Richard Stallman says he has returned to the Free Software Foundation board of directors and won't be resigning again Richard M Stallman, founder and former president of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), announced at the organisation's LibrePlanet virtual event that he has rejoined the board and does not intend to resign again. Stallman spoke at the event yesterday on the subject of unjust computing – covering locked-down operating systems …
"We were working on a video to announce this with, but that turned out to be difficult, we didn't have experience doing that sort of thing so it didn't get finished"
How hard is it to point a mobile phone at yourself, speak for a few minutes, then toss the video at YouTube?
Oh...wait...that implicates a pile of non-free software...
I think the poster was referring primarily to the "piling on" of bizarre hit pieces at the time *after* the comments that he made that some people objected to, and I am mainly pointing to the "mattress" comment which was doing the rounds at the time.
This should have been the correct response: https://medium.com/@revistakubis/richard-stallman-had-a-mattress-on-the-floor-of-his-office-because-he-lived-and-slept-there-a5dd1eb43e5f
It was all a bit shabby and very obvious.
Well, it will certainly keep those sorts of undesirables out. Also women of course, but, well, they can't really compete with men anyway due to having weaker female brains, can they? So that's a small loss, if not actually a benefit. Also they are a bit frightening, aren't they? I mean, how do you talk to them? Is it OK to touch their, you know, bits when you do so? These rules are so complicated.
I think @tfb was possibly being snarky with their comment rather than genuinely belittling the considerable number of computer science advancements made by women. Although these days, it's getting harder and harder to satirize the trolls and arseholes of the internet as their own statements are often beyond parody, so who really knows for sure.
Yes, once again sarcasm perishes on the unforgiving shoals of Poe's Law. ... Michael Wojcik
Michael, surely your post is missing at least one of these things.... :-) ..... although I have to admit to only noticing they more usually accompany comments on vast deep and dark sees rather than the unforgiving shoals of perishing sarcasm. :-) Poe's Law Rules Right Royally in/with IT :-)
:-)Would that be akin to a Mad Radically Adept Politically Incorrect and Inept Administration, not necessarily Always All Bad although Too Oft Nowhere Near Good Enough to Survive and Prosper in the Real Worlds of Live Operational Virtual Environments without Outside COSMIC Assistance/Heavenly Help?
Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses are so Yesterday Man/Woman and can certainly do with a Refreshing Makeover and Virtual Takeover to Preserve and Protect them from the Ravages of Space and Time and AI and Advancing IntelAIgents. A little something for Palaces to Ponder and Realise Pending for Virtualisation. I Kid U Not.
The Positive/Negative Binary Choice is Simple ....... AIDynamICQ Change or Virtual Carnage.
The thing with Stallman as always is he is extreme, weird, and extremely weird. Between eating things he finds on his feet and writing a rider with speaking demands about parrots he expresses a lot of opinions. These opinions very from nuanced points on free software, to the crazed ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. Herrin lies the problem. Having Stallman around will bring to light important points that probably no one else would raise, however this has to be filtered from the absurd. The FSF does a good job of filtering out the non-software related political/social commentary. The result are some suggestions which are still pretty unrealistic for those of us that want to do work in the real world. But I appreciate that they shift the Overton window towards software freedom. This all said, letting Stallman back in after what he said, and his characteristic refusal to apologise makes it very hard to argue that the FSF is an organisation that represents the movement. It makes it clear it is an organisation to promote Stallmanism, this damages the FSF and free software as a whole.
I've thought before about why so many intellectual leaders and visionaries are so intensely weird. I suspect that there's a general personality factor of "group conformity", and it's important to have a low level of this factor in addition to high technical understanding to reach new insights and push in unusual directions. Without that, you don't get bizarre behavior and opinions, but you also don't get work that requires pushing against the consensus for years.
I don't think everyone should have low conformity, or that it would be good for society if everyone did, but we need some amount of those people to keep from falling into local attractors.
> These opinions very from nuanced points on free software, to the crazed ramblings of a conspiracy theorist.
I've not seen or heard any "crazed ramblings of a conspiracy theorist" from Stallman. You may not like what he has to say sometimes, but I've always found that his arguments are founded in reason.
> This all said, letting Stallman back in after what he said, and his characteristic refusal to apologise
Did you mean "after what people accused him of saying"? Because, as is typical of the hyperbolic blame culture of Twitter and such, he didn't say what he has been accused of saying.
