Nice to see the people at Debian are finally smartening up. Why bother with these kinds of things when there’s nothing to be gained other than losing a portion of your users and developers.
As far as I know the goal of Debian is not to attract the most users but a certain set of values. If RMS is incompatible with these values then there’s indeed something gained from distancing yourself.
Debian is political, it always has been and just pretending it isn’t won’t do good.
When there’s actual proof that RMS is incompatible with the values that he himself claims to defend, then it would make sense for them to be against him.
Not issuing a statement is by itself a skeptical position. I don’t think it’s about pretending not to be political, but rather avoid getting involved in something that shouldn’t have been taken so seriously.
I didn’t want to discuss whether there is proof, I think I’m on a different side there though.
All that RMS did is in the open, what’s left is considering this either compatible (or irrelevant to) with Debian, or not.
Debian values are also in the open: https://www.debian.org/social_contract and one of the points is “No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups”.
Imho, what’s missing is the aritmetic that connects the dots and proves (or disproves) that any of the points of the Debian social contract are affected by “all that RMS did”.
If the connection isn’t clear, then I think the wise move is to not move in either direction. Making a move just because “Debian is political” would not be good, imho.
Sure, that is “missing” but it’s nothing “in the dark” or “hidden that can be revealed”. Like, all information is indeed on the table. It’s up to the individual or the group to either recognise a libk if one exists or claim there is none.
There’s nothing that could be revealed worth waiting for, is what I’m saying.
Because of Stallman’s jarring directness and language pedantry, I am open to the idea that he may have some light autistic features. Therefore, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that RMS had no malicious intent, simply a very pedantic way of expression, which does not make him guilty.
It should also be considered then, whether those who in fact say they fight against discrimination (disregarding RMS’s actual intent) do not in fact discriminate, in a certain manner against him…
Is the point about guilt or being unfit for social leadership? Indeed it’s completely irrelevant whether there’s malicious intent, as the judgment is not about “should he be in hell or heaven” but “should he be leader of the FSF”.
Furthermore, he completely rejects the idea of him being autistic. In fact, many of the signatories of the “reject him from the board” letter are autistic or part of autistic support groups. And what they say is: Being autistic is not an excuse for hurting other people. Somehow all the people who are not a relevant part of the autism community suddenly all pop up and try to protect the poor autistic RMS… .
Discrimination due to some people claiming him to be autistic is simply bullshit in this context. Even more so because accepting him to question other peoples very identity and existence in society is a far more basic discrimination on his part. Be it “in malicious intent” or not. If he indeed were autistic then measures can be found to still make him fit for leadership, there are many autistic people in high positions (also signatories of the reject-rms letter).
And this is completely disregarding that he’s not only pedantic, but also, in many ways often literally wrong. Especially when it comes to meanings of words in languages. But that’s just a side note.
He describes himself as essentially neurodivergent and tone-deaf (his word): https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community
I’ve met him and a lot of people I know and trust have been around him at conferences. In 20 years I’ve heard plenty of complains about his public behavior and I’ve witnessed various episodes of that. Nobody ever told me in person that RMS is inherently evil or malevolent, but rather unable to act appropriately around people or understand what is socially acceptable, despite having been told many times. He apologized on various occasions over the years… without changing behavior.
Public roles are different from private life. A public speaker is responsible of communicating clearly, understanding the context of conversations, acting properly, and avoid creating these controversies in the first place.
Is there nothing Stallman could say or do that could possibly bring light on the issue?
The open letter did seem to reference there being “things that are not captured in email threads or on video”.
If Stallman deserves all the “adjectives” from the open letter, then I think ultimately there’ll be solid proof that justifies the slander, given enough time I think there should be some convincing evidence that he’s what he’s accused to be, and then (and only then) he’ll deserve to be criticised by Debian and many other projects.
If, on the other hand, it turns out that the mob accusing him was unfairly misinterpreting and dehumanizing him, then I think the opinion on him will never change no matter what he does… even if he begged on his knees crying, he’ll still be dehumanized. Any goodwill on his part will be assumed to be a farce. If that’s the case then for that mob there would be nothing else to be said that could possibly change anything.
There are some things that are referenced that way, but the majority of things were/are out in the open.
I don’t want to go down this rabbit-hole, but the accusations aren’t anything new. In fact, they’re decades old and he was given a pass, multiple times. And at some point, yes, people will start seeing excuses as a farce.
Whether you think what he said was in fact e.g., transphobic is another matter. I personally doubt that he has much of “hate” for most or any of the groups, but, at the end of the day, he treats people in very demeaning matter. And he doesn’t seem to be capable of understanding why, what he does and says, is bad. And that’s fine – but not as a spokesperson. But that’s my personal opinion. My point is mostly about
- almost everything being on the table
- the accusations aren’t new
- either you can agree that the accusations are right or wrong.
As far as I know the goal of Debian is not to attract the most users but a certain set of values.
The Debian Free Software Guidelines explicitly prohibits discrimination of the people who use their software regardless as to what their values are. They are writing software in the public interest which presumably means that they want the public to use it. Other than ensuring those who use the software are abiding by the license it’s licensed under there is nothing the project can do in terms of selecting who uses it.
If RMS is incompatible with these values
The values of free software? I think over the course of his entire life he’s demonstrated that he’s entirely committed.
Debian is political
I agree, but the only politics that really matter are those of computing freedom for all.
people at Debian are finally smartening up
I’d say that once they finally remove that terrible piece of software systemd
OP, any reason why you post slashdot instead of right to the source?
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2021/04/msg00009.html
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Yeah, I don’t understand why someone would submit a link aggregator to a link aggregator. Makes me wonder if the blogspam discussion applies: https://lemmy.ml/post/60793
That said, linking to other discussions is welcome as a comment imo.
No statement is still a Statement… They just say that they don’t care enough, which is quite sad regarding the topic
It’s not, I think it’s wise of them to reject the controversy itself. It’s a waste of time to pay attention to it or feed into it
I agree that many debates which seems similar are a waist of time, but in this case the hole debate is interwoven with sex traffic and child abuse.
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No statement can also mean they have nuanced and/or mixed feelings.
The diagram and beat matrix at the bottom of https://www.debian.org/vote/2021/vote_002 tell a different story:
- the cluster of options 1/2/3/4 are very strong and very close to winning.
- the “support RMS” options 5/6 flat out failed
- had the vote been between the two clusters, the first would have won.
- Unsurprisingly, a lot of people voted “no statement” as a fall-back option, and Condorcet strongly favors options that makes most people “not completely unhappy” rather than making a relative majority with their preferred choice.
To me that’s the perfect description of mixed feelings.
Sign an open letter in support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ https://rms-support-letter.github.io/
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