Why Richard Stallman's Return to the FSF Is Not To Be Celebrated ...

[@LARPANET_3087]

I'm trying to get into this free software scene, but it seems like there's a ton of infighting and snobbery. Are there any online communities in this field that consciously try to maintain a better culture? There's no way I can learn all this stuff alone.

[@arranmc182]

Only in fighting from the nerds mate they do my head in the guy in the video is a fine example of why the Free software movement has stagnated , if you dont like RMS then dont use his software or listen to what he has but there is almost zero respect at times in the Free Software Movement, I tend to be in the open source camp now and stay away from associating with free software movement as they are the toxic side of software now and all they do is moan moan moan and this video is a fine example of that.

[@AbandonedVoid]

No. Pretty much all tech spaces are dominated by tech bro culture, including snarky gatekeeping, condescending elitism, and hostile egoism. You're going to have to tolerate it for now and find the other people who are also only tolerating these spaces. Then you can connect with them and leave the frat club.

[@RobBCactive]

Of course there are, take a look at distro community rules for instance. The thing is with open lists is unlike companies the prevailing culture is visible.

[@Comm0ut]

You don't need friends or associates to learn FOSS when you have the internet.Then you can ignore the politics and the people. Humans who make good coders tend to be neuro-divergent in ways others may find difficult. I've used FOSS since 1999 and the only users I encountered in meatspace were by accident. You only need personal motivation and sound internet search skills. Any humans can be interacted with in forums etc where one can keep discussion on-topic. You do not need personal interaction to become as comfortable as you choose to be. The best way to interact with people is from a distance so that's exactly what I do. You don't need to be part of any "scene" to learn about software.

[@xpusostomos]

Only fighting when RMS is the topic

[@JmbFountain]

The funniest thing about the FSF is that their GFDL (GNU free documentation licence) is not considered a Free licence by, for example, Debian

[@superslime16th]

And Debian is not considered a free distro

[@craigtheduck]

@@superslime16th only if you use the nonfree and contrib repositories ;)

[@QuotePilgrim]

@@craigtheduck The Free Software Foundation doesn't consider any Debian free software because they offer those alternative non-free ISOs in their website. If you so much as have a link to an external piece of non-free software -- which you don't even host yourself -- in your website, then according to the FSF, your software is not free software.

[@echonuim]

@@QuotePilgrim FSF is extremely harsh with their policy, but I think its important that they do this to stick to their core value

[@TrueMathSquare]

Why don't debian consider it to be free?

[@Halesnaxlors]

Another point is that it's odd how a community based on freedom and decentralisation has happened upon such strict and centralised leadership, and also how many still support him. Isn't that losing sight of the goal a bit? I don't want Bill Gates or RMS to have power over my software. That's the beauty of FOSS, isn't it?

[@NCommander]

That's what drives me up a wall. Freedom 0 of the FSF is "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose", and yet you're basically told to go off a cliff if you need to run something the cult doesn't approve of.

[@MaffeyZilog]

@@NCommander Freedom to zealots is always "free to do as I tell you to".

[@dieSpinnt]

@@NCommander "die Revolution frisst ihre eigenen Kinder", = "the revolution eats its own children", a German idiom borrowed from the events of any major revolution, such as the French or Russian, etc. In my opinion, this is long overdue in the free software revolution. You shouldn't have a racist, a rape advocate (or an abuse trivializer), or a euthanasia advocate as a team member these days[1]. Especially not as a leader and role model in a management or representing position. "Free" in the sense of software can by no means ignore the "freedom" of people in terms of their dignity. But this is exactly what RMS does, which makes him a particularly bad hypocrite. Do him a favor and send him to his well-deserved retirement. Because that obviously has to be what he wants and what he's been trying to draw attention to for years through his "silent" cries for help (those disgusting views). Of course, retirement should be preceded by a number of proper investigations in various areas. It's not uncommon for the very people who are so vocal in defending child abuse or rape as a "freedom" to have their own record on the matter. But that should be done by professionals and not by the thousands of people offering their spare time and volunteers already plagued by the presence of RMS and his "cult". Yes, exactly, the state takes on such investigative tasks ... TO PROTECT THE COMMUNITY. RMS is definitely doubly reluctant to that idea and especially as a fact;) Heads up NCommander, you are doing great work and I am glad you are out of this cesspool. Thank you for your videos and the work you invest in the preservation of hardware and showing old wonderful stuff to us, the audience ... so to say: the work you invest in us! Thanks!:) You can feel that your other videos, the ones with tech-heavy content, come from the heart. It's no different with this one. Disclaimer: This comment was sent a year into the past. A service from providers such as the makers of new Star Wars and Star Trek movies and their corresponding timeline(definitive an illness). Please do not use this service or your soul goes directly to S.! (Satan, not Stallman, my apologies:P). [1] "These days" ... sure that was also the case in the past, bad people stay bad people, independent of the spatial or temporal position and some axes of symmetry (a well-known physical principle, hehehe). The change is in the environment: increased and easier visibility in public have changed significantly. Who cared about such a crazy organ pipe from the village in the 1950s? Nobody noticed, except for the closest acquaintances, who thought the person was a hollow nut anyway.)

[@JustClem001]

(USSR theme plays)

[@fakestiv]

People have been surprised for decades that when you remove all the rules, effective and charismatic leaders end up prevailing... You'd figure at some point people must understand how the world works...

[@Jookia]

I haven't been in direct contact with RMS or the FSF, but I can relate to the exhaustion and disappointment in your voice. Everyone who's been even around these communities seems to have an RMS story, and it's never a good one. There's not much I can really add, but I do have some RMS hardware trivia for you: In 2014 the Novena open laptop was launched and sold. This laptop ran without blobs, had full open source schematics and PCBs, and relied on components that were NDA-free. You could download the technical reference manual for the CPU and write drivers if you wanted! Of course, the creators at the time wanted to see if they could get RYF endorsement. This shouldn't have been a big issue, right? Because at the time the only comparison was old Thinkpads built by Lenovo with hacked together firmware. Well after about a year of emails, RMS' opinion was that this wasn't good enough, simply because you could load proprietary firmware on to the chip at all. The laptop creators even tried to negotiate special production runs where they would blow fuses to prevent loading some firmware, but as there was still some firmware that could be loaded and there was no way for them to really do anything about it the RYF endorsement didn't happen. I really do wonder just how far RMS has set things back. Who knows, if he didn't micromanage everything maybe we'd have HURD.

[@vaakdemandante8772]

So basically he denied them the endorsement because they did not adhere to the principles all the way and you are holding this against him? Weird. It's exactly what I would expect him to do. Maybe there should be some kind of scale of endorsement, to encourage moving towards full openness and freedom but if there wasn't such scaled endorsement at the time and the verdict could only be binary I don't see how it could be different than it was. FSF should give tiered endorsements, like 0-tier (analogous to ring 0) would be at the top - completely free and open-source, and lower 1-4 tiers for systems that are mostly free/open but with some caveats, like the proprietary firmware you've described.

[@Jookia]

​@@vaakdemandante8772 The FSF endorses plenty of hardware that can optionally use blobs but refused to endorse this one, that's the hypocrisy.

[@Jookia]

@@Kamil-DIY There isn't one.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

Lmao what? It wasn't foss because you could run literally anything you want?

[@frechjo]

@@vaakdemandante8772 The principle is owning your hardware. If that's the case, there's no possible way anyone can effectively keep you from using it "wrong". It's a contradiction to not endorse something just for the *possibility* of loading firmware. There's no OS that will stop you from running proprietary code. Should the FSF not endorse Linux, because it lets you run wine+corel painter or whatever?

[@oglothenerd]

I think Richard being on the FSF board is a good thing. Even though he might not be the greatest person and even though he has opinions I think are sick to the core, he is still very good at leaving that out of the open source movement. He is really good about not changing what it means to be open source. (I am also kind of referencing what happened with Drew DeVault.)

[@lateral1385]

Hey, thanks for adding captions

[@NCommander]

Accessibility matters :)

[@user-nu5ib2ri9o]

Did FSF somehow improve without Stallman between 2019 and 2021?

[@NCommander]

I'm going to make an assumption that this question is being asked in good faith. As far as I can tell, the FSF was essentially silent during this period, and I can't find much from any of their head officers posting at the time. I did take a look through my contacts list to actually see if I could get a more definitive answer, and last people who held out were gone by '14 or '15. However, the people who just enabled RMS's attitudes and re-installed him are unchanged which is why the petition is not just for rms to be removed, but the entire board of directors. While it's less in the public spotlight, and I didn't bring it up in the video, the FSF staff actually unionized because dealing with the FSF board of directors was otherwise unmanagable. From what I can tell, a good chunk of the board was basically selected by rms, or approved by him, so the problem at this point is deeper than him.

[@prgnify]

@Voluntary Comrade Anecdotes are not data. NCommander shared his anecdotes from when he worked with the FSF and how detrimental his presence was for the people involved at the time and how that pushed people away from helping, even if they believed in FOSS. It is an anecdote, but it has its value, just as it is. We can extrapolate that if Stallman wasn't present (or during these years he was absent) the FSF did not discourage people like NCommander. This is just an extrapolation based on an anecdote. Take it as it is.

[@csehszlovakze]

@@NCommander the FSF was silent without RMS because the FSF *is* RMS! And without him, woke capitalism will destroy free software.

[@pnfisher]

Thanks for posting this. I worked at the FSF from 2001 to 2004. It's important to separate the FSF staff doing their jobs to improve the free software community from RMS and the board. They're often at odds with each other and it's a very difficult environment to work in.

[@NCommander]

I know a lot of people basically stayed at the FSF because of their belief in free software. Even now, I generally believe in the ideals of FOSS, but the sheer toxicity lead to the point that I don't want to be involved in that world as a dev. Seeing basically the rest of the open source ecosystem rebunk the FSF for this is a refreshing (and overdue) breath of fresh air. In researching all this, I actually had learned the FSF had unionized in part due to rms. Any insights you can provide there? EDIT: just as clarification, I have no problem with the FSF staff specifically. While some of the project maintainer such as Drepper were really problematic, my problems were pretty focused around rms, and the FSF culture as a whole.

