I've watched closely the RMS internet lynching that started by
Sep 12, 2019·10
Remove Richard Stallman And everyone else horrible in tech.
Going back to 93
RMS -vs- Doctor, on the evils of Natalism we see RMS isnt the person that you would call conservative..
But that unconventional wisdom is the reason that the libre software movement was initiated in the first place.
So get to the crucial point here.
That Salem.G article who marked the lynching i think is helpfull (to seeking a more encompassing approach) to see in the time context of what was happening to MIT then.
As a point of referernce and further study to anyone interested :
On me, and the Media Lab Aug 21, 2019
So the context is that a scandal break regarding funding from Epstein that put the heads of mit under pressure from many sides (including the students that were calling from RMS to resign
... mmm... sorry mistake.. that must have been MIT President L. Raphael Reif .
To get a better understanding at the anger against RMS at that time read also:
MIT Students and Alumni Call for President L. Rafael Reif to Step Down Over Epstein
MIT's Epstein scandal kept student Mani Mengiste up at night — so she decided to fight back (another angry mit student with RMS !!)
Angry mit students outside RMS office calling him to get the hell out of MIT due to dirty sponsors. no i meant akward flirting ..
If you reseach further (like the young protesters ,
you will find accusations for more ethically questionable funding.
Anyway..
So inamidst of all this protests Salem thinks (and many who happilly blowed her little flimsy sail boat) ..that the crux of all that troublosome and embarrising situation is .. voila.. RMS ,...that wasnt even a teacher because in
CSAIL email list he steps in to defend his deceased friend ...
And voila!! a suitable scapegoats appear. From that act we must draw a line to -->
Remove Richard Stallman And everyone else horrible in tech .... Remove ... (how ?) ... RMS ... from .. tech... A person who spend his whole life to improve tech and founded libresoftware.. our mental home and compass for thousand programmers..... A nosense for a girl who has not a clue..
So Salem starts the accusation chorus. Like that.. in snap . No further discussion. Lets cancel the @#$#$%.
Step some twitters nanosecs forward and bam!! the freesoftware communities announce in unison the 'Ethical sponsor hunting initiative' to avoid scandals like the epstein affair.. (kidding.. ) so what reallly happens is .. suddenly many start remembering creepy , akwards encounters .. pro peadophilia opinions , old animosities resurface and think
that now is the moment to strike!! like notably Miguel de Icaza , Zachhirolli , Matthew Garrett , fsfe !! , gnome and others think also that now is the moment to meddle and give instructions to fsf what to do and even some threat to cut donations..
(thanks god that moms with their babies that were shocked back with their natalism vierws attacked in the 90s didnt catch up in the twitter revolution...
)
And here starts the magnus opus of hypocrisy. The main line of attacke was shifted that RMS drives away people from libre - open software..
We need to be more inclusive . But what that means is ofcourse open to the agenda of each organization, country , person in the world. Some organizations seem to
think inclusive applies to microsoft (
its latest mischief ..) or google (
a respected inclusive company)
Funny, but in line with my personal diversity inclusion standards (as a multinational would put it) i think to put it as simply as i can ,,, multinationals coprs
are not welcomed in a libresoftware community driven project
So lets please stop that silly game and state the situation at its really solid ground. Sponsoring and their agenda.
RMS's crime is that he is not friendly to big software business. He speaks against them , he drives the best minds away from them.
That is his crime.
...what drives me away from even thinkging to donate to fsf or even other projects is because i stand behind those MIT students protesting ethical donation frameworks and unaccountably .
So why i got into it and 'lost' so many hours writing and researching.. It wasnt Salem accusations . It was the easiness by which libre - open source organizations seized the opportunity to meddle in fsf and attack RMS not giving a fok about his legacy ... And that was the moment of Eureka to me . Those persons dont respect his legacy ... they fear his legacy... They wont his reputation dead.
And now with sorrow i hear that Debian project vote whether to do it also.
So the line here is: If we are into this mainly as a business .. RMS is bad for business. (big business mainly)
If we are mostly into RMS free software vision we stand behind him but we pressure him to promote more accountabilty , ethical sponsoring , and democratic processes in libre communities and projects. But ofcourse that could hurt.. Money flows could get disrupted .. people with positions with fancy names and nice
chairs could lose them(the chairs)...
So in that line of thinking RMS must lead and decide himself . Can you be in the middle of that line ?