> makes it very hard to argue that the FSF is an organisation that represents the movement.
Which movement do you mean?
Free Software, by definition, doesn't care who you are, what you do, where you are, what you say or think; neither now nor in the past. So long as the FSF does what's best for the Freedom of software, it continues to represent the Free Software movement.
Actually, I think I know what he's pointing at, and if I'm right I would actually agree with him.
Partly because I have actually met Stallman a few times (and never enjoyed it - no, not because of any discussion but exactly because of the absence of one), and also because I work with quite a number of really good tech people who I love and respect dearly, and whom I would never in my life voluntarily take into a business meeting if I can help it because they cannot stop preaching (and I include in that the ones that have done this at political level).
You will not get anyone to move from "it's costly but they have made me feel comfortable" proprietary to "oh my god this is new and scary and how can I trust this if I cannot hold anyone responsible" FOSS by scaring them and sorry, that's what happens if I let these people anywhere near business people and investors. They really, truly do not speak the same language.
Now I fully understand the frustration of not getting solutions in place that are more robust and resilient for a whole range of technical reasons, but I usually end up translating between the two sides to get anywhere. Like matter and anti-matter, if you don't keep these two sides separate the result is usually destructive.
I think FOSS is mega important, but I also think that this is not at the absolute exclusion of proprietary and paid-for solutions. Yes, there is abuse there and bad track record (a prime reason why I still do not trust any of Microsoft's current "friendliness") and sometimes you can just use FOSS to hammer some reasonableness into a provider of proprietary products. However, to operate you need to be realistic, and I have found an intelligent blend of FOSS and proprietary often provides the best outcome.
Paraphrasing certain prime minister, "FSCK business!"
Who cares about business and investors? What matters is the moral thing: not only helping yourself but helping your neighbours and having them help you in turn. The beauty of copyleft is that no one is able to exploit it without giving it back. Self-interest means that you contribute what you think is necessary while receiving the benefits of others' own interests. RMS has been on point on this for 30+ years as well as other matters like privacy. If you want a new feature or support, just pay someone for it! No need to deal with black boxes and the whims of copyright owners. That's the real free market, baby.
This argument is nice, but it doesn't always work. If you write code and make it copyleft, I'm happy because yay, free code. If you build a car and give that away too, yay, free car. This is not a moral imperative though. It's just a nice thing to do. I write code and release it for free (variety of licenses, but I have written GPL3 stuff because I want the license terms to apply). When I do, I understand that I'm not going to get money for the work unless I'm very lucky. It is also my right to create software which I don't release so freely as long as I don't use others' GPLed code to do it.
If someone writes some code, not using any copyleft components, and doesn't give that code to everyone but instead sells it, that's not an immoral act. Acting like it is is weird and is exactly the kind of thing that makes the original poster not want to take you into a meeting. Not having access to the code may be a sufficient reason not to use it. That's your choice, not an ethical certainty. Sadly, we don't always live in a world where code written from pure altruism is available or superior to proprietary code written for profit, which means that people who either don't care about or don't understand the license wars may choose the proprietary option.
Yeah, nah. Please don't compare physical products like a car that require limited materials to be expended to be made to copyleft, which is basically just knowledge. There is no cost in terms of materials or man hours to copy a program and make it available for review and learning.
If the supposition is made that everyone has the right to knowledge without any barriers, then it very much *is* a moral argument. It's fine that you or anyone else might disagree with that supposition but it is entirely valid and consistent with what the FSF and Stallman have fought for during all these decades.
Any before anyone else starts, there is nothing wrong with selling copyleft softrware nor holding copyright over "art" (non-technical bits of code, such as in a game). The belief here is that tools, which is what software is, should be freely accessible because it adds to the sum total of the human experience and creativity. There's countless cases of innovation being snuffed out by patent trolling and copyright; the copyleft movement should be seen through that lense.
It does take a lot of resources to actually create the software. Writing code which functions takes time. Making that code not crash takes time. Creating the resources which most nontrivial code uses takes time. And not only time, but also a lot of specialized resources like programmer knowledge, equipment, attention to detail, etc. Copying may be cheap, but that does not make the rest of it free. It is not. I'll grant that the car analogy is not perfect, but then little is. I'd try a book analogy, but some people also think those should be entirely free whether the author wants to do that or not, so it isn't as illustrative.