[@user-vn9ld2ce1s]

17:15 screw ideologies, just apply basic logic: you tell people (and here I mean regular people with just a small interest in trying out something new, knowing nothing about this whole "open source") to try this new OS that doesn't even connect to the wifi, or doesn't load any graphics past the kernel messages bcs of missing driver. That's just plain stupid, how do you want to get more users when 80% of them don't even manage to start a working system? And asking them to manually enable something is pointless too, from their perspective, disabling some parts of the system for some ideological reasons is just plain nonsense.

[@fallen4021]

I really respect Richard Stallman for his dedication and what he gave the open source community starting with GNU but yeah no one is perfect

[@Natalietrans]

He shamed Epstien’s victims that’s SIGNIFICANTLY worse than having small issues

[@dcorbe]

You respect a pedophile. Says more about you than Stallman.

[@Desmaad]

What I read about Stallman suggests that's putting it mildly.

[@ChristopherGray00]

@@Desmaad he had a matress in his room. apparently that's SA... alright what else... he made a comment questioning the exact specifics into the epstein situation, stupid? yes, controversial? yes. but i'm pretty sure you've had some bad takes in your history. really nothing i can find about him is anything cancel worthy, i think you just need to step outside and face a little bit more ideological adversity and get used to it, that's just how the world works, don't agree with him? you don't have to like him, but when you're clammering for him to get kicked out for some questionable takes and unsubstantiated accusations, yeah that's too far.

[@castillo4141]

@@ChristopherGray00 Richard Stallman's political discourse on sex, November 25, 2023 on Drew DeVault's blog

[@evertp]

Late to the party. Discovered your channel recently and lovely to hear you make this statement. Fan for life now!

[@johnsimon8457]

We’re three years after this. But the FSF continues to stagger along into irrelevance as the rest of the world marches on. If stallman dies, what happens then? Is the fsf solely built around stallman? You gotta build orgs for long term viability Shaming a person into individually choosing not to use OSS has got to be the least effective way to accomplish their goals.

[@keithedwards3257]

Don't worry I'm sure your channel will survive. I found this video very informative and I think that it really touched my thought process back in the late 90s and early 2000s that the GPL and FSF was very cult driven. Back then I preferred the BSD license over the GPL because it gave both the original developer and the modifying developer the most freedom using the open source code even though the original developer may never see the modifying code. Now a days I think the Linux kernel might not have seen the wide adoption that it has seen without being licensed under the GPLv2 license. Anyways, I really enjoy your videos and can't wait for the next one.

[@NCommander]

I've lost about 50 subscribers, but I also gained some back. I'm still net negative, but its nowhere as bad as a backlash as I thought it would be. I just couldn't stay silent on this. As for myself, I don't use the GPL licenses anymore, primarily because I consider the GPLv3 a hot mess of a license. It's poorly written as compared to v2, and I do think the anti-tivozation clauses are a step too far. For stuff I intend as a reference implementation, I use MIT, otherwise, a weaker copyleft license.

[@checksum00]

@ People are bitching for right to repair, while bitching against anti-tivoization clauses from the same mouth. Sometimes I find all that shit ridiculous.

[@polocatfan]

honestly if his channel really got hit bad from it then they weren't good people to begin with and aren't a big loss

[@eusebiusthunked5259]

@@polocatfan yes, if someone disagrees with you, it's because they are a bad person.

[@kevinlopezobrien5366]

@@eusebiusthunked5259 disagreeing with someone and shutting your ears and eyes to ever being exposed to a person's viewpoint are two totally different things.

[@oneirophon8912]

Hey, so I just discovered your channel and let me just say it's extremely refreshing to see that you see RMS for what he really is, although I'm so sorry you had to to go through such traumatic experiences, and then watch as the hero worship for this man continues. The way so many people in this community see RMS as this software messiah who can do no wrong is the single most frustrating thing about the open-source community to me, and I will never understand the mindset that just because someone did something really good, they can't possibly be a bad person overall, or that just because RMS founded the movement decades ago, he can't possibly be bad for it or unfit to lead it. I'm glad to see that most of the comments on this video seem to be in agreement; it brings me hope that he and the FSF will ultimately be remembered by the community as the complicated and uncomfortable parts of our history. By the way, on the topic of the FSF being cult-like, I've mockingly called RMS's diehard supporters a cult, but never knew how unsettlingly fitting that label was until I saw this video; the way you described FSF's attitude toward the use of proprietary software genuinely reminded me of some of the things I've heard from former Scientologists. They're obviously not anywhere near as bad as something like Scientology, but definitely seem to at least border on being an actual cult. It really is sad that this is the organization that started it all and brought us so much of the FOSS ecosystem, but I truly hope that it soon becomes nothing more than what I mentioned in the previous paragraph -- complicated history. Sorry for any typos, as it's almost 3:00 in the morning and this comment is a lot longer than I thought it would be, but I just had to get out all my thoughts and support. If you see this comment, I hope it brings you at least a small bit of encouragement and closure!

[@NCommander]

Thank you very kindly for these words. Unfortunately, I did get a lot of hate mail and more over this; people are more interested in attacking me while defending RMS, which I reported to KZbin (and autodeletes the comment since its my channel). The amount of dislikes shows what's really going on. I do think a lot of people think one good thing can outweigh all the bad, or can't deal with the fact that their idols are trash. You can see this a lot when controversy happens with any famous figure, and even seemingly intelligent people can't see a more nuanced view. That being said, the FSF's cult like behavior is actually worse than I described. Not long after I posted this, a few people came forward on the experiences with a more "modern" FSF, and how they had to unionize to make working with RMS even slightly bearable. Matt Blaze (@mattblaze) has full threads relating to it, and I spent a lot of time digging through the FSF's tax returns, to the point that I sorta think they brought him back to raise donations from the controversy. It's ... not pretty. That being said, seeing someone write something like this on a video where I've been harassed and worse is always uplifting so thank you.

[@oneirophon8912]

​@@NCommander I hadn't noticed the like-to-dislike ratio until you pointed it out; it's disheartening, but at the same time, I also find it encouraging, because as awful as this situation is and as appallingly as some people have treated you over this video, it still shows that there's at least a very large minority who agree with us, even if they aren't the majority, and the fact that this minority is definitely much larger than it was in the past is a sign of hope that those of us who see RMS for who he really is may soon outnumber those who worship him blindly. And even if it feels like you're not doing good, that change can't happen without people like you who are willing to speak out against his and the FSF's unacceptable behaviors. I'm sure that of the thousands of people who've watched this video, some of them went away with a more nuanced view RMS and the SFS, or at least were set on the path toward accepting that their hero maybe isn't who they thought he was. You had the courage to use your influence to help bring about a change in the community that I desperately hope to see, and I am beyond grateful for that! DistroTube is another KZbinr who's called RMS out for some of his behaviors, and while he's still a fan of RMS, he does at least acknowledge that he's no saint, and does more harm than good by representing the community. It's going to be a long and hard road, but as more voices join the choir, I think there's hope that this community might come to its senses. Thanks again for lending your voice to this cause.

[@monad_tcp]

@@NCommander Not only Stallman is trash, the FSF is also kind of trash as a organization. Apache software foundation is much better. And the GNU suite of software is horrendous in terms of user interface, and that comes from an engineer that doesn't care much about it, for me to say than an UX is that bad, it must be really, really bad. Nowadays I just stay far away from anything GNU.

[@NickNorton]

I feel Richard Stallman is someone with good philosophy to start with. Became distorted and bitter with years. I'm almost as old as him and you cant exist with humans by offending them. It's easy to lash out and say inappropriate things. You need to do the hard things instead...... Or society will not like you.

[@user-lv6rn9cf8m]

He's been doing this stuff for 40+ years though, pretty much consistently

[@isaiya6799]

Your comment light some wisdom into me. Thank you

[@Madroxx112]

Fuck what society thinks, the managers of society are always trying to control your speech and actions. The purposes of offending and being derogatory is to express yourself to test the limits to see if you're actually free to do as you please without legal repercussion being sought against you. As for the content of what someone says that will always be a contentious argument which is irrelevant when compared to the actual work and progress technology has made thus far.

[@dirkstrider8783]

its been a while since this video was published, are there any updates/ has RMS been removed?

[@NCommander]

No changes unfortunately.

[@dirkstrider8783]

@@NCommander well, I hope it at least hasn't gotten worse I've barely dipped my toe into the open source community so I can only imagine how you feel about it

[@trev-dev]

@@dirkstrider8783I regret to inform you that FSF is not technically a part of the "Open Source" community, but rather, the "Free Software" community. /s

[@zenmark42]

this dude literally just fuckin said "oh you're a girl you must be lost" as the opener to his talk because he saw a woman in the audience. a woman from the CS department had organized the talk.

[@NCommander]

So, it's a few months later, and I've been debating if I want to take this video down or not. Honestly, I don't feel like I did a great job covering this, and I accidentally misframed RMS's statements on the MIT mailing list (he was not defending Epstein per say, but one of Epstein's friends). This entire episode has been rather depressing to say the least, and I've been actively harassed and more. However, I still stand by my comments relating to my experiences with FSF, Savannah, and rms basically taking a giant dump on everything. I'm undecided, long term, what to do about this ...

[@chrislantern9272]

honestly I don't agree with with everything but bro the part that hit home is that you said your depressed I really enjoy your content and even though I don't agree with all your points fuck anyone harassing or you or making you depressed for your viewpoint really bro fuck 'em and don't take the video down! Like I said, it's you view and if someone makes you feel bad about it well they are just not intelligent enough to prove you wrong with fact!

