It would have served them well if they had made a distinction b/w these two things.
Sure, but quirky becomes bad rep when it ends in inappropriate behavior like pressing students with little money to pay for (quite expensive) tickets, by simply living in their āworkplaceā. He was told to end this behavior multiple times, but didnāt change. And thatās kind of the issue.
Sure, but then itās bad rep for mostly him and the Free Software movement (bad enough), but the FSF could easily do something like distancing themselves from him. This would do them very good in all such occasions.
I think the key point is āwithout really understanding what their wishes areā, and maybe thatās the distilled version of almost all criticism of RMS. Either he doesnāt care or he thinks he knows better what people wish for than themselves. At first, this is annoying or funny (GNU/Linux pedantry), but when it comes to people and how theyād like to be addressed it quickly leaves that area and becomes downright hurtful.
I wouldnāt count the usage of it transphobic per-se, but with many things -phobic and -ist, it comes down to the power (im-)balance. That is, in current law and society, a trans person defending themselves to be called the pronoun they want has a much harder stance to defend than a non-trans, cis, person. That is, while from RMSā pov misgendering a cis man by referring to them as āsheā or whatever is the same as misgendering a trans person by referring to them with a different pronoun than asked for ā from the affected persons pov this is quite different. Most cis people would definitely feel patronized by it, but they could either shrug it off or, if in public, simply demand him to behave properly. A trans person whoās regularly attacked and invalidated (in our current society) doesnāt have this luxury/privilege, and as such, these statements are hurtful and dangerous.
Basically, what Iām trying to say is: In a perfect society this wouldnāt be much more than patronizing. In a similar way, in a perfect society āblack facingā wouldnāt be any different than āwhite facingā ā but acting as if we were in such a society is wrong and dangerous to minorities.
Now, whether this is transphobic ā¦
ā¦ this is definitely a dividing matter. In my bubble (which, uh, contains quite some people whoāre trans :p), the overwhelming opinion is that what he did, indeed, is transphobic. Obviously thatās no āproofā, but it shows that these people, who experience transphobia from other persons in the society on a day-to-day basis, have a hard time distinguishing (unintentional) dog-whistling and ā¦ patronizing behavior by Stallman from intentional attacks. Mind you, in public most transphobic people (outside of Fox News) disguise their transphobia rather well.
While similar things have been reported for RMS as well (i.e., behaving much worse to trans people in private than in public) I donāt want to dwell on it, as itās not that much convincing. I think, in the end, it boils down to whether one counts unintentional āattacksā as transphobic or not.
To open the RMS-like jar oā pedantry, maybe one could say that:
But then we need to ask ourselves: Does that change much? [to be continued since I reached the character limitā¦ jeez]
EDIT: continuation below in comment to this comment :)
ā¦ Obviously itās important to treat malice different from unintentional things when it comes to judging (and I know, you read the letter as judging and I didnāt but I see where youāre coming from and admit that itās bad that it could be read that way). However, if you read the letter just as a demand to remove him to stop further harm (my reading) then, this is pretty much irrelevant.
Thatās true, and, honestly, kinda shameful for the FSF. The FSF would/will/ā¦ have a hard time to justify itās sense w/o RMS.
I think, in hindsight, the way the letter was worded and prepared was the wrong step forward. Unfortunately, I also donāt really see an alternative. There were more kind, more proper, discussions before, for decades. Sometimes they even resulted in change!
But where are we now, in the year 2021? The FSF has become irrelevant, for many reasons. Some can definitely be attributed to the way the Internet and corporations developed, how Open Source became a thing (ironically ESR has signed the anti-anti-RMS letter :D) etc. But also, the FSF was kind-of at the forefront of political discussion in the technology scene, with seeing the technology as someone that should revolve around human needs and society, and not vice-versa. It was refreshing, it was new, it was progressive.
And while the FSF is still radical, it feels like thatās the only thing left. Radical, senseless (to the point it becomes annoying), repeating of anti-firmware tirades etc. Obviously, many stances are still more progressive than the political climate, but theyāve lost pretty much their target group. It feels like having Rosa Luxemburg as a leader of āThe Leftā: While certainly progressive, not fitting for the time.
People pressed for changes, but nothing could be heard over the deafening presence of RMS. Maybe the best criticism of the FSF is that itās just āThe RMS Societyā. Which isnāt necessarily bad, but it means that we have gap there, where an FSF that wouldnāt be ājust RMSā would be.
All in all, I think we agree on many points of the problem(s). And perhaps even, that such an āopen letterā isnāt always bad, but simply whether this was the point of time that this letter should have been written. And also, that there are certainly some things in the letter that couldāve been phrased better, to say the least.