There are people out there who hate GPL with a passion. They have often taken the argument that licensing code under the GPL is violating their rights because it doesn't let them use it in proprietary software. I am very annoyed with those people. However, there are people who make similar arguments about anything not licensed under the GPL, including proprietary and permissive. They are wrong too. It is an issue of choice. What they have to realize is that copyleft is based on copyright, just like proprietary is. The reason GPL has the freedoms of GPL is that copyright law makes it happen.
Friend, you're arguing about whatever else but what I've actually said. Perhaps I should restate it even more bluntly: the four freedoms, and copyleft in general, guarantee that knowledge will remain accessible and useful to people no matter whatever else. The preoccupation that this be the case is very much guided by moral concerns and can be found reflected in just about every single essay put out by RMS, the FSF, GNU and others. While there are practical details to argue over, such as this model not being contrary to monetary incentives (and where I playfully disagreed with the first poster I replied to), this whole discussion has been about philosophy.
The thing I'm taking issue with is the "moral" part. To argue that something is "moral" usually means something specific. More than "It's good of you to do it", it's usually "It's bad of you not to do it". In the same sense that it's moral to be kind to people. That is what the original comment seemed to say, and I've seen lots of people say just that. Therefore, that is what I'm arguing against.
It is impossible for any utopian vision to fully succeed across a wide population, because only a subset of the population will buy into it fully. Stallman's "free software" is a utopian vision that illustrates this. Some people bought into it fully, while others bought into only a subset of the vision, and hence there was the "open source" faction that splintered off, and later the Creative Commons faction that had an even more watered down concept of what open/free means. Unfortunately, it is common for a person who believes in one particular faction to label people in other factions as "extremists", "sell-outs" or some other disrespectful term. Unfortunately, it is also common for criticisms to focus on a perceived failings in a person's characteristics (rudeness, personal hygiene, appearance, promiscuous etc) rather than perceived flaws in the person's utopian vision.
"I think Stallman ought to be recognised for his tremendous contribution to FOSS (as Linux is much more than just a kernel),"
Sorry in advance for the pedantry, but this is the wrong way round. Stallman didn't write Linux at all, and the people who did are not associated with the FSF or GNU. What those projects created are a lot of the utilities that go around the kernel. This has led to arguments between the two projects, for example Linux sticking with GPL version 2 only while the FSF is intent that version 3 is much better. Also, insert the Linux versus GNU/Linux argument here.
> Sorry in advance for the pedantry, but this is the wrong way round.
Not sure what you mean. Nothing that you said contradicts the poster and the Free software movement far predates the Linux kernel.
Stallman *may* be remembered for his GNU code contributions, but he *will* be remembered for his political movement and that, for me, is his main contribution to computing.
I read the comment as giving Stallman credit for the Linux kernel. Now that I'm reading it again, it could be that or they could be correctly setting it apart and giving Stallman credit for the rest. I'm not sure which it is. If it's the latter, then my original critique is incorrect.
If it is the latter, it's unfair to lots of people who are not the FSF. This is the problem I have with those who are intent on calling Linux GNU/Linux. Yes, GNU deserves credit for lots of nice code they've written, but by including them in the name as some demand, it does two things that I see as harmful. The first is that it implies that GNU code is required for a Linux system that respects user freedoms. This is not true. Almost all the most popular and required GNU programs have non-GNU alternatives. There are alternatives for libc, GCC, the core utils, and quite a few other things.
The second problem is that plenty of other projects deserve some credit and don't get it when GNU and Linux are listed as if they're the most important. Most running Linux installations, desktop or server, have lots of software written by people who are neither the Linux foundation nor GNU. If the name of the system has to list all the important players, then it will be a very long name. KDE/Mozilla/Python/TDF/ApacheFoundation/Apple*/GNU/RedHat/Linux describes a basic desktop distro before the user installs anything, and there are undoubtedly plenty of others who deserve membership in the list but I stopped listing them. Not that it diminishes the real contributions made by the GNU project and the FSF, but such statements are often a lot more limited than they should be for honesty.
*Apple, in the Linux company list? Yes. Several important components rely on Apple-maintained components. They include CUPS for printing, OpenCL, LLVM and Clang, etc. One could list each project by its independent name, but so the name fits in this comment box, I'm recommending we don't just glob together all the installed package names.