[@qreeves]

I've worked in free and open source software for over 20 years, and I use Windows to do it. I actively use MSYS and MingW on a daily basis. In a world dominated by the attitudes you describe in this video, it has not been an easy path to walk over the years. I can see the heartfelt emotion as you talk about your experiences and views on the subject, and it is something I personally identify with. I spent so long trying to contribute in open source communities only to be ostracised for being "too liberal" in my views on software development and operating systems. I honestly don't care if something is proprietary or not so long as I can get the job done and it allows me to share my efforts with as many people as possible. The fact of the matter is that the people involved in most open source projects are not my target audience, it is the end user that doesn't understand any of that. It is about collaboration and community. It took me a long time to realise all of this, and even longer to create a community of my own that creates free software without the toxicity. I try to lead by example, but I still often have to deal with this toxic attitude from people who come in and try to force their views on us. It isn't fair on me or my community, and I've had to take a very hard line approach where I simply say that people are free to hold their own opinions, but they are *not* entitled to force those on others. I refuse to use the GNU GPL due to the restrictive and infectious nature of the license, and license my code as ZLIB or MIT these days, with any non-code generally being CC-BY. I think taking this video down would just be giving in to a vocal minority (and yes, it is a minority when you consider the bulk of any audience outside of strictly free software). They're not worth compromising your own principles for. I've met many people like you over the years and unfortunately too many of them get scared off by this toxic attitude in free and open source software, and I absolutely hate it. It is a waste of good talent to drive people away for no good reason, and even worse to suppress their opinion when you're not being forced to share it. That being said, I know the mental toll it takes to deal with the hate. I've lived it. I can't speak for you or whether you should keep the video up or take it down, that's a decision only you can make. What I want you to know is: you're not alone. Focus on the positive feedback you've been getting on this video, because those are the people that matter. Most people who share this opinion are probably just as scared to comment because of the negative attention they'd get as a result from that vocal minority, but what you're doing is speaking for those who can't. At the end of the day, that's the best way to give back to the world and what I feel is the epitome of advocating for freedom.

[@NCommander]

@@qreeves Part of why this video has stayed up is because it is, for the most part, the only real dissenting voice left about RMS; most of the other ones that were up were attacked and trashed.That being said, I'm not convinced it's a vocal minority; I feel very much like its a vocal majority in FOSS communities these days ...

[@DaVince21]

I've found this video five months later and it was very interesting, an eye opener for sure. It's your call on whether you want to deal with these people but in the meantime I have to thank you for making it and also taking the time to correct the record. Transparency is king.

[@KeriSqueak]

@@DaVince21 Hey, me too! Three days after you did, it seems :D @NCommander Thanks for leaving this up. Between the video and the comments section I'm getting some insight into what RMS and the FSF are actually like inside and that working with them can be stressful or even traumatic. It's... Idunno, I guess "morbidly interesting?" to learn about more ground-level problems than just the /very/ poorly discussed Epstein comments. Being someone with pretty nasty anxiety and social issues myself, prevalent toxicity helps make it basically impossible for me to even try to contribute to projects. The asinine idea that there's some magical coding meritocracy is simply not true. What really happens is "merit" gets defined (consciously or otherwise) as "being like us" and the stated ideal of it ("we don't care who or what you are as long as you can get the job done") seems a bit empty when the job, as others have stated, really isn't even getting done at least some of the time. We're never going to have a good world to live in without people like you speaking and being heard. It's endlessly baffling to me that so many people try to make things worse for others (or prevent others from gaining anything) and seemingly so few are interested in making anything better (for anyone!). I hope things improve for you and I'm saddened to see you're getting abused for daring to speak out against an idol. Hopefully the change in subscriber population will at least increase the proportion unafflicted by sycophancy :3

[@fakestiv]

When you get into something because it's marketed as freedom but then you fail to understand it's consequences or what it actually means to push for it... Guys, stop making choices with your heart and start thinking with your head...

[@SomeAngryGuy1997]

Elaborate.

[@ChristopherGray00]

@@SomeAngryGuy1997 he won't, his other comments were a 3x streak of unsubstantiated claims that he didn't cite or source.

[@stonium69]

If my intro to free software wasn't from the KDE and godot communities I probably would have become very jaded about the whole thing. The end result of the GNU mindset is GNU HURD. Vaporware.

[@stonium69]

P.S. I see the same mindset in online politics. There are those on Twitter who reject any positive change that isn't a complete and total revolution so I guess it's not an RMS exclusive attitude.

[@NCommander]

I tend to subscribe that the GPLv3 is the single most harmful thing ever done to free software. There's a reason why GPL usage has fallen year over year.

[@heavy0119]

@@NCommander I very much prefer the philosophy of the BSD license because it feels like actual freedom. There's a "linux" distro called Chimera Linux that came out a few months ago that is completely non-GNU (BSD userland, musl, LLVM, etc) and the moment it is stable enough for daily use, i'm probably gonna completely move to that one.

[@computernerd8157]

​@@heavy0119 If your hardware can support it, you could move pver to any of the BSD of Operating Systems. I am just going to stick with Ubuntu and maybe Kali Linux in the future.

[@o_q]

@@heavy0119 | actual freedom like the freedom to own slaves?

[@nineh9739]

>I will not go into details The details are where he's exonerated, for example he had a mattress in his office because he was living in his office, the sordid implication being he was poor. His statements on Minsky weren't public statements but they were leaked and then instrumentalized to deflect from multiple administrators and researchers having personal and financial relationships with Epstein (this includes the head of Media lab who had accepted money from Epstein privately and on behalf of the Media Lab). RMS statements were predicated on Minsky not being aware of what's going on, which while unprovable nobody is alleging the contrary. If someone can explain how a guy from Media Lab with no connection to Epstein was the only guy that took a fall when Epstein's connections to Media Lab hit the press I'm all ears. The rest is anecdotal or political opinions which I don't necessarily disagree with, but frontloading the sketchy allegations shouldn't be used as a rhetorical tactic to make them more compelling.

[@zzco]

Weren't public my ass. They were on the fucking MIT mailing list.

[@sundareshvenugopal6575]

The freedom and the choice, at the individual and personal level to do the morally right thing or the morally wrong thing always exists. If we were not meant to speak for ourselves, we would not have our own mouths now would we ?

[@AbandonedVoid]

Stallman made some valuable contributions, but he's overblown, long past his prime, and thinks he's more than he ever was.

[@gbraadnl]

Totally agree on the unpopular opinion: the FSF is like dealing with a cult.

[@CMDRSweeper]

Yes, the FSF is a specific cult, but when I view this whole thing as a scale where you got all the bad stuff you get with proprietary on the left and FSF on the right. If we are to even achieve a balance, we need the FSF to sort of make it equal, even as culty as they are. They are the inspiration that gives us coreboot and other solutions that will be relevant when Microsoft goes full Apple with Windows. Of course I consider Stallman a weird man and I am not surprised he has all the strange opinions, but I only take a little of the Stallman spice rather than the entire jar to get what I need and I guess that is where my "respect" for him stems from, but he is also a man I am not sure I want to meet IRL. Like if you like a little chili powder in your food, you do not want to arrive to a dinner with the entire 1 pound bag of chili powder and nothing else :D

[@justinoleary911]

Ironic how close minded the open source godfather is 😂

[@faradaysage15]

free software does not apply to free thinking in your own life. You're the master of your own domain and if you don't want it data transsexual then you shouldn't be ridiculed and kicked out of a community for it. This is stupid and ridiculous and insane gestapo tactics. You lefties have gone insane and you ruin everything

[@Froinster]

So it's a video in which you are nagging that FSF is mercilessly upholding the principles it's build upon and it makes lives harder or makes them feel inadequate if they can't uphold the principles themselves. Sounds like they're doing their job alright.

[@NCommander]

Strangely enough, I can support the principle of FOSS while thinking the organization who decides that its unethical that a user to have the choice of having non-free software is taking it a step too far. Isn't Rule 0 that you always respect the users choices? Strangely, the FSF fails at that

[@SheWhoExists]

@@NCommander Gentoo has the best handling of it I've seen. It provides a license variable which let's you select what level of license you want to accept by default, then that can be overridden per package if you want to install specific software that is under a more restrictive license

[@Froinster]

@@NCommander There's no accepting a choice that goes against your main principles. It would be like an organisation working against depression that would accept that people want to inflict self harm. I think that you are mixing up acceptance and enforcement in your head.

[@WimukthiBandara]

This dude is basically against the principles of Free Software and is bitching about FSF for actually upholding them. Fucking ridiculous!

[@robearr]

@@Froinster I think you will find such an organisation very accepting of that fact, and they in turn do their best to help and support them away from such behaviour. What they don't do is belittle them, harrass them or consider them lesser human beings.

[@dardoviolinV]

I'm starting in this open source world and I was curious about how things was done back in the 90s. I found your KZbin channel and is wonderful, but I really glad to watched this video. I thought that somehow open source world was good but is not like that. You taught me about this topic and I appreciate you had the courage to do it. I'll support you and sorry you went through this.

[@NCommander]

It's more knowing what you're getting into. I may give a livestream on this in the future, but a lot of this is that keeping your objectivity is beyond important. I was young enough that it would have been very easy for me to basically fall into blind obedience and never escape.

[@Igor-zh9ds]

that's right, open source is what normal people call software with open source "free software" is something you will hear from the deranged RMS cultists like this dude above me

[@krunkle5136]

He's pretty much Diogenes. It'd be foolish to put him in a position of authority. He's just a philosopher.

[@johnsimon8457]

From Wikipedia “There are conflicting accounts of Diogenes's death. His contemporaries alleged that he held his breath until he died.” That’s our Stallman! 😂

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

I was never a huge fan of Stallman myself. I think he had some interesting ideas that should have been weighed in an appropriate context, but, Stallman managed to build a cult of personality where people revered his word as gospel. He even has this alter ego, Saint IGNUcius, where he dresses up as a Middle Ages priest. It's supposed to be ironic, but it's incessantly on the nose and creepy (e.g. sex talk about priests) like regular Stallman is. Weirdo personality aside, people should have realized something was wrong with his leadership when both Linux and 386BSD first upstarted and then blasted past Hurd. The gcc/egcs/pgcc thing was a big deal at the time and really was about to delegitimize the FSF. You could tell how dire things were for the FSF given that the "merger" was really between the egcs and pgcc projects. The original gcc was basically thrown out. It was even more lopsided than the NeXT/Apple merger. The FSF could get away with not controlling the Linux kernel but without GCC all they'd have left for leverage would be the userland. I'm assuming libc would have gone as well. It'd make little sense to stick with GNU rather than more closely integrating with either the compiler or kernel people. I mean, even as it was, Red Hat was arguably in charge, anyway, at least around that time.

[@stormx2827]

It's telling that RMSs defenders in this comment section do not get into the specifics, preferring to mount some general complaint about "cancel culture" or "SJWs" or whatever. Tribalism over principles.

[@Turai12]

General rule, anyone who complains about "sjw" can be completely disregarded.

[@krunkle5136]

@@Turai12 sjw as a derogatory term used to mean the actual crazies, instead of people even suspected of mob/polarizing behavior.

