Technology

Stallman spends decades publicly-championing adult-child sexual relations on his personal blog and using his work email address.

Stallman later comes under fire for strange comments about Epstein's underage girls/clients. Some people say he should step down, as his poor image jeopardises the effectiveness of the FSF.

2 days later, Stallman has a sudden change of heart. Child/adult sexual relations are wrong. Children can't consent.

Some Linux nerds: "see, he's changed his mind, he's a different man!"

Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but to me the timing of his epiphany seems rather convenient.

How ready people are to treat celebrities as deity-like figures is scary to me. Just because Stallman has some great FOSS credentials doesn't mean he can't be a total POS in other areas. People bend over backwards to defend him as some saint who can do no wrong, even to the extent of trivialising child rape. It's scary what a bit of celebrity worship can get people to do.

Well, this was quite a ride. I've spent far too long thinking about this than I'd like to admit, so I'm just going to cut it off here and see how it goes. My apologies in advance if it's a bit incoherent, but I to be succinct, yes, I stand by RMS because I think he's a special character and worthy of further consideration than most other people. If you'd like to understand why, well then read on....

You mean when he had an epiphany and changed his mind 2 days after his job became under fire?

I think you're being a bit uncharitable. He was fired by the FSF, then hired again a couple months later. There was plenty of time for reflection between that period. And I think it's safe to say that the many people that support his ideals had discussions with him, and hopefully educated him on why many of the things he said was wrong, and why many of the things he thought were misguided, and how they could have caused harm.

Gee, I dunno. Maybe because it was a clear last-ditch effort to save his job, rather than because he genuinely went from his decades-held (and publicly-championed) view that sex with children is ok to sex with children is rape, by sheer coincidence, 2 days after people started requesting he step down over Epstein comments?

RMS has always had terrible social skills and a terrible inability to understand other people's emotions. He has always thought other people are like him, and think and act and feel the same way he does to everything in the world. He hasn't (or hadn't) yet realized that not everyone is like that.

But perhaps after talking with others and learning about it, he decided to change his mind and his ways. So yes, I think it's entirely plausible that's what happened, similar to how Linus Torvalds did when he realized he needed to calm down his tone on the LKML.

I'm not telling you what to believe and people are free to believe whatever makes them happy. But personally, I think my proposal is far more realistic. RMS has always been a man of principle, so if you think he would just forget all of his principles for a few moments to get a job, then I don't know what to tell you.

It was about as convincing a statement from Stallman as when Zuckerberg says he cares about privacy.

I don't think these are comparable. Zuckerberg has a very well-vested conflict of interest when it comes to safe-guarding privacy. I don't think RMS's beliefs on paedophilia influence or affect his opinions on Free Software in any way whatsoever, regardless of whether he works for the FSF or not.

Do you genuinely believe him when he says he changed his mind? It’s an awfully convenient timing, even you would have to admit.

Sure, I could admit that - I could imagine nobody would want to have to explain to him why paedophilia is wrong, but maybe when people realized how important he was to the Free Software movement, they realized how urgent and crucial it was to make him understand these things. I can easily see why it didn't happen earlier than that.

So yes, people do change their ways. I myself have evolved a great deal over my lifetime and have no reason to believe that others can't as well. Has RMS gone back to championing his old pro-paedophilia talking points now that he's back working for the FSF? How should one interpret that?

And can I also ask - are you only looking favourably at him because you like him?

I've met Richard once and he was a very kind and interesting person. But that said, I wouldn't want to be around him any more than that, and a few other people I've met have said the same. Interpret that how you will. You are attacking me of showing bias and favoritism, but I think you're just projecting your negative bias against him and getting angry because you want to pretend that the other side of the story doesn't exist, or that there are less nefarious ones than what you'd like to believe. Maybe it sounds like I'm defending him - to an extent, I am - but I think it's more important to make it clear that the situation in this particular instance could be a lot more nuanced because RMS clearly is a very different kind of person from you and me.

If Andrew Tate...

I have no clue who that is and I honestly don't care.

But what really makes a difference to me, and why I would put RMS is a separate category, is honesty and integrity. I happen to think RMS might be one of the most honest people on the planet. Have you seen his commitment to Free Software? Have you seen how much software he's written and how much of his life he's dedicated to his cause? Have you read the hoops he goes through like the kinds of computers he uses, in order to live by his principles?

Can you honestly tell me that it's all just a farce that he would give up for one measly job???

So yes, I think your accusations are way off base; I would side with you 99% of the time if we were talking about someone else, but given RMS's demeanor and the kind of person he is, I think it's pretty easy to see that he falls in the .001% of the population where you have to give him an honest second chance.

I don't think the fact that he is a very... special person can be denied. I think it's pretty clear that RMS is a very different kind of person, and I don't in any way excuse his behaviors. But he thinks that what he says about Free Software shouldn't be discounted because of how he feels about other things, and he's right. That's just an ad-hominem fallacy. Maybe that logic doesn't appeal to the masses, but to people who understand why Free Software is important, we should still be able to make that distinction.

It seems to me that you’re likely sweeping Stallman being pro-childrape under the rug, because he happens to have cool ideals when it comes to software.

To an extent, yes, unfortunately. And it's not because I agree with any of those stupid things he used to believe. It's more because I don't want to talk about RMS. What's really more important is Free Software.

What really gets me angry is that we can't have conversations about the importance of Free Software anymore without people talking about child rape. Yes, it's unfortunate, and I think if RMS knew that his comments would have had such a negative effect on the Free Software movement, he probably wouldn't have said them. And it is painfully obvious that he did not know this of course - he's the kind of person who doesn't yet realize that not everybody in the world is like him, and does not realize that people will attack how you feel about one thing because you may have reprehensible view about other things.

So I really wish we could keep discussions about Free Software about that, because otherwise, we are enabling the Googles and Facebooks and Twitters of the world to distract our attentions while they steal our creations and liberties to make us digital peons. I think we do a great disservice by having this conversation every time RMS comes up.

Yeah, necrophilia is fine as long as both parties are consenting.