October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
  • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgM
    24·
    15 days ago

    he’s not particularly relevant at this point, but even this one note (and its retraction) feel like they should put to bed whether or not Richard Stallman should have any influence over anything:

    Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.

    I am skeptical of 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.

    [Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects. These conversations eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and adults should not do it.]

    like, bro, what are you doing. beyond being abhorrent, this is the sort of nonsense Reddit used to be infamous for and it made the website fucking rancid. why would anyone want to share a political movement with Stallman when he has to be debated out of positions like “you should not have sexual relations with people under the age of 13.”

    • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      11·
      15 days ago

      Yeah it’s a very thorough report and makes it very clear just how little excuse there is for FSF and Stallman’s other defenders to continue to enable and support his behavior. Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

      • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgM
        8·
        15 days ago

        Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

        hilariously you can see some of the reflexive defense of him over in the FOSS thread of this article. way too many people feel obliged to run defense for this guy and it’s just cringeworthy to watch