[@Thorhian]

I'm no fan of modern "cancel" culture and "SJW's", but RMS has said some pretty nasty crud.

[@oasntet]

I avoid hero worship as much as possible so I have generally ignored anything RMS has done that isn't coding. I'm curious what the 'meritocracy' cult thinks he has accomplished, from a technical standpoint, in the last 25 years. He built some useful tools back in the 90s, but then what?

[@NCommander]

I actively looked into this, and I'm coming up with not much. If someone can prove me wrong, I'll edit this post, since the FSF's website doesn't make it very easy to look through for an individuals contributors but I couldn't find anything recent. I do fully admit I might have missed something. He doesn't even seem to be active with GNU emacs development. That being said, there's accusations he actually stole emacs from James Gosling. It's recorded as part of the Computer History Museum oral history (www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dhrcxw/james_gosling_on_how_richard_stallman_stole_his/), but the linked reddit thread goes through the main parts. The tl;dr version is Gosling was looking for someone to take over, rms took his code, replaced the copyright notices to make GNU emacs, some major UNIX vendors shipped it, and basically Stallman got off scott free because you can't sue a homeless man. His work and contributions to GCC seem more straightforward and verifiable, but even then, he hasn't been involved since the GCC 2.x rewrite since the original GCC design was too inflexible to create a retargetable compiler. www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/history_of_gcc_development.shtml The last verified work I can find is his authorship on the GPLv3, but even there, I can't tell how much he actually wrote, vs. just providing the ideals for.

[@LouigiVerona]

@@NCommander He didn't do much. And his campaigns are mostly useless. Saying "stop using Windows" is not an actionable campaign. Also, most of his predictions actually failed, if you look closer at them.

[@0x8badf00d]

@@LouigiVerona I think Windows 11 is more effective at that.

[@hotlaser]

Thanks for sharing your experience! I got the chance to see a talk by RMS at my university and although I subscribe to his idea of software freedom, I noticed him humiliating university board members for asking critical questions about his ideology. On the one hand it was painful to see him being triggered by rather innocent questions because it revealed decades of being attacked from the side of big corporate, but on the other, the despise he is able to disperse even towards the people hosting him (or, in your case, cobtributing to his cause) just left me disenchanted. I suggest to credit him for the serious work as a software freedom activist, and acknowledge the pain he must have experienced for fostering his ideas and which seems to have made of him one these famous "angry white old men". RIP RMS

[@NCommander]

What you just typed up is why I felt RMS was a net-negative to FOSS before all his attitudes towards women/minors came to light. I can respect the ideals he made, but he's the worst possible ambassador because if you attack people for asking innocent enough questions, you alienate them and hurt your own cause. How many people at your university saw RMS, and basically decided "yeah, this is a club I want nothing to do with"?

[@LouigiVerona]

Many people also don't question his extreme radical vision for free software. Some years ago I dug deep into his essays and wrote a critique. It turns out there are a lot of falsehoods in his essays, including misrepresentation of news, problems with proprietary software and all that. This got a bit of attention, mostly negative comments from free software supporters who thought I was defending software companies - which I wasn't. I know YT will likely block my comment if I post a link to my site with the critique, but if anyone is interested, maybe comment here and I'll respond with the link - and maybe this won't get blocked...

[@jonathanhipkey2425]

im interested, post the link

[@LouigiVerona]

@@jonathanhipkey2425 All my attempts to do so have failed so far. I tried posting an explanation of how to find the article online, but the comment was also removed. Not sure that even this one will go through

[@LouigiVerona]

@@jonathanhipkey2425 Hint: the critique is published under my name.

[@RobertHalvarsson]

Just a question, are you the same Louigi Verona that writes music? I really enjoy what you do.

[@LouigiVerona]

@@RobertHalvarsson Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the kind words :)

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

My theory on Stallman is that his behavior is the result of decades of sulking and envy of Linus Torvalds.

[@motog5s477]

I was a Free Software cult follower between 2012 and 2014. Must have switched GNU/Linux distros monthly and partitioned my HDD a couple of times to run different FOSS OS's on, and took the words of RMS as if he was Jesus Christ. In fact, my college lecturer actually described me in my end of year report as "evangelical" towards software freedom. When I graduated, I completely lost interest and installed Windows 10 over everything, and returned to normal life. Got back into Linux a month ago when I looked at porting Android to an x86 PC. I now see how cultish, outlandish and utterly childish the FSF geeks can be. Treating any piece of software with the slightest hint of proprietary element to it - right down to a driver for an external disk drive - is totally pathetic. They talk about "freedom" not "zero price", but their attitude towards anyone else would make ISIS look like Libertarians. Surely Freedom 0 literally means the freedom to choose Windows, Mac, etc., alongside GNU?

[@NCommander]

Yeah that's basically what it boils down to. The FSF has freedom 0, but treats it as "You have the freedom to choose us". I still believe in free and open source software is a good thing for the world, but what the FSF demands is their way or the highway.

[@motog5s477]

@@NCommander The only way to achieve complete software freedom would be to break up the FSF monopoly over GNU and give it to communities again. Whilst the FSF moans and bickers, the Open-Source movement literally doesn't care and gets on with it.

[@jankonecnik4026]

>Surely Freedom 0 literally means the freedom to choose Windows, Mac, etc., alongside GNU? And they are stopping you? Can I get some example? I know they discourage it and others may look down on you but isn't that to be expected from community that values software freedoms? If I was buying toothbrushes from company that stabs one puppy for every toothbrush sale, you probably won't be cheering me up to go and buy more toothbrushes from them. By using software from M$ or apple you are actively making the world a worse place for these people by incrementing their monopoly and approving of the huge abuse of users they're doing. Read the freedoms again. Freedom 0 is not about a choice of software (because we are talking about the program you are applying the freedom to), it's about ability to use the program as you wish, you can't do that with windows or any other non-free program. That comparison is invalid.

[@motog5s477]

@@jankonecnik4026 It's the freedom to partition your hard drive and install FOSS alongside Windows.

[@TheBardicDruid]

You can't expect much from a guy who refuses to a GUI or Xwindow, and brags about it. He's never had to write code or administer an actual network for a paycheck, he's always had his academia paycheck. He has no idea what it's like to work in an environment where a temper tantrum would get you fired, he's completely out of touch with the real world.

[@anonemoose102]

Agreed.

[@fr0xk]

Hey, I just discovered your channel. It's a hidden gem. All this drama prompted my switch to FreeBSD. This 'ideology tops all' mindset has permeated even there, manifesting as a form of BSD cultism (the UNIX way, Dennis Ritchie, etc.). I dislike this attitude. I value freedom, but it shouldn’t overshadow pragmatic solutions. If something is lacking, acknowledge it instead of gatekeeping. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing it. The constant moral superiority is excessive.

[@matthewevan5314]

'Some' good things? He's the father and the FSF and programmed so many things?

[@NCommander]

He made GNU emacs, although it's alledged that he simply took the source of Gossling emacs w/o permissions. He made modifications to Pastel C Compiler to make GCC, but it had to be entirely rewritten, with his last code contribution in '97, and last commit in '04, to add a note about SCO UNIX. I can't find what he did on glibc, it may be before it was under source control so it doesn't go that far back, but he hasn't coded or made anything code wise in dedcades.

[@PauloConstantino167]

@@NCommander You mind is total garbage.

[@toxy3580]

He's the father in the same way bill gates is aka he's not

[@tiranito2834]

@@NCommander literally this, I don't know why people like licking his boots so much when he's barely done anything. The most he's done is actually hurt free software by encouraging the use of a license that actively punishes people who want to make free software and further encourages companies to keep their sources private lol... good thing the world is moving toward a more sane direction (wow, I'm surprised that humanity has made a good collective choice for once!), but the damage he has caused is already there.

[@christopheriman4921]

I agree that all software and hardware should not be proprietary but considering how that probably won't happen any time soon if at all I also don't see a reason to demonize using proprietary software/hardware where it is necessary not to mention demonization of a use of software/hardware based on whether the it is proprietary is stupid generally. Rather I think that we should try and make as much of our society depend on non-proprietary standards as possible to move away from proprietary software/hardware. I like the idea of giving the average person as much freedom over their own life as possible without others starting to take away freedoms of other people.

[@XenotypalTV]

did the plex you created lead to such things as "plex media server"? or is it something different? i'm just asking because you seem to be quite the accomplished programmer. are you completely self taught?

[@adamsfusion]

Thank you for sharing your opinion on this. There's a story with my alma mater that's widely shared upon the tenured professors about how, way back in the mid-2000's, he was offered to speak there. My advisor was pregnant at the time and served as the assistant to the chair of my department in keeping him wrangled. Allegedly, he made advances toward her, made comments to her involvement in the department, and in one case licked his hand and ran it through a tray of sandwiches she had prepared for a meet and greet style event. My chair recalled a story where Stallman made a scene in the airport, being slightly post 9/11, screaming at TSA agents to not touch him and banging his head against one of the walls of the airport, requiring airport security to get involved. The story goes on and on with lots of disturbing details and more on how he just had a blatant disregard for the hospitality of his hosts and a very big God-complex, but I'll save that from a youtube comment's section. I have never met Stallman myself, but upon hearing stories about that from other people I've met in the open source community after I left college and into my larger career, I can't help but keep this resentment for him on how much of a net detriment he has been to the goal as a whole through his pernicious tendencies.

[@NCommander]

That sounds like quite a few RMS stories I've heard to the point that I could pretty much read it and go "yeah, that sounds like rms". There are quite a few posted in the links of things rms did while a houseguest which basically are variations of "this is a human being who doesn't give a shit about others"

[@chriswareham]

Matches my personal experience of the man, having seen his behaviour towards a female member of my local Linux users group at a restaurant.

[@Sepultra012]

​ @NCommander I don't know a whole lot about RMS, but honestly, I would suspect he has some kind of Autism Spectrum Disorder. He has, apparently, denied this, but it would explain a lot of his behaviour. His complete lack of empathy or ability to see how his comments could hurt others, and, like in your example, his reaction to the TSA about not wanting to be touched. It would also explain some of his actions and comments towards women, etc, he may genuinely not understand that he is doing something wrong. A lot of people with autism get into trouble like that, they just don't realise that you can't say or do certain things. I'm not defending him, or his beliefs, I should stress that, but as someone with autism themselves, I do feel a certain sympathy for him. I do feel that he's not a "bad guy" he's just a weird guy who doesn't quite know how to act in society. I would agree though that running a large foundation, given his... questionable social skills, might not be the best position he could be in, especially in the modern world, given how careful you have to be to avoid getting into trouble.

