His comments about women are inexcusable, but the fact he convinced Linus to adopt GPL is paying dividends to billions of people globally, and most of us don’t know it.
What comments about women?
what may appear whimsical to men who receive them may seem creepy to women.
Isn’t this site supposed to - yk - support the equality of all genders?
I don’t really know what the site stands for or their agenda, but the list is a comprehensive list of things Richard Stallman has done to discomfort women in the field
discomfort women
Stallman has made many posts sympathizing with efforts to legalize some forms of child pornography. Among other things, they stated that he was “skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children”. These comments were defended by his supporters on Slashdot. As of 2016, there are reports of Stallman changing his views on the matter within the previous few years.[2] However, in 2018 he defended Cody Wilson, who later pled guilty to sex with an underage girl, with Stallman saying that the girl likely had “entirely willing sex with him.” Stallman changed his original post but nevertheless still said it is “normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents” and that adults using trafficked children shouldn’t be legally responsible. In 2019, Stallman posted an email to an MIT listserv about the allegation that MIT professor Marvin Minsky raped a 17-year-old girl, and due to public outcry he resigned from both MIT and the Free Software Foundation.
Women are just so sensitive!
Minsky never raped anyone. The 17 year old girl was sent to him and politely refused. She has even confirmed this. I feel as if he goes to great lengths to speak clearly and people never seem to listen.
I do agree, however, his early views on pedophilia are creepy. I have never heard him support cp, so I won’t argue either way.
I am not a lawyer or a judge.
But “early views” nothing. The guy knows where he stands, it’s just that now he knows that being open about those views will get him in trouble.
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Ugh. God damn. 🤢
Somehow I’m not surprised. He seems pretty eccentric. In a socially awkward way that makes you uncomfortable.
He seems to have no filter whatsoever. His comments are inexcusable but he seemed to set himself up to broadcast every single thought that ever goes through his head to the entire world. I suspect there would be some clangers in there if I - or anyone else - spewed all of their halfbaked thoughts out all the time like that.
Personally I’m never going to meet the guy and my opinion of him doesn’t particularly matter. That provides an opportunity to pick out the bits of his thoughts that I find interesting and leave out the bits that are crass. Appreciate not everyone has that luxury though, especially if they have been personally affected by one of the issues he’s crashed into like a bull in a china shop.
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He’s a living meme who wrote some amazing software back in his day.
Why does what I think matter to anyone ? I follow him on Mastodon and agree with most of his comments.
Don’t think I’ve ever agreed with anyone all the time though.
he was right about the computer stuff
Yeah, this is a good place to focus and stop. I don’t like the other stuff I’ve heard about him.
“I am not a woman, therefore I am not affected by his comments! Conclusion: good guy!” — far too many people in this thread
Dude also has some… “”“interesting”“” opinions on the legalization of CP.
All you gotta do is contribute to FOSS and you’re a hero?
Some of y’all dumb as hell.
he has never endorsed cp! He has, however, supported any one over the age of 14 having sex, and has changed his view on that a decade ago.
As of 2016, there are reports of Stallman changing his views on the matter within the previous few years.[2] However, in 2018 he defended Cody Wilson, who later pled guilty to sex with an underage girl, with Stallman saying that the girl likely had “entirely willing sex with him.” Stallman changed his original post but nevertheless still said it is “normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents” and that adults using trafficked children shouldn’t be legally responsible. In 2019, Stallman posted an email to an MIT listserv about the allegation that MIT professor Marvin Minsky raped a 17-year-old girl, and due to public outcry he resigned from both MIT and the Free Software Foundation.
changed his view on that a decade ago
got quieter about his views
I don’t know him personally, so if he got quieter or lied (he actually has a statement on his website that, according to you is a lie) about his views, I would not know. Look, I see more than plenty of reasons for one not to like him. I feel people run with media reports even when we have his email transcripts that can be read word for word.
My criticism lies only with people who staunchly defend him and/or consider him a good guy / hero.
At 17 years, it is a matter of technicality. Plenty of places draw line at 16 years, some even lower.
Y’all are grown folk arguing if it’s ethical to fuck high school students.
I got nothing to say to that.
Would you prefer teens to discuss and decide that instead? Or preteens?
He’s a cutie <3 <3 <3 https://rms.sexy/
I love how in every photo rms has his laptop on his hand.
Imagine how many delights and horrors that Thinkpad has witnessed.
Good programmer, shitty politician ;-)
BSD folk would disagree with the former. Though now we have IBM/Redhat userland getting more popular thanks to Debian and co.; which makes GNU userland look like blessing by comparison.
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I strongly disagree.
He is a creep, but he has done a lot of good for the open source community, that does make him a good guy, at best it makes him neutral, but after reading the whole kaffufle about his views on the Epstien scandal, I can no longer see him as a good guy.
You have to separate:
- Stallman the person
- Stallman the programmer
- Stallman the philosopher
I just woke up, so I started wondering who is Stallman the photographer?
The first two are already quite ghastly. The final one just solidifies my opinion.
What’s your opinion of Free Software?
Pointless hasn’t been the same since he left. Xander looks so lonely
Only man I’ve ever seen pick shit from between his toes and eat it while having a philosophical discussion about FOSS.
10/10 agree with the ideology and think he’s an amazing programmer 0/10 agree with his culinary recommendations
Smart guy. Not a good person. Don’t idolize people
I wish people would read the published mail thread and not the news articles…he never defended rapists. His quote was quite different. Also, the victim, insofar as her interaction with his old boss, confirmed what happened.
Honestly it comes across to me not as him defending rapists, but actually just genuinely not understanding how rape works. The guy somehow understands people less than I do, and that’s saying something.
That was my neighbor’s defense, too. “It wasn’t rape! She was very clearly coming onto me!” about the 14-year old girl he “”“encountered”“” as a college student.
He very absolutely understands what rape is. He just doesn’t want age to be a factor if she’s “into it”. It’s very very very very very clear where he stands: if she consents, it’s not rape, no matter her age!
Nobody is even accusing him of rape. Why treat him like a rapist when nobody has suggested the possibility that he had done anything wrong besides stick his foot in his mouth? It seems obvious to me that the point he was poorly attempting to make was that he’s uncomfortable with the inconsistencies around age of consent in different countries, not that there should be no such thing. 17 is enough to be a consenting adult in some actual reasonable countries.
No one is accusing him of rape. Just saying his view on the whole thing is sketch as fuck.
17 is enough to be a consenting adult in some actual reasonable countries.
…okay.
What, do you think someone’s 18th birthday suddenly magically transforms them from a child to an adult overnight? The line has to be somewhere, and I’m perfectly happy with it being 18, but other countries having a slightly different line doesn’t make them all rapists.
We’re talking about the creator of Emacs. Do you think that guy leaves his house.
An actual good take.
Thank you.
sad to see that he thinks like that about rape and the whole Epstein thing :(
He is one of the people ever in the open-source movement.
I like him. He is basically the kind of nerd I have often hung out with.
