@clacke You're not communicating very well. Your response just seems like a pithy dismissal. You've provided glib answers to important questions without providing any references to back up what you're saying.

@rah He has his EMACS Virgins routine, and singles out women in the audience. He has on repeated occasions been dismissive of women's concerns around how projects and conferences are run. People working in FSF and GNU have said that women avoid putting themselves in a situation where they need to meet him. He broke the CoC at a conference and refused to back down, and nobody felt empowered to enforce it because he is rms.

There are sources for these things spread out in different fora i'ver the years, but for now geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Ri… will have to do.

@clacke You're still not communicating well. You haven't responded to the specific questions I asked and instead have just presented a list of note-form complaints. Presumably you expect your readers to go off and convince themselves that what you say isn't nonsense rather than you putting in the effort to communicate properly and intelligently. (1/2)

@clacke That reference does not do. I can find evidence on that website, after having to find it, supporting only one of the complaints you raised. Can I suggest that you take the time to lay out your complaints clearly, in depth and with supporting references? Possibly using a medium that isn't bound by character limits and doesn't engender low signal-to-noise ratios? Your complaints might then be less likely to be dismissed as jumping on the bandwagon of irrational appeals to outrage. (2/2)

@rah Over the years there have been sporadic accounts like this, hard to search for but noticeable just above the noise for people with an interest in GNU/FSF stuff. With the current momentum they are becoming easier to come by:

lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gui…

> In 2014 I was hired at the FSF as a web developer. In 2015 I quit because the work environment that RMS is ultimately responsible for was demotivating and sad. All of my former FSF coworkers, some of whom sincerely tried (and failed) to make positive change, have since moved on due to similar frustrations. In 2018 I disassociated myself with GNU (as in I no longer identify as a GNU hacker, as there is no formal association) after witnessing RMS rudely interrupt and derail Bradley Kuhn's LibrePlanet session and insist that conference rules do not apply to him. That was the last straw for me, personally, but this pressure had been building for years.

@rah

twitter.com/sarahmei/status/81…

> In the 90s, Richard Stallman's attitude towards women alienated me (& many others) from any interest in or support for "free software."

@rah This isn't "he should adjust this one thing he is doing", or "he did this one grave mistake and should apologize" it's "he is difficult to be around, people have been prodding him the whole time with no result and it affects the movement".

This is perhaps too vague for you, but for the people actually involved in the organization, clearly it is enough to sign public letters.

@clacke @rah Imagine my shock that people find someone who is very likely autistic to be 'difficult to be around'. That they feel alienated even though society itself isn't shaped for autistic people to begin with...

@sim @rah That's sad, but if the movement matters, how many potential contributors can it bear pushing away for this one person to be allowed his space at the center?

@clacke @rah Is he not the founder of FSF and GNU? Why does he have to be pushed out of the space he created when others pushed him out of theirs? Why don't the contributors that feel he is difficult to be around create their own space and organisation if it bothers them so much rather than pushing him out of this space?

And honestly, where else can autistic people go if they get pushed out of their space to make way for others when it becomes popular?

@sim @clacke @rah he is the founder, and he is really smart. he is not a leader, and never should've been the leader of the movement. him being leader has not helped the movements grow, and i wish he had taken a lower position on his own.

i don't support the reasoning behind rms being pushed out, but this would've happened eventually. it's a bittersweet change for fsf and gnu

@why @clacke @rah I don't support him being pushed out either... and at the same time, I don't think he is leadership material. I wish things hadn't gone this way...

>Why does he have to be pushed out of the space he created when others pushed him out of theirs? Why don't the contributors that feel he is difficult to be around create their own space and organisation if it bothers them so much rather than pushing him out of this space? https://loadaverage.org/attachment/5737060

@mangeurdenuage Yeah, this mentality bothers me. They don't create their own space if they don't like the spaces that exist, they want to latch onto what is already created and push the founders of said space out so it accommodates themselves instead. You can't win, whatever you do. They just want to take and take.

@sim
They are leechs and if I was in power I would kick them out and say make your own space.
@mangeurdenuage

@1iceloops123 @mangeurdenuage I think in this case, it's worth losing the contributors that can't stand being around someone who is autistic. They could easily create their own projects using the licences or making their own, but they won't.

@sim
Mean I think that's what we need in Foss
@mangeurdenuage

@sim @mangeurdenuage the left can't create, only steal and destroy.

@nerthos
And creatives just make a big mighty poo
@sim @mangeurdenuage

@sim @rah

> Why don't the contributors that feel he is difficult to be around create their own space and organisation if it bothers them so much rather than pushing him out of this space?

Reading between the lines for the last decade and a half, it seems to me that SFC is partly this. But many projects are still in GNU and the FSF is still the steward of the centerpiece of copyleft.

Maybe they will all fork and leave eventually, and maybe there will be a non-FSF license to take the GPL's throne eventually, but for the moment people are still trying to make it work from the inside rather than giving up.

@clacke @rah But surely it does already work as intended from the inside when it comes to free software principles. It seems like some people want to push more into it, make it more about social justice. Like Code of Conducts tend to be. Where do autistic people go that don't fit this? Why should they be pressured out in favour of this? Especially in a space they created like when it comes to RMS?

@clacke@libranet.de @rah@social.librem.one
>Discouraging women from direct involvement in GNU.
It's not because one person or a few decided to not join free software that it applies to all females on the planet. It's not because it maybe have happened "sporadically" that it happens all the time.

>outlined in the Medium post that launched this
That medium post is as violent and false as it can be.
All the arguments made are in it are incorrect evaluation/interpretation of possible events or quotes if they ever happened. see: https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html

>He has his EMACS Virgins routine
The saint-Ignatius virgins speech has been changed a long time ago.

>and singles out women in the audience
It singles out people who have no humor tbh.

>because he is rms.
Because he never accepted it in the first place.
There's a reason why the GPL is about choice/freedom because he lives as such. CoCs are an example of a non free society.

>geekfeminism
That website has exactly the same problem of the medium post, it distorts/interprets moments out of context.
https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html

>lists.gnu.org/archive/html/g
>enabling his apparent pedophilia-advocacy.
Same problem as before out of context interpretations:
https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html

>Sarah Mei
Has been actively invested in the mischaracterization that happened weeks ago, promotes non-free/libre licenses, thus same problem as before, misinterpretation and distortion of reality.
https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/index.html

>Most importantly it isn't some external campaign to divide the movement.
Observing how things went it is one.

>these are people who are in it for the movement and share the goals of free software,
No they almost all (I haven't checked everyone) the same political narrative. They have put their own political believes before software freedom and that's their choice, there's no wrong in doing so, anybody can do that, but the way they have choose to do so is malicious/unethical.

>people who have or have had leading positions in GNU, FSF, GNOME or in GNU projects.
It's not because you are head of something that all your opinions are valid, RMS's personal website is a good example of that.

/via toot.cat/@dthompson/1029725397…

@rah Most importantly it isn't some external campaign to divide the movement.

The people speaking out, like Andy Wingo, Matthew Garrett, what I assume is Bradley Kuhn and/or Karen Sandler speaking for SFC, these are people who are in it for the movement and share the goals of free software, people who have or have had leading positions in GNU, FSF, GNOME or in GNU projects.

@clacke I'll repeat myself:

Can I suggest that you take the time to lay out your complaints clearly, in depth and with supporting references? Possibly using a medium that isn't bound by character limits and doesn't engender low signal-to-noise ratios? Your complaints might then be less likely to be dismissed as jumping on the bandwagon of irrational appeals to outrage.

@clacke
>discourage women
I think women my age do it themselves or that's what I seen.
@rah