[@diligentcircle]

@@Sepultra012 I'm autistic too. Don't armchair diagnose people with autism or any other mental disorder. You may not mind it, but it's incredibly offensive to me to be compared to RMS like that, and armchair diagnosis is both incredibly harmful and ableist in general. Autistic people do not "lack empathy". This is an ableist myth which serves to dehumanize us. I'm able to understand how people are feeling just fine, and in fact autistic people often have _stronger_ empathy than neurotypical people. Heck, my mom for years would not shut up about how I explained to her how Jessie from Toy Story 2 was feeling from being abandoned, because she wrongly thought that I felt like I was abandoned (that misconception she had, by the way, is something I understood because of empathy). I'm also perfectly capable of understanding whether I'm doing something right or wrong, nothing about autism makes it impossible or even especially difficult to understand the concept of harm. As for the stories surrounding him, they're perfectly explainable without armchair diagnosing or ableism. I would surmise that because RMS has overzealous opinions about spying and whatnot, he was making a scene at the TSA intentionally as a misguided form of protest. And as for his comments toward women, it's because we live in a sexist society and a whole lot of men are toxic like that because they've been taught that it's okay for men to act that way (i.e. toxic masculinity). It has nothing to do with his neurotype, whatever it may be.

[@Sepultra012]

@@diligentcircle I am not diagnosing anyone, I am simply saying he seems to meet a lot of the traditional qualities of people with autism. My intention was not to offend you, but the fact remains that much of RMS's behaviour could, and in the past has, been compared to autism/aspergers, etc. Lack of empathy *can* be a symptom of autism. I'm not saying it always it, but it *can* be. The "myth" is that all people with autism are emotionless and lack empathy, not that *noone* with autism lacks empathy. It is more common to lack empathy in people with autism. I, in actual fact, often have stronger empathy that neurotypical people too. But that's not to say that my experience (and yours) are typical of everyone. There are those with autism that do struggle to show empathy for others. The stories surrounding RMS are, indeed, explainable in other ways, and I'm not saying he definitely has autism, I have no idea. I am simply speculating as to a possible cause. I'm not going to comment too much on the "toxic masculinity" thing, because I think a lot of that is a cheap shot, and is, in many cases, sexist towards men. Very few men are "taught" that it's ok for them to act badly towards women, and there are plenty of women that act badly too. This whole SJW-Toxic masculinity thing is stirring up a lot of anti-male rhetoric that is not based in reality. Stallmans actions and words are his own, and do not reflect men in general, or society. In society, today, men are called all the names under the sun just for opening their mouth (Mansplaining, toxic masculinity, fragile white male, sealioning, etc, etc, etc), that's certainly not indicative of a sexist society.

[@IKnowBashFu]

Somewhat recently, Drew Devault wrote a blog post detailing a bunch of RMS's less than stellar thoughts on sex and consent, I recommend checking it out. Sadly, KZbin no longer allows links in comments, but it's titled "Richard Stallman's political discourse on sex"

[@canobenitez]

I couldn't find it, but I bet is something alone the lines of non-monogamist relationships and a rather low (14) age of consent (that's what I read, might be rumors)

[@Mallchad]

@@canobenitez He revised he stance on that a long time ago and briefly described how after being described why that wasn't a very good opinion he no longer thinks it should be legal. This is _reaaaaaally_ old and tired news

[@fenrirab620]

He specializes on computer. I would not take political advice from him. Just like i would not take advice from bowling bowl players for oil painting. Stop being too emotional about it.

[@NCommander]

rms primarily job is advocating a political statement and organization (free software, and the FSF respectively), so I'm glad that we agree on that he shouldn't be in such a role :)

He is not there to be a quiet basement coder. He is there to be a public figure which means that his toxicity will continue to spread.

[@framebuffers]

Stallman Is the symbol of everything that's wrong with OSS: elitism and arrogance that won't let the cause go forward. Your words must be heard by everyone to understand that RMS is not a god, and that we need new blood on the FSF for the cause to keep on going. Thanks for the words, mate. Wish everyone that idolised RMS hears about what he really is.

[@NCommander]

A lot of people already made up their mind long before I got here. The honest truth is those who speak up get trashed, and a lot of the time, those who abuse or enable abusers keep on going because it's become commonplace for abuse to go unspoken so for anyone to speak up about it makes them targets ...

[@Bvic3]

Everything that is good in the world is the work of elitist and arrogant men. Then, childish weaks who have been fed in a silver spoon for their whole life complain that there are people who are excellent and have a spine. Nietzsche perfectly described the Last Man in Zarathustra.

[@Zeioth]

How many people apart from Stallman do you know that has given you any kind of meaningful tool to defend yourself against the abuse of mega corporations? Probably not many.

[@vaakdemandante8772]

It's an interesting video though I do not understand why there's any issue here. If someone does not like what FSF does than just create another organization that deals with free software. I've read many, definitely not all, RMS's comments and they are controversial but precisely on point and based on ideology of personal freedom. It seems he isn't the nurturing type of a boss/person but then again, does he have to be? Most people aren't either and he is just very far on the spectrum of not-being nurturing. Hell, I probably would not want to work or deal with such a person but FSF seems to be his organization so I don't see a good reason why he should necessarily be removed from it. If he won't do a good job of attracting people to free/open-source initiatives there will be other organizations that will do it instead and FSF will become less relevant.

[@yasin_karaaslan]

I agree with most of your points but I'm unclear on the implications of the statement, "If you're not a white engineer you don't have a place here.". I don't understand how the problem is related to whiteness. Is there an example of racism within the FSF?

[@AaronYool]

man the fact that this has more dislikes is telling of the world we live in

[@The1stImmortal]

I don't really care about his opinions and acts outside the context of his position. If he was specifically being a poor and ineffective leader, then he shouldn't be a leader, but beyond that, meh. Being an ass as a leader isn't even a bad thing per se, if it's effective. It sounds like at one point it used to be effective but had ceased to be so at some point.

[@TadanoHitohito]

hello fellow new australian

[@highlyillegalpigeon]

You don't get to decide that, start your own movement then. And while you're at it, stop using free and open source software, because you wouldn't have it at all, if not for his stubbornness.

[@The1stImmortal]

@@highlyillegalpigeon what are you on about? Im just saying I don't really care whether he's a nice person or not, as long as he gets the job done.

[@Douglasvj]

Thanks for speaking out we need more voices like yours in the FOSS community.

[@AdamChristensen]

I couldn't believe it either. Thanks for covering the topic.

[@NCommander]

I had never expected to make a video powered by sheer rage, but here it is. I'm already getting ratio-ed for it, but what can you do?

[@liquefactor]

@@NCommander i would just like to say, ur NOT getting ratio'd. u stood up for what u believe on a controversial topic and the like to dislike ratio shows the majority of ur audience agrees with u. ur channel will shed some subscribers, but unless the dislikes far outweigh the likes, this video will be remembered as a defining and positive moment in ur channel's history

[@NCommander]

@@liquefactor it was getting ratioed when it first went up, but the percentage is holding at about 75%. I have lost a number of subs thus far, and this is not even peak hours for my channel. So we'll see how far it goes.

[@liquefactor]

@@NCommander ah. i came in when it was 95/30ish, so it's looked abt that way to me the whole time. good luck. i bet u'll weather the storm just fine

[@Reziac]

@@NCommander Seems to be holding steady. I think that's a fair barometer, and roughly parallels the general mentality around free software -- I've noticed that around a quarter are true believers rather than practical users.

[@TheYagich]

thank goodness have a normal take on RMS. it's hard to be interested in tech and foss and having to find out one way or another your favorite creators, or damn, even friends, are "fans" of RMS.

[@ballsticseal]

reminds me of mental outlaws video on the topic: "its technically correct but not ok to say"

[@fawkeyes5111]

there's only one kind of people who want other peoples canceled. you have laws for things that are illegal but i guess there is nothing 'illigeal'. it's about hurt feeling and people with a different world-view. your hurt feelings are a sign for the lack of self-assurance. that's neither stallmans fault nor 'the stallman-enabler'. it's only you and the people who feel like that. the fsf is an open foundation - nobody is forced to participate. again: it's only you who decided wanting to take part in that movement. what went wrong that those cancel-people aren't able to realize they can do their own thing? if you believe there's so much negativity/evil involved in the fsf just leave and do your own thing: create the "ebtfsf" (even better than the free software foundation) and show the world how beautiful it is with only like-minded people! make the world a better place by showing what you got instead of canceling things you don't like.

[@paulbishop2198]

People did move on. That is why Linux is functional whereas HURD will never be. The bigger problem is that the quality of his work is poor and he wastes time and effort. Linus is not perfect but his kernel actually does useful work. Beyond that, Linus created Git. All rms has done is yell a lot and clone pre-existing software -- badly. He's just not all that good at his job. Why should anyone care what he thinks? He's just not competent. And on top of that he is unpleasant. To everyone. Really, who needs him? For what?

[@markcorneliuslau]

This whole “cancel culture” bullshit is so fucking stupid. You’re trying to turn people choosing not to associate their own names with other people into some imagined offense ‘canceling’ by shunning people who want nothing to do with predators You have no problem with ‘canceling’ people. You have a problem with other people ‘canceling’ people pushing others out of the free software community by making room for abusive behavior The Free Software Foundation has as much to do with free software as the Flat Earth Society has to do with physics at this point: they drive experts away so that they can continue virtue signaling the lack of virtue and sense

[@Matmus]

Stallman has always been a weirdo who has issues with social interaction, probably on the spectrum (wasn’t that the typecast Programmer?) but I do worry that before we allowed these people into computing because it was a safe place for them and they could be of great help to society within it. I worry that there will be a whole section of useful geniuses who would otherwise be allowed their idiosyncrasies within the space who are going to be pushed out and shunned. Do we went women to feel safe? Absolutely but we need to find a way to help everyone.I don’t want to let down one community to help another irrelevant if they’re likeable or not. We throw these “weirdos” to the dogs all of computer science loses out.

