Will OSI participate in any future events hosted on the MIT or Harvard campuses after these universities' complicity in helping Jeffrey Epstein avoid prosecution on federal racketeering charges for the sex-trafficking of minors was exposed by whistle-blowers?
Not sure why it would be appropriate to exclude Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while allowing Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history:
Exactly, OSI is going to happily go to conferences at MIT and Harvard without mentioning anything about those institutions' multiple, documented actions to protect child rapists when they attend, but they will essentially do a social boycott of RMS because his comments were a bit rude.
"a bit rude" in whose opinion? Yours? I'm glad that's settled because I was wondering how the rest of us should see it. I mean, since your opinion of what happened is de facto and all.
The OSI symbolizes the takeover of the free software movement by corporate interests.
Without Stallman, Moglen, and the GPL, the open web would not have come into being.
Stallman still has the surest instinct on how best to move forward.
This statement comes across as a pure power play by the corporate interests: “We won, and we’re not ceding any power back to GNU or the FSF. We will destroy you first.”
This is not about Stallman’s actions or private opinions, which were blown far out of proportion during the witch hunt in 2019, which was obviously driven by ulterior motives.
This sucks. All over a few comments people didn't like (from a person who comments on the news publicly online every single day for the past 20+? years) about the scandal regarding Epstein and Minsky.
Stallman thinks both men are criminals and serial rapists, and yet, still the OSI thinks he's dangerous because he made an off-topic comment about what "assault" really means (off-topic because it does not lessen the illegality or the seriousness of the crimes).
Yes, Stallman has said that Epstein was a serial rapist.
But, where did you ever get the idea that he thought the same of Minsky? There is nothing like that in the CSAIL email chain. RMS was simply objecting to a protest announcement's use of the term "sexual assault" when the source the announcement's authors were using said "only that they had sex" (RMS' words). Actually, the source states, "Giuffre says she was directed to have sex with Minsky when he visited Epstein’s compound in the US Virgin Islands." RMS had no first hand knowledge of the event, and was naively engaging in his usual lawyerly precision. Here is the article RMS was discussing:
So, his cancelling of individuals outweighs that of others is what you're saying? Since he started the FSF, we should pay homage and allow his behavior to go unpunished? Celebrate his achievements but separate them from the man?
Cancel culture only exists because a bunch of whiney babies can't handle that their views are unpopular with a majority of people. They want their arcane or eccentric views to define them and be acceptable to the masses. When someone acts against the ideals of a majority of people they aren't being cancelled - they are rightfully being ignored.
Wow. It's nice to know where OSI stands. I feel that their response shows that OSI is an ideological organization, which does not believe in giving people second chances, does not investigates the details of the allegations and does not take into account the individual circumstances. Richard Stallman contribution to the Open Source Movement is hard to underestimate. I am really impressed with the courage that it took for the Free Software Foundation to reinstate him. Also wow for the FSF.
> Richard M. Stallman recently announced that he will be returning to the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a statement that the FSF has not denied
He's listed on fsf.org as being on the board so I don't know why they'd deny it.
> If we do not speak out against this, our silence may be misinterpreted as support.
I can't think of a group that does less than the FSF except for maybe OSI. Besides Stallman never left being the head of GNU and did OSI say anything about that?
This is a nothing statement from and almost nothing group.
13 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] threadNot sure why it would be appropriate to exclude Stallman from serving on the Board of the FSF while allowing Rafael Reif, for example, to remain president of MIT after sending a personally signed "thank-you note" to one of the most notorious alleged sex-traffickers and convicted child-rapists in US history:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei...
Nor would it be any more appropriate to allow Mr. Seth Lloyd back onto the MIT campus either:
https://thetech.com/2021/02/25/mit-administration-epstein-op...
What are the allegations against Stallman regarding the aiding and abetting of sex-trafficking and/or child rape?
OSI will never forget that ... especially given how many cheerleaders there are for creating more open source software on both of these campuses.
The OSI symbolizes the takeover of the free software movement by corporate interests.
Without Stallman, Moglen, and the GPL, the open web would not have come into being.
Stallman still has the surest instinct on how best to move forward.
This statement comes across as a pure power play by the corporate interests: “We won, and we’re not ceding any power back to GNU or the FSF. We will destroy you first.”
This is not about Stallman’s actions or private opinions, which were blown far out of proportion during the witch hunt in 2019, which was obviously driven by ulterior motives.
Stallman thinks both men are criminals and serial rapists, and yet, still the OSI thinks he's dangerous because he made an off-topic comment about what "assault" really means (off-topic because it does not lessen the illegality or the seriousness of the crimes).
But, where did you ever get the idea that he thought the same of Minsky? There is nothing like that in the CSAIL email chain. RMS was simply objecting to a protest announcement's use of the term "sexual assault" when the source the announcement's authors were using said "only that they had sex" (RMS' words). Actually, the source states, "Giuffre says she was directed to have sex with Minsky when he visited Epstein’s compound in the US Virgin Islands." RMS had no first hand knowledge of the event, and was naively engaging in his usual lawyerly precision. Here is the article RMS was discussing:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900
The evidence actually shows that Minsky rejected the woman's advances:
Eyewitness claims Minsky "turned her down":
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/
Minsky's wife denies that any sex took place, as she was with her husband at Epstein's place:
https://nypost.com/2019/08/09/jeffrey-epsteins-alleged-sex-s...
Cancel culture only exists because a bunch of whiney babies can't handle that their views are unpopular with a majority of people. They want their arcane or eccentric views to define them and be acceptable to the masses. When someone acts against the ideals of a majority of people they aren't being cancelled - they are rightfully being ignored.
He's listed on fsf.org as being on the board so I don't know why they'd deny it.
> If we do not speak out against this, our silence may be misinterpreted as support.
I can't think of a group that does less than the FSF except for maybe OSI. Besides Stallman never left being the head of GNU and did OSI say anything about that?
This is a nothing statement from and almost nothing group.
Richard Stallman is coming back to the board of the FSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535224 - March 2021 (814 comments)