That was a long comment, but I felt much more comfortable quote-posting as I didnāt want to write this up from memory, in order not to talk past your points or misrepresent you.
Wowā¦ I didnāt even know there was a character limitā¦ :P
Once again, very reasonable response(s). Honestly I think we fundamentally agree in most of the arguments, to the point that Iām running out of things to add -says as he proceeds to drop another column-
Iām sorry but in my quote-posting Iām gonna cherry-pick specific parts, not because I want to misrepresent you but because I donāt want to make it unwieldly. However, please call out at any point if Iām missing something important you said or misinterpreting something.
This is the part that still seems strange to me. If these episodes are so frequent and blatant there must be plenty of testimonials, it wouldnāt be impossible to record conversation, an email threadā¦ or someone could prepare a public interview with him where heās confronted about controversial behavior, maybe giving opportunity to the victims to talk (anonymously maybe even, just a recording without the face, maybe even altered voice) and see RMS reaction and response to it. Specially for things that you said were recurrent and he has not fixed for years. Confront him about the fact that those have not been fixed for years and show it to him, then show the public what he has to say.
Just having these kind of things exposed might actually spark change already, even without the need to collect signatures.
I understand that itās still a lot of effort and itās not as easy to prove as more public forms of abuse, but I find it hard to believe that there would be no verifiable testimonies or some form of evidence. Specially in the world of Software, where a lot of communication happens electronically, even internally. If the issue is privacy policy, RMS could be publlicly asked for permission to show his private responses in such interviewā¦ if he actually refuses thenā¦ well, thatād already look fishy and uncooperative which is something thatād be good to get exposure on.
If RMS had rejected to participating in such interview thenā¦ well, thatās something that could have been in the letter. If they cannot provide anything solid at the very least they should be convincing about why that is.
It would give good rep with those who were exposed to the proof. And at the same time it would also give bad rep with those who think that the removal was undeserved. This is why itās important to be convincing.
Had the FSF listened to the letter, removed RMS and completelly changed the entire board, it would not be a total surprise to me if the same motivation that pushed for the anti-anti-RMS letter ended up giving birth to a new alternative movement, more welcome to RMS and the directors from the previous board. Maybe a new foundation would have been created, in a similar way as how the Open Source Initiative separated itself from the FSF. Creating more division and taking a bite of the FSF cake.
Maybe many in the OSI are secretly happy about all this drama, I wouldnāt be surprised if they got at least a small bump in supporters. After all they exist as a more pragmatic alternative to Stallmanās FSF. Itās also interesting that 4 out of the 16 people who appear as authors of the open letter are Directors or Former Directors of the OSI.
Thatās sensible. I agree.
If it isnāt read as an accusation of being āmisogynist, ableist, and transphobicā (although if āinternalizedā had been added then Iād not argue), then you are right. If I do the exercise of reading it as only a demand, that would take away most of my criticism about the āwordingā of the letter, and the only thing that would remain is my criticism of whether what was demanded actually stops further harm.
I agree it would be good to see a new flow of progressive change. But the sad thing is that there has not really been any loud voice inside or outside the FSF that introduced any new strain of philosophy as groundbreaking as the initial movement was in the 90s. The thing is that we arenāt talking about a new approach, we are talking about the respect for others that already has been claimed. What we are talking is not being progressive but being consequent with values we already are meant to defend.
Are these values not being respected? Thatās the issue. Thereās division on this topic, and if the division is not solved and it keeps scalating then ultimatelly it could mean the FSF itself could divide, with a new organization appearing or maybe the OSI taking over the banner.
The problem here is that both sides see each other as the enemy (this is very clear when seeing twitter), one side dehumanizing the other, as in a sort of ideological warfare. Dehumanization sparks dehumanization. And itās hard to convince someone about what in our view might be āthe right thingā when they have already dehumanized us.
We will see. My hope is that RMS & the FSF will both see the mess and try and take the kind of measures that the open letter should have requested in the first place and it didnāt (things like making sure RMS controversial behavior is under leash, communicates only in written form externally or internally with those outside the board, never go to any event without some form of caretaker that knows how to deal with him, etcā¦ or whatever measures would actually help with those problems that the letter didnāt explain). And then hopefully this whole war will slowly be forgotten.
I didnāt expect the limit to kick in as well, but there we go ā¦ :)
I agree that we do mostly agree (whelp) and I think there is indeed not much to say but just to clarify our points to enhance mutual understanding. I think we have pretty much reached what some people call āagree to disagreeā although I do not like this sayingā¦
For the record, I donāt feel misrepresented at all, and thoroughly enjoy your responses!