[@NCommander]

A person can contribute while not being in a leadership position. Plenty of people do. I made large contributions and overhauls to numerous projects while not being a leader in said projects. However, when you're the head of an organization, that entire organization takes on the traits of that person, and that's why rms being forced out was a good thing. Furthermore, if you're going to going to drive other people out, then genius is useless because you're causing more harm than good, no matter how smart you are.

[@Reziac]

@@radio.computer Funny you should make that comparison; after corresponding with him for a while some years back, I concluded that he was basically a communist in his philosophy (you will share, or else).

[@Reziac]

@@radio.computer Yeah... I like the BSD license as it's pretty much "just tell the world you used our stuff" but GPL3 gives me hives. All stick and no carrot.

[@adamsfusion]

@Roy McBatty That's literally what Enron was and it spawned dozens of studies into why employees took horrible positions that hurt people, and it always stemmed back to the cult of personality that organizations built around their leaders. Humans are tribal. We tend to mimic our leaders.

[@zoe700ify]

As an autistic woman, please don't defend people like RMS or describe his character flaws as "idiosyncrasies". Giving space to people that are abusive negatively affects both women, autistics, and folks that are idiosyncratic.

[@grey886]

He founded the FSF why kick him out of something he created????

[@fakestiv]

FOSS cannot work without a dictator. The lack of revenue and IP protection makes it impossible for one approach to prevail without a dictator going around killing projects and imposing his point of view. This is simply because when anything becomes moderately complex, there is no best variation of it: just variations that are more or less fit for different use cases. If you are lucky, every now and then you have periods with benevolent dictators.

[@NaviciaAbbot]

With the exception of the original UNIX dudes, it seems that most major leads on operating system development are assholish at best.

[@SyphistPrime]

Don't be discouraged by the dislikes, this is a thing that needed to be talked about. I just find it a shame that such a figure head like him has to be so problematic. Unrelated, but I would also be interested in hearing about your experiences at Canonical. It might make an interesting video.

[@NCommander]

Thank you kindly for your words. There's a fairly active rms blind worship, and I knew I was going to be stepping in it with this video, but ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. As to my Canonical experiences are a bit harder to put into words. I may do that at a later point, but there's a lot of history that I would need to

[@devnull9002]

RMS isn't problematic, the angry zombie mob of extremists fanatics part of the cult of the cancel culture is.

[@gonootropics2.065]

Its pretty obvious he wasn't supporting grape, he was arguing for better words to describe a situation where the woman is not physically forced against her will. Clearly he's defending his friend who more than likely didn't physically force himself on to someone. End the woke mob. Sounds like they used this as a convenient excuse to shaft him

[@chloeau8284]

your indignation is refreshing, thanks

[@JustinBell1]

As someone who has been on the sidelines for years, I just stumbled on this video a day or so ago. But thanks for posting this. The FSF has always felt militant in their views and it really feels like a mantra that is toxic. I just need to get stuff done, I appreciate the ideals of using free software but I also appreciate that the right tool for the job needs to be used as well.

[@pissnotime1894]

who we hear the most are always the confident minorities with extreme views and takes on things

[@sohamray2266]

Many of the problems of free softwares could have been solved if most free software users and advocates were not extremists. Nothing in this world is perfect. In a perfect world everything and everyone will be free and perfect but that's not possible. We need work with what we have and encourage more people to switch to free softwares as much they can CONVENIENTLY. Because if switching to something makes someone's life and work a living hell, then no one will switch to it.

[@iskamag]

Free software is already more than convenient, we're just making excuses.

[@DagothBob]

@@iskamag There are many good open hardware drivers, but for complex hardware like dedicated graphics chips it's still a long ways off. It is not a matter of convenience keeping me away from full free software adoption. My hardware simply does not work properly with free drivers. Simple as that.

[@RobertHalvarsson]

Yes, there's also the matter of degrees of freedom. It's not binary. I'd prefer to use GNU/Linux instead of Windows, (Ubuntu derivates) but it's 50/50 due to work. More Windows or Mac users with Gimp, Libre Office and Firefox is also a good thing. Heck, if most Linux distros are deemed worthless and unfree, because folks like to be able to use video drivers, it's like the ideology is designed for an a select few only. That's not fun computing.

[@Name-ot3xw]

Couldn’t remember if that was toe jam guy or angry shouty kernel guy. FOSS seems to attract a lot of bad apples. I hear kernel guy has gotten better in his old age FWIW.

[@erikp6614]

It is untrue that RMS defended Epstein, see your own references. In the letters RMS is defending *Minsky* (not Epstein), or, at least based on what had been stated, argued there was no evidence of Minsky knowingly abusing Giuffre. He is not defending Epstein at all, in fact quite the opposite. Is he an easy person? No. Should he be in a leading position? Probably not. Should he be outed? No. Is his position on free software is radical? Yes. He is arguing strongly and not very nice about his position.

[@zzco]

Minsky was a known associate of Epstein's though.

[@erikp6614]

@@zzco Does not change the fact that based on the email thread RMS did not defend Epstein. As far as I know there is not even any evidence of Minsky, the person RMS defended (or not even that), and Giuffre having "sex", but that is not relevant for the discussion. I don't know what you mean by "associate". Minsky received grants from Epstein and held a couple of conferences at Epsteins property. Minsky did not work for Epstein. Was it more than that? Nevertheless, in the email thread RMS argued, in my words, that Minsky not necessarily knew Giuffre was coerced to having sex with him, nor that Minsky knowingly abused Giuffre. As far as I know, there no evidence of RMS being wrong. The key point is however, RMS NEVER DEFENDED EPSTEIN and in the video at 4:55 NCommander says RMS defended Epstein. That is just not true.

[@zzco]

@@erikp6614 He practically did though. He believes pedophilia shouldn't be illegal. How is that not defending him?

[@erikp6614]

​@@zzco Where did he say that? That is also a misinterpretation of what he said. He said that "I am skeptical to the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.". He said, in my words, that it is strange that adolescents exchanging photos can be prosecuted for child pornography. RMS never defended Epstein. Not practically, not indirectly, not in any way. Your imagination of what RMS said, taken out of context, is twisted into a defense of Epstein, much like copying and pasting together something and claiming it to be the words of another individual. He said that Giuffre was coerced by Epstein to having sex, which is VARY FAR from "defending" Epstein.

[@defcon201]

He was defending someone who willingly participated in Epstine's child sex trafficking ring. Literally a version of "HItler might have been right" type of bullshit. Very bad OPSEC and this is who is suppose to represent us?

[@miss_gray]

Thanks for this insightful look into the mess that is the FSF! To be honest, I have never really liked RMS's hard-line stance on things, *especially* binary blobs. It is NOT my fault that my hardware needs those binary blobs to work correctly in a Linux distro!

[@NCommander]

I understand the stance, but there's a line between "we don't support hardware that needs binary blobs" and well, and then you get stories like this: twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1374461429902761987 Free software, at its heart, is a social movement, not a technical one, and you don't win hearts and minds like that. Furthermore, he's a spokesperson that many of us who are in the community avoided like the plague. You can have great ideas, and you can make amazing contributions, but being a leader requires actively being able to convince people of your point of view.

[@NCommander]

​@ you can be true to a stance without being a gaping asshole about it, or being a misogynistic about it, or making the vast majority of people who interact with you want you to get out.

[@miss_gray]

@@NCommander Ok that's just insane.. ranting about noise cancelling headphones? And I understand the social movement aspect of free and open source software, but it's also not possible for everyone to get access to hardware that is totally open source, with no requirement of proprietary software/firmware. I don't like people like him saying how horrible it is for people like me who have limited budgets to use the hardware that's /actually/ available to me. He can go screw off, basically.

[@sage5578]

I respect your opinion. You might hate this. I do not like RMS. He is kind of needed to challenge the big tech corporations (bring balance to tech). RMS definitely should improve his behavior. Removing RMS is not gonna be good for the FSF foundation. Him being back at broad of directors is a good thing. He already got punished, it is insane to give him more of punishment than that. RMS would be more cautious of what he says. Fsf needs RMS to survive.

[@NoBug404]

I disagree. I think we need someone who is an idealist when it comes to FLOSS, like RMS. We do not need someone who is going to harass people and wade into gender politics in the way he does.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

Never seen a single company take him serious. Not even MIT Labs.

[@TheJFGB93]

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on this matter. I'm a Linux user that is not a programmer and I basically mostly just read on developments for the stuff I use, so I didn't think very much when I saw a post on reddit about RMS's return to the FSF that I didn't open. I follow you because of an interest in old software. Now I undersand why it is a big deal and how it hurts the community and its development and how it affects people in a human scale. Keep up the good work!

[@NCommander]

You're the type of person I was trying to reach with this because unless you're actively involved, it's pretty easy to know of Stallman, and not the rest of the crap that follows. It's not like most discussions open "Richard Stallman, father of the FOSS movement who enables toxicity ..." I legitimately debated very hard if this was even an appropiate venue, but my channel is an extension of myself and my views, and given my own personal experiences and times with the FSF, that pushed me into posting a video. (I had already denounced rms and posted at length on the Twitters)

[@NCommander]

​@Rahmi Acar UNIX was available under a shared source license before Stallman ever got involved. BSD was under the four-clause BSD license before teh FSF was incorporated. Linux was never a FSF project. I fully admit the GPL was a good idea, but one good idea doesn't make someone immune to criticism, or saying its their time to get off the pot.

[@TheJFGB93]

@Rahmi Acar I never said that I don't know who RMS is, just that I hadn't really cared about the news, since they are in the periphery of my interests. That being said, someone can be an integral part of the development of something important and at the same time an incredibly awful person who has been a harasser and a hindrance to the same movement he helped create, and he deserves to be judged and treated accordingly, such as denying him the leadership of an important organization.

[@GeoNeilUK]

@@TheJFGB93 Butning question to all of the disciples of rms, how many of you still use ReiserFS?

[@GeoNeilUK]

@@goyslop-consumer Elaborate.

[@krausshusha2694]

Here's the thing. It's called "The Free (as in freedom) Software Foundation." Is it really a surprise that the foundation sticks to its mission? Why not make your own organization if you disagree with their mission? Make "The Sort-of-free Software Foundation." What's stopping you?