[The term "GNU/Linux"] ... implies that GNU code is required for a Linux system that respects user freedoms. This is not true. Almost all the most popular and required GNU programs have non-GNU alternatives. There are alternatives for libc, GCC, the core utils, and quite a few other things.Sure, there are alternatives -- but that only supports half your statement.
To support it fully, you'd have to show that these alternatives support user freedoms. A much harder nut to crack.
A perfectly normal fit for around these parts then, methinks. Don't make yourself a stranger, Richard. There's mountains to move and lots still waiting ages just patiently patently biding their time yet to come, and be done ......... as in finished and started.
Crikey, that all sounds very excellent hard core porn. Now that's a vocation which is not for everybody. Fickle fashionable and much sought after one minute, simply forgotten and replaced by another model the next, and all acting as if they demonstrating anything new and ground-breaking rather than just following the oldest of primitive scripts and most abused of money-making programs?
You said," letting Stallman back in after what he said, and his characteristic refusal to apologise makes it very hard to argue that the FSF is an organisation that represents the movement", and that is utterly wrong. Attacking a dead person like Marvin Minsky who can not defend himself is wrong. The allegations with Epstein are totally unverified and cross the line to illegal slander. Youi should shut up.
The allegations with Epstein are totally unverified and cross the line to illegal slander.
If written they would be libel, not slander. Minsky is dead an so cannot sue (neither can his descendants on his behalf). Criminal libel no longer exists in English law and in any case wouldn't have covered this.
The finer question is, should we keep putting them in leadership positions?
And I think that's the rub, that there isn't a legacy of the titans of the early days going gracefully or gradually into the background. So if they live long enough they, as all of us do, decline in ability without giving up their power or authority.
I don't believe Stallman CAN do so himself. His self definition is to narrowly focused on being the the mad prophet king of Free Software socialism. Who is he without it? Unfortunately we havn't cared for our hero's very well. Torvalds had anger management issues, and the whole industry has had an ongoing blindspot to race and gender issues(and Hello, Hans Reiser sized problems, in addition to the diversity issues people are starting to pay attention to.) The question is, are his friends trying to help him be a more balanced person, are they making sure he is in a stable living situation?
Not bathing and living in your office are both red letter warning signs to those around you that everything is NOT OK. Torvalds took some time out and worked on his anger issues. While it's probably fair to say he's still hot tempered, he made some real progress. Blowups like the Tridge/Torvalds row that spawed GIT have been fewer and farther between. In Stallman's case it seems like too many people have been enabling his decline, and ignoring the warning signs. If his story ends up a tragedy it will be doubly so if those signs were seen and ignored by those around him. Instead what I hear from those nearer to him is more like "That's just Richard being Richard"
"The finer question is, should we keep putting them in leadership positions?"
Why not? The masses seem to like voting for weird and offensive people to run their countries, so what's different here?
Perhaps the best leader isn't the calm, sane, and polite guy but rather the oddball that has a vision and sticks to it come hell or high water. Which is, actually, more than can be said for a lot of politicians these days.
I for one am much more comfortable with "awkward but competent" in leadership than "smooth but inept".
It's not that I don't think socially highly competent people should have a place in leadership positions! I think it depends on whether you're optimizing for normal or crisis situations. In normal situations, socially competent people can smooth over conflicts and reduce friction. In crisis situations, they tend to either pass power to the awkward technically competent people or fuck up repeatedly, torn between conflicting and contradictory social obligations, trying to satisfy everyone and achieving nothing. (You can nicely see that in action with Covid.) In other words, it depends on whether the right optimization target is more likely to be inside the polygon or at a vertex.
Glad to hear it. Regardless of Mr Stallman’s opinions (many of which I disagree with), the late Mr Epstein’s reprehensible conduct, and the late Professor Minsky’s involvement with him (far from clear), the pedantic comment that got Stallman cancelled was simply mischaracterized or misunderstood by the mob doing the cancelling.
