Edit: a list of complaints over years: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Edit: at the risk of targeting people for harassment by HN commentators, some personal stories from Twitter. Apparently people kept houseplants to ward off RMS: https://twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/994267630457401344
Linus was told by trusted insiders "Get your act together" and he apparently took that to heart.
And RMS is being removed as a consequence of the angry actions of a woman who didn't even know who he was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993364
Edit: I wish you wouldn't do something that you feel puts other people at risk just to back up your point. Especially since you seem to think you have the moral high ground.
You are happy to throw other people under a bus to win an internet argument. Some angry woman who admits her screed wasn't really about RMS per se threw him under a bus. And you're fine with it. Because you seem to think that's morally acceptable if you have some kind of justification.
Social outcomes aren't about the actions of a single person. They are about the cumulative consequences of the actions of many people.
How people choose to respond to problematic behavior is part of that -- and often not in a good way.
> How people choose to respond to problematic behavior is part of that -- and often not in a good way.
Well, yes. There don't seem to be any good answers here. Handling it privately is not at all reliable and may result in the complainer getting privately blacklisted. Going public can be effective, but only if you make a major storm - the outcomes of which can no longer be controlled.
We don't know if people have tried to get RMS to get his act together. But this doesn't seem to be a first complaint out of nowhere.
IMO this was a long time coming, not some brand-new thing.
She did not correct her misrepresentation but instead went on to publish in an appendix what had been dugged and nitpicked to paint RMS in a way that fit her narrative.
the appendix is easy to debunk:
1 can be summarized as RMS has opinions, his personal opinions not being the same as the majority means they are problematic (use a reversal of burden of proof fallacy in the process). Goes on to says that institutions/companies that do not remove people with personal opinions different from the majority should be removed from the institutions otherwise it should be interpreted that the institutions themselves support those opinions. Of course totally overlooks the fact if instead of public shaming, calling for witch hunt and not talking with the person, having a fact-based conversation with the person about his/her opinion could be enough to change this opinion as had happened here: https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...
2 is a collection of applying today standard to 40 years old society, expectation of normal behaviour to someone in the autistic spectrum and leaving the reader to fill the holes when the reason for having a mattress in his office and being proud of it is long documented and unrelated to the sexual framing attempt. Then she presents a 1983 report pointing how it was for women is CS at MIT at the time which makes no mention of RMS in any way but is nevertheless add as charge to him.
3. Goes on to put RMS in the same bag with Epstein, and mentions #metoo as if RMS had been mentioned in it with no explanation and no evidence. Rants about MIT and calls for other institutions to go on witch hunts on threat of chaos such as the one she just caused.
4. is about her personal life and how she felt in social context trying to diminish her efforts and accomplishment, how she is desensitized and prepared for escalation from Stallman but disappointed that he did not and instead went on to apologize. Unhappy with the apology and impervious to the fact that she is responsible and the cause for the misunderstanding and the media coverage, she uses this apology as a call to other people to take her action as a model and fight the powerful people.
So as a whole this appendix is really not more evidence that the original author missed the point and further attacked a wrongly perceived threat and as a result polarized further against RMS and her.
2 -- Stop using "because autism" as an excuse. It's an insult to the many people on the spectrum who don't do and say shitty things. Also, has RMS been diagnosed? Are you a psychologist? If not, I don't think you're qualified to make that statement. I'm not sure you're even reading the same thing I am; she specifically calls out incidents and people who claim RMS specifically harassed them. If you look a bit on Twitter, there are more women coming out who have been similarly harassed. I agree that standards change over time, but when the behavior of 40 has remained consistent over the next 40 years, that's a huge problem.
3 -- It is entirely possible that a single piece can be about and triggered by the actions of one person, but then expand to be more general. Not sure why you can't see that.
4 -- So what? I mean... sure, she has flaws, but so do we all, and that has nothing to do why RMS does shitty things. Also, she _posted the verbatim contents of the emails_ (including the most relevant part, right there, a couple paragraphs into her post). It's on Vice (etc.) for not, y'know, actually reading them and reporting things factually.
I'm just not really sure why you feel the need to latch onto this single post so tightly. It was a catalyst, to be sure, and several media outlets did some incredibly irresponsible, dishonest reporting. But that doesn't change the fact that RMS has been engaging in reprehensible behavior for decades. It's feeling like you're looking at a list of 10 bad things and are saying, "wait, everything is ok because one of these things on the list was wrong!" This might be a shitty straw to break the camel's back, but the camel's back was overdue in breaking.