[@thanosunreal5848]

this. i think that richard is a weird guy and his following, just be grown ups and stat away from him

[@krausshusha2694]

@@Хлебун You're talking about the freedom of the user to use and distribute the program as they wish, right?

[@krausshusha2694]

@@Хлебун I was asking because I wanted to make sure that you had a clear understanding of what Free Software means, and why I think you're incorrect in your assessment that the GNU GPL acts in a manner of a private corporation. The standards set by the GNU GPL act as a legally binding contract for use of the software to which it is applied. It is written in a way to uphold the Four Freedoms of software: Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose. Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbour. Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits. These freedoms are essential because they ensure software is used and distributed in a manner which respects every individual the world over. It sets the rules which must be followed indiscriminately, regardless of your level of political, social or financial power. It is enforceable in a common law system of jurisprudence by which a government must indiscriminately judge for or against should a conflict arise. Therefore, to suggest that setting such a social contract is equivalent to a private business corporation is just plain wrong. The license holds its own regardless of who you are, where you are, so long as you live in a place where law means something.

[@krausshusha2694]

@@Хлебун Punctuation helps prevent dead end misunderstood conversations, yeah.

[@yongamer]

FSF is suffering from elitism. The idea that you have to run 100% libre. You have to become pure. This is like the elitism that we can see among some vegans. They claim that we have to go 100% vegan or else you are immoral. However most people are going to struggle to run pure libre or 100% vegan because our society isn't set up for us to do so. But the thing is that even going halfway makes a difference and it should be celebrated. We shouldn't fight for software that get's us purely libre. Instead we should strive to make libre software preferable to 100% of the people.

[@nullrazor267]

It's good that you stepped up and shared your experiences. Someone has to expose the nasty things going on in the FSF movement, and I hope steps will be taken to take care of the issues on hand. And maybe 1 day we will have a more open and positive FSF movement.

[@juomariturmio]

More "diverse"

[@furtivedolus2504]

RMS isn't the reason Free Software isn't super-duper popular. It's because most people simply don't understand or care to understand the issue. And it's hilarious you think guys like YOU don't drive normies away just as much as he would.

[@furtivedolus2504]

@@radio.computer You're living in a bubble. 99% of the population doesn't know the definition for open source. For most people a computer may as well run on magic and unicorn farts. They don't care. And Stallman isn't the reason they don't care.

[@furtivedolus2504]

@@radio.computer Stallman's idealism is why we have ANY Free Software in the first place. The very Gnome foundation trying to cancel him TODAY started out as a GNU project. Saying we'd have free software without RMS is like saying we'd have Epicureanism without Epicurus. Like it or not, he's this idea's daddy.

[@bugrakadirhan7888]

Do you have strabismus? (I'm asking because your eyes distracted me a lot, and I used to have strabismus until 18yo.)

[@GarethDavidson]

I get that you have an axe to grind but I also think it's a bit naive to think that a great man would not have an abrasive personality. He literally changed the world with his unwillingness to yield. Do you expect him to roll over to petty sensibilities? He's a philosopher not a politician. But here's the real question: Do you really think that rms condoned Epstein's abuses? Do you really believe that he thinks people who are disabled are less than human? Because those are very serious accusations, libellous even, and anyone who says that sort of thing should be aware of their seriousness and treat it seriously - present actual evidence, or else risk making a joke out of themselves. I don't think either of those things are true, and the people who respect rms for his cold hard logic won't be fooled by misleading appeals to emotion or decency.

[@youreperfectstudio4789]

Your description of RMS is on point a lot of good things in free software happen in spite of him rather than because of him. He is amazingly abrasive. I was not even a little surprised when sexual harassment allegations came against him. That fit in very easily with my experience.

[@NCommander]

Honestly, I wish I could say I *was* surprised, but that would be a lie.

[@roundduckkira]

The only good thing he did recently, like last decade (so not GPL 3 then which was good) is advocacy and promotion and funding for fully libre software compatible laptops, leading to RYF Thinkpads with no proprietary firmware. Even then though it seems to be mostly for Stallman's ego and the hardware itself isn't free edit: and even the thinkpad ec isn't libre yet and plans to replace it have been let to rot, only libre fully pc to do is to get an Asus arm chromebook that can be completely libre

[@joshhoover1202]

14:50 As much as I like the attitude of never using non open source software I don't like this strict attitude. Personally I very much like having high performance graphics drivers. Then on a commercial level this attitude just won't work in some places. There is often industry specific tools that you can't viably operate a business without. A good example is something like autocad. (I was briefly working doing software development of tools that interacted with autocad and used the api it provided.) Even if you did internally decided to use an alternative with inferior functionality you would have problems working with other business, city and state agencies, contracting companies, etc who would themselves be using autocad and passing around files and expect you to be able to open them and have full compatibility with the files.

[@Winnetou17]

I don't get your commercial level attitude argument. Are you saying that because there are industry specific tools, that happen to be all in proprietary software, that is a reason to not use free software ? In case the answer is "yes", then I have to add that, while you're not wrong, you are in the wrong mindset. Yeah, for now you have to work using that proprietary software. But, if there's no free software alternative, then the general idea is to try to support the creation of one. That's why there's more people needed, but so so many seem to miss the point. Of couse there's lots of things missing on the free software department. That shouldn't be a deterrent in supporting the idea, beucase it's we, all, that benefit from it. Rather, it should be an alarm sign that we should be more involved in creating the tools and software so that everything important, everything that we need, everything that we like, has a free software alternative. The never using open source software is just the goal, and everyone should adhere to it as it sees fit. RMS did often go full into it, in order to show just how difficult it is, and how much work it is needed. To support the idea, you don't have to do the same, to limit yourself to basic software and a 11 year-old laptop. You just have to try to contribute (and that's not just by programming)

[@subwaygaragemusic]

I am a person who supports FOSS with all my heart ever since I discovered the concept of open source about two decades back, but RMS just isn't a person who should be spearheading the movement in this day and age. He is a great philosopher no doubt, and I respect his extremism way of doing things, but regarding all the nasty things he have done we should also be able to judge him fairly as well.

[@sa-k]

I agree with some of Stallman words, but most of them I don't agree with

[@romanuslureaus2176]

And that's fine! You shouldn't need to agree 100% with someone to treat them fairly and not slander their character.

[@jkr9594]

Yea, I heard he once said 'im hungry'. (just in case, this is satire)

[@romanuslureaus2176]

@@jkr9594 Seriously? What a degenerate and dangerous individual! Tbh I remember that in the summer of 1994 I heard some awful things about him. That's when I knew I'd never contribute to Free Software.

[@DrBoyPussy]

The man is too extreme, that's never a good thing

[@eusebiusthunked5259]

@@DrBoyPussy So JFK was wrong about that?

[@dr.shuppet5452]

I should throw my laptop out of the window, since it can display a picture of Richard Stallman, and I shouldn't endorse such a device.

[@Error_4x5]

Hopefully, you follow it out the window.

[@SeralyneYT]

I wasn't even aware that he had been gone, though I didn't really dive into the foss community until recently. Naturally I had heard of rms through the linux interjection copypasta, but from what I've heard they're kind of the laughing stock of the community. However, until I watched this video, I just thought rms was a highly opinionated dude. Unfortunately it isn't just that. Thanks for bringing this to attention.

[@lulu4882]

thanks for speaking out and being honest. there is a lot of toxicity in the FS movement (as evidenced by the response to this video, and the reason it exists in the first place) and neglecting to criticize it lets it continue to fester and spread. we need to confront these longstanding issues in tech culture if we want to move forward and build a more inclusive and safe environment for people, even when doing so gets you a lot of hate. so thanks for using your platform to speak up.

[@lulu4882]

@@GC-qe8vc but it has the luxury to alienate all those its pioneers alienate with their abrasive and condescending attitudes that they refuse to address after decades? ok. it's not about having "woke PR", just not being an asshole and being open to changing your tone when it has a long history of actively pushing people away from the movement. i looked up to rms when i was a teen and he is who got me interested in the FS movement, and i appreciate all he's done, but he obviously alienates many people from the movement. the ideal outcome would be for him to address his behavior and legitimately listen to the criticism and be open to growing, but unfortunately he's shown he is not willing to do that.

[@annieworroll4373]

Stallman did some good work in the early days, but at best he's developed some severe tunnel vision that's blinding him to a lot of of the damage he's doing along the way, and it's probably worse than that. It's time for him to step aside. Long since time in fact.

[@highlyillegalpigeon]

You're being conveniently unspecific. Also, I know that you worry about people being able to see your beard shadow when you look into the mirror. You will never be a woman.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

RMS gatekeeps OpenSource from everyone, not just women

[@NCommander]

Pretty much.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

@@NCommander never liked the guy. A fellow of mine was working on emacs, left the project and others cause he had a kid. Everyone was fine with that except RMS who told him that even single-celled organisms can reproduce. He gives very heated comments when people challenge his dated and useless "GNU/Linux" term. He is a dick to anyone not opting to update to the latest version of his horrible License and publicly pisses on people who moved on to do proprietary work, yet he himself propagated the double licensing approach in the past when it suited him. As for the allegations of him mishandling relations to women. Yes, thats good old inept Stallman. The worst part is that people praise his bullshit so he never took a minute to look in the mirror. such a moron.

[@DotNetDemon83]

Well said NCommander. You are correct, it is a cult mentality. RMS is revered and worshipped like a god. The FSF more than likely had this planned all along.

[@NCommander]

I realized I stated the board forced him out, but I'm actually not sure of that claim. I will say him coming back after LP2021 was entirely intended to prevent the backblast.

[@Reziac]

@@NCommander I thought I read that he resigned on his own?? then again, I hadn't paid attention to the FSF in years and didn't then either.

[@biehdc]

Are you going to support the removing of any person who is as toxic or even more as rms?