On the Epstein topic:
The problem there is onion layered
Several of Epstein's associates clearly knew what was going on and/or were part of it
A lot more were simply accreted by Epstein because it made him look more credible and those individuals had no idea whatsoever what was going on (essentially their only interaction with the Epstein Travelling Roadshow was as names at social events)
A bunch more were accretionary hangers on wanting to make a name forthemselves by being associated with the the names that were in the outer orbital shells
Some of the information about who knew what in the deeper layers might come out via Maxwell's trial (but I doubt it)
If Maxwell hasn't insured herself with the sort of data on people that Belgian child molester Marc Dutroux must have held to remain alive while incarcerated I suspect she may not even make it to her trial.
I cannot see people who see no problem in harming youngsters having any reservations about downwards adjustments to the lifespan of people whose continued existence may pose a threat to them.
If Marvin Minsky had associated with Epstein, while that could have been innocent on Minsky's part - and part of Epstein's cover - despite the esteem in which we hold Marvin Minsky for his accomplishments, suspicion is understandable. Although the article doesn't give details on whatever the controversy was, and the comments indicate that remarks were imputed to Stallman that he did not make, I suspect I would be more inclined to take Stallman's side than that of the FSF of the time based on what I see from the article.
EDIT: Ah, I see from another comment that, no, Stallman wasn't let go for being too "woke". However, if the comment that got him cancelled was mischaracterized, well, while I am strongly sympathetic to our new awareness of sexual violence against women, I still also oppose political correctness or cancel culture when it goes too far.
I'm not totally enamoured of the FSF movement. I think it's done some great things, but I don't think that commercial 'pay-for' software is a great evil that needs to be defeated either. I'm also very concerned by the prevailing attitude that software, not being tangible, should be free - and that only hardware has value. I am very aware that this isn't what RMS has ever said, but it seems to be how many people interpret it (and, as a software developer, I'm quite partial to being able to feed myself and my family - and we don't eat toe jam)
That said, and however revolting RMS's personal hygiene might allegedly be, I've found the internet to be a breeding ground for lies and misinformation. For all I know, he might smell quite fragrant and eat the finest lentil curries (although such a diet might not be conducive to fragrance, tasty though it might be). It's irrelevant though - he is clearly a (greatly misunderstood, I suspect) man of interesting ideas, whether or not I agree with all of them, and I absolutely would buy him a beer and be interested to hear him talk.
> I'm also very concerned by the prevailing attitude that software, not being tangible, should be free - and that only hardware has value.
If that were true, the same logic would imply that all other artistic endeavours (music, literature, cinema etc) should also be free, as they are easily copied and distributed as a stream of bits. I don't think that's what's being argued, not by the majority anyway.
I think the problem is that when you buy a gadget - say a laptop, a phone, a TV - the functionality is restricted by the manufacturer by means of the software on it. Or worse, the software works actively against you, for example by spying on you. Then when the manufacturer decides no longer to support the gadget, then either it stops working, or it you can't use it safely because security holes are no longer being fixed.
So I see it more as a branch of the "right to repair" / "right to use" philosophy.
" I don't think that commercial 'pay-for' software is a great evil that needs to be defeated"
The problem a LOT of people were objecting to (and why FSF was founded) was that peoples' work was being taken and incorporated into payware - frequently with attributions stripped. I had this happen myself on a number of occasions
Software piracy is rampant and the largest bunch of IP thieves have good lawyers backing them up
That this is mostly a USA-based problem should hardly be surprising. The USA's industrial base was BUILT on wideranging state-sanctioned IP theft, so the attitude "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too" is utterly pervasive (see Edison and the Lumiere Brothers for one example)
Software piracy is rampant and the largest bunch of IP thieves have good lawyers backing them upThat this is mostly a USA-based problem should hardly be surprising. The USA's industrial base was BUILT on wideranging state-sanctioned IP theft, so the attitude "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too" is utterly pervasive (see Edison and the Lumiere Brothers for one example) .... Alan Brown
The following tale today on El Reg ...... https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/22/unit4_acquired_for_2bn/ ...... advises one and all of the metamorphosis of intellectual property theft to its acquisition for nothing of real value received in exchange ..... which is surely tantamount to theft. It is a deft trick to pull off but it does rely on the fewer people knowing about it the better and the value of freely printed fiat paper being widely accepted as legal tender for global spending representative of a nations worth particularly to others, rather than as a deliciously and deceptively simple means of buying up that which one does not possess for next to nothing.
Universities paid for a lot of the work.
People at universities did a lot of the work.