I cannot speak for those who wrote the letter, but I fear that thereās indeed not much written record since most of the allegations I heard of (before, and outside of the letter) were with misdemeanor outside of electronic conversations in conferences. Although youāre right that such things shouldāve been tried (Idk if they did, but if they did, they shouldāve brought this up). However, as in many cases, the usual minorities are too tired (and also afraid) to speak up and donāt have the energy to fight for their cause. Meaning, their support group (friends, family) do the work which is in many ways unfortunate but also means that there will hardly be proper interviews or similar. Itās difficult enough to do such an investigation when there are actual crimes. Also, I think, this wouldāve increased and emphasized the āguiltyā part even more, while the original intention was/shouldāve been to make the FSF and RMS question their own deeds.
I totally agree that this misfired though.
Part of the issue is probably the writers of the open letter not really being sure themselves whether they want to prove RMS guilty or ask for introspection, and even subconsciously looking for ājusticeā when thatās actually not productive going forward. After all, the human being as a whole loves to jump on the justice/revenge/guilt band wagon far too easily. And even if criticism is well-founded, writing up this criticism is no fail-guard against unnecessary allegations of guilt.
Honestly, you voiced my secret biggest fear there. Iām not a fan of the OSI at all, which makes this whole situation so tragic to me. In fact, maybe the failure of the anti-RMS letter was for the best in that sense, as that way the ācreation of the alternative FSFā is initiated anti-RMS side, although Iām not yet sure or convinced by the āGNU Assemblyā either :D
Absolutely agree. For what itās worth, I think the only new āprogressiveā voice here is the EFF, while strictly having a different focus, it is very much in the spirit of many things copy-left: User autonomy and rights. And since it also advocates for things that arenāt asā¦ dare I say 'esotericā¦ as software licenses but also privacy etc., itās much more approachable to those who donāt have the software developer outlook on things.
Iām with you on being skeptical of RMS & FSF understanding the issue in the first place. Itās something thatās not even unique to RMS. My mom is definitely quite left and progressive but she has a hard time understanding most of the issues the left is fighting for, other than all the āold warsā (tbf, sheās 63), if it wasnāt for me explaining to her. And it must be me, since Iām her child and have a connection I can actually use to bridge this gapāwith the end result being that she understands the issues well enough to see.
But this bridge is very difficult to build if youāre online, have no family or friendship bonds, and the issue is smouldering for decades. Itās doubly difficult since the primary issues the FSF fights for arenāt related at all to the problems discussed, thus discussing them inside the FSF or with RMS will always be seen as a distraction or annoyance, taking precious time away from their actual fight.
I guess weāll see how this plays out. While I do hope that there will be change in the existing organizations, Iām afraid that the FSF and the core of the free software movement will die sooner or later, either with a bang or silently. I do have hopes in the EFF though, as stated, in taking over many issues that should be addressed in some way.
At the end of the day, you and me are not the ones who can solve this conflict, but RMS/FSF along with those who represent the victims and know of the abuse. They need to sit in a table together and actually talk about details, making sure the facts surrounding the matter are clear so specific actions can be taken.
We donāt know the details ourselves, and I think the main difference of opinion between us is when it comes to the different impressions we get when doing our āguessworkā on those details, which were left untold in the letter.
But these are just guesses and I cannot feel strongly for something that I do not have any strong evidence for me to judge how undeserved or deserved the accusations are. This is why I think the approach from Debian in this case here was appropriate, not pronouncing themselves towards any side until something more concrete resurfaces.
It would be great if the EFF takes a more active role in regards to Software Freedom and takes some of the load from the FSF.
Thereās one historical detail that makes the FSF still being there kinda important: the FSF is the copyright holder assigned to a lot of free software projects.
I mean, that shouldnāt be a huge deal, since itās all GPL after allā¦ but the copyright holder is who has ultimatelly the power to enforce the license. Although I doubt that this will really become a problem.
Another is the āGNU GPL version x or any later versionāā¦ it would be bad if the disinterest towards the organizations that hold control of the license ended up resulting in unexpected new developments for future versions.
I think this is what might have motivated the FSF board of directors to review the selection process for new members of the board.
Sorry for the late reply ā the last week was a bit tiring and I didnāt feel able to give enough attention to a reply :)
I think youāre very right about it mostly coming down to perception. While Iād personally have wished for a more direct stance from Debian, I think I understand better now the ideas behind it. Thanks!
At least in Europe the EFF together with the Chaos Computer Club are quite successfully pushing for Free Software (and related issues). But theyāre still getting there and obviously they didnāt want to āstealā the FSF topic from them. Although I guess this is what this will develop into, over long term.
Iām not good enough in anything wrt. law as to know whether this could be a problem, as this also depends very much on the country weāre talking about. But I agree that this is a minor issue.
Again, thanks for taking so much time for the discussion, it was really educating and helped me see other viewpoint(s)!