[@paulbishop2198]

So. . . That is an interesting question. I say this because it implies several more questions. If this were a business and Stallman were a chairman or CEO, any board of directors would cheerfully remove anyone who they thought jeopardized the business. It happened to Steve Jobs, rightly or wrongly. If this were a normal charity or political office, then someone making it difficult to impossible to get the mission accomplished would be similarly removed. The question is not necessarily one of political incorrectness in any of these cases above. But egregious problems that impact daily function would be enough justification regardless of what kind of problem it was. So, it is normal and expected practice to remove leadership if it falls to actually advance an organization's goals regardless of how that failure occurs. The default answer to your question should be: "Of course! Yes! Obviously! Anything that is an obstacle to getting work done should be eliminated in any organization if it cannot be fixed!" My question to you would be: why ought things be any other way? I also contend that Stallman is almost entirely a failure. He is only known for coding GNU Emacs. Jamie Zawinsky can explain. How and why Stallman did a poor job of this implementation. Most other GNU packages were inherited from other people's work. The Hurd project is another example of Stallman's failures to do what a university undergraduate could in his free time. So it seems Stallman has an abysmal record of actually getting free software projects off the ground into a functional state. My next question to you is: what justifies keeping such an incompetent, unsuccessful leader?

[@oliverford5367]

Some of the things he advocates are like trying to live as a fruitarian in the Arctic! So he says to phone in for a video call instead of using proprietary video platforms like Zoom. But all phones, even landlines, are these days software based. Some of the software your call goes through might be proprietary, and a lot of the supporting infrastructure (like the banks that pay the phone companies) will be. There's no way to live in the modern world if you insist on complete free software

[@horusfalcon]

Mr. Stallman is a polarizing figure. His vision of the original software freedoms is a good one. His aggressiveness in protecting those freedoms sometimes runs him afoul of folks needlessly. His views toward and treatment of women seems a tad atavistic. He was accused of rape, but was he ever convicted of it? (He's still walking around a free man, so probably not...) He's made controversial statements? Big deal. You have some involvement with FSF (more than I do, to be sure), so I respect your opinion and your right to hold that opinion based on your experiences. He would probably hate systemd, and he would probably hate PCLinuxOS (my distro of choice). I'd probably hate him for it if I thought about it overlong, but what's the point? His presence in returning to FSF will either be beneficial, or it will not. If it is not beneficial, he will be asked to leave a second time, and FSF will move on. Your treatment of this subject is even-handed, honest, and much appreciated. Thank you.

[@thorodinson8022]

The FSF did not have him removed, he honorably resigned from office by his own choice.

[@JanosFeher]

I wonder when female members of the FSF board has to declare their bodycount and stilettos to the fun police.

[@alexhri]

In all honesty, I hadn't heard about this. Controversial opinion perhaps, but I never looked at RMS in a positive way. Sure, I use Linux, most of the software I use is open source(on my computer anyway) but not all by any means. If something works great and it doesn't have an open source alternative then sure, I'll use it. But I do have an Android phone with most of the apps being proprietary. Hell, I even have a mini-gaming pc which runs windows. I have plenty of hardware that does come with a proprietary firmware. I've personally written mostly proprietary code and it has been what has given me a roof over my head, as well as provided a roof for my parents in recent years. So with that in mind, RMS can jump off a building for all I care. I'll go full free and open everything when RMS starts paying my bills, mortgages and feeds me, my family and my dog.

[@Winnetou17]

"I'll go full free and open everything when RMS starts paying my bills, mortgages and feeds me, my family and my dog." - I'm sorry, but you're either immature or truly insane if that's how you frame what free (not neccessarly open source) software (what RMS and FSF stand for) is or should do. You might want to check what free speech is, what ownership of something you buy is, what a slippery slope is, what modern slavery is, what GPL and linux brought to the world, including all the free (as in no cost) software that you use and have used before and websites that you visited and that offer some useful service and that are free, because Linux and GNU and GPL have a major contribution in that. What you're saying is basically that an overworked warehouse employee at Crapazon (sic) who has to pee in a bottle to save a bit of extra time for more work, shouldn't support unions and laws that give basic human rights in workplaces, until the senator that supports those laws doesn't personally pay that employee's bills, mortgages and feeds him, his family and his dog, instead of miniscule pay that Bezos gives him. Just how wrong is that ? RMS and FSF fight for a basic right, something that does directly benefit you. You going free (possibly also opensource) software is for you own good, and the good of the community, you're not doing FSF a favor. You might see it as such, but in reality, it's supporting a human right - the right to own and modify something you've bought, the right to not be spied and controlled, which proprietary software greatly allows and has done so numerous, numerous times. All in the name of convenience, which many people bought, because, as a whole, we're lazy and idiotic.

[@alexhri]

@@Winnetou17 yeah, no. This had nothing to do with any of the things you said. As I started I mainly use open source software, but should there be no open source option or the proprietary do a drastically better job than the open source alternatives, I'll gladly take out my wallet. I've been working professionally as a developer for 13 years and the roof over my head and every meal I've had had been courtesy exclusively creating proprietary software. RMS has always treated people who use (or God forbid create) proprietary software as toxic, organic waste. Which brings me to my original point: fine, I'll use exclusively foss and won't create proprietary software when RMS starts paying my bills. Until then, he's a hypocritical useless piece of garbage. He's basically an American-born communist shill. And as you can probably tell from my name, I know a thing or two about commies.

[@schmatzler]

I don't understand how people can dislike this video. Stallman's views are terrible and he's not fit to be a leader of anything. I genuinely wonder HOW those people would even defend his statements if I were to ask them. The FSF just discredits itself with this move. As if people didn't laugh about them enough already...

[@NCommander]

It's more that people want to believe Stallman over all else. This is the basis for things like Me Too, and people being shamed into silence. I'm not exactly innocent, I haven't exactly spoken up about Stallman over the years, but after 2019, I legitimately thought it was done. I've lost a good chunk of my subs, and I've gotten some very nasty messages sent basically accusing me of deflaming god.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Because RMS has a "cult of personality" around him with rabid defenders who would continue to defend him even if he publicly admitted to doing the things he defended others for doing. Sure, he'd lose some of them - but plenty would continue to come to his defense. (No, I'm not even going to type what it is I'm implying, because I don't think he actually did it, and don't want anyone to take it out of context and say that's what I'm claiming.)

[@ianmcgaunn7505]

right - the fact that Stallman accomplished a lot and had genuine insights should not make him immune from criticism. his involvement will turn away an entire generation of non-male , non-white programmers from the GNU project, which will hopefully be its demise.

[@NCommander]

Just as a note, KZbin's anti-abuse/anti-harassment filter is already removing comments on this video. If your comment disappears after a few seconds, it probably means KZbin deleted it. I've already seen a good number of nasty comments go right into the spam pile.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Obligatory xkcd, 1357 "Free Speech":

[@reeserivers]

Great video. While I'm not too well-versed in the world of the FOSS community, just seeing the comments that RMS has made makes my blood boil-as a non-binary person with autism, especially the Down's syndrome comments and his blatantly transphobic refusal to respect pronouns. Love this channel, by the way-please continue the great work.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

The only problem with that is how overly aggressive said filter can get. I've had a lot of perfectly innocent comments get deleted that way. But it's probably still better than being flooded with toxicity.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

@@reeserivers I'm an autistic, intersexed woman, so me too. Hope you're staying safe and well, and in the words of our people, "Live long, and prosper 🖖" 😁

[@reeserivers]

@@ianmacd "The pronouns of his or her choice"? Really, man? You couldn't have just used "their"? Respecting trans people's pronouns isn't "extremism," "cancel culture" or going against your "free speech." It's basic fucking courtesy. If you think you're being "cancelled" just because a trans dude wants to be called "him" instead of "it," you really need to reevaluate your miserable, miserable life.

[@knownuser0815]

0:25 should read "Beard of directors"😅

[@cranknlesdesires]

I don't think the FSF is salvageable or even should be salvaged. As a relative newcomer to free-software, I've always seen the FSF as inept and a bad figure head. From what I've seen of it, the FSF has always been inwardly focused, always GNU, always Hurd, and expend little resources for developers outside this sphere. I understand the legal value of the FSF, and the manpower with GCC + glibc but I think both of these things should be replaced. I don't think we should ask how to fix FSF but how we set up a real democratic legal entity for opensource, perhaps in the vein of a union, and how we can make something better than glibc and standardized it.

[@fakestiv]

This is the kind of egocentrical person you need to come up with the idea that all software should be FOSS. "Of course I should be able to have all software for free", "of course I should be able to have a relationship with a minor" and "of course I have the right to be obnoxious to women" are all part of the same mentality from someone who clearly has great problem solving skills, great rationalization but can't possibly see the world from a perspective other than his own needs. Absolutely no surprise.

[@anonemoose102]

Injured genius almost

[@ChristopherGray00]

if you took a look at GPLv2 you would maybe understand that the license applies to everyone, actually who am i kidding, you know this but you're being intentionally disingenious and arguing in bad faith, seeing a twitter-bourne extremist leftoid to make an honest argument is a very rare sight. second quote, he literally never said that, as bad as his takes were. third quote, again literally never said that, straight up lying through your teeth here. just wanted to make this comment to point out how many times you essentially made up these claims out of thin air.

[@unkown34x33]

you know if one day Linux desktop becomes famous... Richard could scare new custom away in seconds! I read about this guy and he's nuts....

The like/dislike ratio and the comments are evidence that the free software community has a huge techbro problem. I like your work very much and I'm glad you've spoken up about this. Keep it up

Techbros don't bother replying, I'm not gonna read it

[@NCommander]

KZbin removed a lot of spam themselves, and I've removed most of the other replies since a lot of them basically existed to attack me.

[@lorenzozapaton4031]

RMS is valid.

[@camaradamanuel5025]

long life Stallman!!!

[@isaiya6799]

Thank you for your insight. Whats your github ? Would like to connect

[@TheSpiritingPoet]

I just don’t want a man who eats his toe fungus to be the face of Free Software.

[@NCommander]

I could put up with the toe fungus eating. Not so much the attacks on women, comments made, and the everything else. Weird and quirk is fine. Explaining to someone why an action isn't ok and they change and learn is OK. Having someone take actions that harm others over and over is where things get bad, This is especially on top of not actually helping get people in to the FSF, and just made it harder and harder,

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

@@NCommander honestly I would childishly giggle at RMS when that was the most scandalous thing I knew about him, but still respected him. He was kind of a hero to me growing up. This saddens and disappoints me, much like it would if Patrick Stewart turned out to be a secret racist or something. Which will never happen because Captain Picard rocks, but you get what I mean, it would suck targ targsticles.

[@NCommander]

I get very uneasy feelings when I watch things like old Achievement Hunter videos because of Ryan Haywood which sucks because those things got me through a lot of dark times.

[@Natalietrans]

what