Then AT&T aka Bell Labs insisted they 100% owned it. Thus was BSD and GNU born and later Linux Kernel.
To go extreme and suggest then that copyright shouldn't exist, and software, stories, music and images should be free would destroy the creation of them. The actual programmers, writers, musicians and artists should hold the copyright, not Corporations and not for more than a generation or two (25 or 50 years) after death. Not 75 or 90 or 100 years after death, and not cheating, like Disney does.
The Disney lobbying, increase of copyright terms and DRM hasn't benefited any creator or worker, only rich corporations.
The USPTO and US Government and big USA Corporations are the problem. Edison was one of the first to act like AT&T. Eventually his dishonest Cinema patents were invalidated. Far too late!
I think the duration of copyright probably ought to be a little more nuanced depending on what it is. For instance, a decade is an eternity in software. On the other hand, I often listen to music from my youth on an eighties station which was... <counts on fingers> F*ck! An eternity ago.
But, yes, current copyright (life plus a billion years with sneaky ways to extend) is just wrong. Why are Disney so enamoured by the mouse? Haven't they managed to come up with anything to equal it in a century?
"The actual programmers, writers, musicians and artists should hold the copyright,"
Yup and that's the way it used to be until relatievly recently
The original "royal patent" (monopoly system on devices and coprights) was abolished by king James 1 BECAUSE of virtually the same kinds of rampant abuse and rent-seeking that we see today.
Lifetime+50 years is arguably too much. 50 years is long enough and it was shorter than that for several centuries gone by. What's happened is that the tail has been wagging the dog for the last 60 years
This may end up being forcibly changed anyway. The USA hegemony is arguably over and if China unlaterally decides to revert to 50 years on copyright/20 years on patents a lot of other economies will follow suit because they have no other choice
"I think it's done some great things, but I don't think that commercial 'pay-for' software is a great evil that needs to be defeated either."
Exactly how I feel. Whenever anyone says that commerical software is evil, that's a philosophical position I just can't take. I say let the commercial software people do their thing and the free software people do their thing, and everyone can make their own choice. The only evil is one side trying to kill off the other through anything other than quality software.
At the very least, the free software movement has raised the bar for what people will be willing to pay for, and that's driven the quality of commercial software up in some areas. In other areas, free software has largely displaced commercial software.
And one last thought: most users of free software use it because it's gratis, not because it's libre.
"most users of free software use it because it's gratis, not because it's libre."
I'm having this discussion with a couple of vendors at the moment. They jump from "zero" fees to $10k with nothing in between - this results in "paying" customers getting lots of attention (fair enough) but bug/feature requests from "free" ones being ignored and invariably has resulted in code contributions being locked out eventually too
Having $100/500 tiers which allow people to contribute "what they can afford" towards development has turned into a lucrative model for a lot of developers. If I find a piece of software useful I'm likely to toss that towards upkeep of the repository, etc just so it stays online (and unlike 30 years ago, it's easy to make payments over international borders)
Nice words, but easy to misapply.
Genius and eccentricity are often bedfellows, but it's a free pass to wear ugly socks or ride a unicycle down the hall while juggling, not a excuse for enabling a leaders inability to control their behavior.
The leadership parts important there too. There has to be a higher (which is to say, ANY) standard for those at the top. RMS is an embodiment of the Peter Principle in that regard. He belongs to the side of the FSF management structure, not at the top of it.
Thanks to free software we live in a world where innovation is not choked by licenses and difficult or costly access to technology.
Mr. Stallman, Torvalds, Kernigan and Ritchie deserve to be honored and awarded for their contributions to a world where access to technology, needed for implementing innovative ideas, became easy.
It is the same with Ralph Nader, the discussion he initiated saved countless millions of lives over the decades.
>It is the same with Ralph Nader, the discussion he initiated saved countless millions of lives over the decades.
The opposition to Nuclear Power in America resulting in the amount of coal fired power probably killed a few million
nadar's oppostiion is relatively well founded for steam bombs (water moderated reactors).
What he DIDN'T know is that intrinsically safe designed were developed and tested at Oak Ridge in the 1960s - because the USA government made them "above top secret" due to the design and fuelling divorcing civil nuclear power from being dependent on weaponsmaking
Alvin Weinberg's light water uranium reactor (nautilus) = laboratory glassware prototype (and about as fragile)
Alvin Wenberg's molten salt thorium reactor (MSRE) = industrial prototype with none of the downsides of the original (and only 1% waste vs 99%)
Guess which one got scaled to rube-goldberg sizes and which one got Weinberg drummed out of the USA nuclear program?
Since he just pulled a David "Diamond Dave" Lee Roth and declared himself a board member, and he was pushed out under the cloud of this era's Gary Glitter.
maybe "Rhinestone Richard?"
I was happy to see him go, but mostly for his increasingly unstable behavior and public ranting. The FSF has important work, and after decades of living in a reality bubble, Stallman has let himself slip too far to be trusted at the helm. It probably would have been better for him to have passed the torch gracefully. Still, if he's going to get a second chance I wish him every success, I just hope he heard and onboarded some of the concerns the community had about his behaviour. Otherwise it will end up as a cult of personality chained to an unhealthy person. I'd rather that end up as a redemption story, and another golden age at the FSF, but who knows what the future holds.
Notably, the claim was only that "she was told sleep with Minsky" not that she did. Which is compatible which the typical behavior of 60+ year old acedemic who would not feel comfortable jumping into bed with a extremely young woman at the drop of a hat. Yet, Stallman decided to so-called "defend" Minsky by proposing that if he had slept with the girl, he would have been justified - implicitly asserting that is what happened.. Stallman was projecting his own values onto the Minsky situation instead of just saying "this is what I, as an aging male, would have done". Terribly twisted and contorted, selfish, logic.
I think it is good that he has the opportunity to remain a (hopefully) productive member of FSF, but the danger to Stallman himself and the FSF is that he will believe the voices telling him he is a hero for "speaking the truth" about Minsky and act accordingly.
Yet, Stallman decided to so-called "defend" Minsky by proposing that if he had slept with the girl, he would have been justified - implicitly asserting that is what happened.Nope. You're not reading his pedantic comment pedantically enough.
What he said was that if Minsky had slept with the girl, he might have been "justified" (namely if he didn't realise she was being coerced into it).
Which AFAICS is perfectly correct. (NB: Just "justified", not sensible or tasteful. I don't think RMS said anything either way on that; that was just not what his pedantic comment was being pedantic about.) Anyway, an "if" statement doesn't logically say anything about whether the antecedent for the conditional is true or not, so the overly-literal (possibly autistically)-logical RMS in all probability didn't mean to imply anything of the kind.
Hi. I am new here. I am glad rms is back. It is my opinion that, while we made important progress (although definitely not enough) in raising awareness about misogyny, systemic racism and certain other great evils, there have been a few injustices in between. As in many other situations, the answer is in neither pole---we must listen to everyone and make a synthesis. In that spirit, I welcome many of the ethical advances of the last decades, I greatly oppose unenlightened people such as Trump and Bolsonaro (whom I call "President Joker"---murderous clown), and I generally resent those who take pride in being "politically incorrect" (which often means "ignorant bigot"). Yet at the same time, I believe there have been relevant mistakes in this struggle, and Richard Stallman was caught in a "perfect storm" (sorry for the cliché) that caused his flaws to be judged far too harshly, as well as being judged for imaginary flaws. Please see the text I carefully wrote on the subject, based on the ideas of the great Nadine Strossen---the prominent feminist and civil rights activist who was the first female President of the ACLU---and Suzanne Nossel---CEO of PEN America and former executive director of Amnesty International USA---among others: https://gitlab.com/jorgemorais/justice-for-rms
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/23/fsf_stallman_outcry/
That is selectively quoted but if accurate is both incendiary and automatically disqualifying from a leadership position in a US based non-profit or business entity.
Hard stop.
The massive legal liability this represents to a foundation that per the GPL is the assignee of record for all GPL software on recent license versions is real threat. The FSF doesn't have mountains of cash to burn on lawyers for harassment or toxic work environment suits, or damages from losing them. People donating to the FSF expect that that money go to producing or advocating free and open non-commercial software, not Stallman's defense fund.
If free and open noncommercial development groups can be sued based on politics and hearsay about their members, how is that free (as in libre)? Getting the code is only half the equation; if you're socially barred from contributing back, or being recognized for your contributions, I don't think that's compatible with FOSS. As such, I think there's merit in the FSF setting a precedent that they won't fold to legal intimidation tactics.
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