Today a very surprising news has come out and it is that Richard Stallman has resigned from his post at MIT and also from the FSF (Free Software Foundation). The news has been brought by the Techcrunch medium and it seems that it was a decision by Stallman himself due to some alleged pressure he was receiving due to some misunderstandings, according to the father of free software.
Richard Stallman held the position at MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab) and on the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation since it was founded in 1985. Well, now his activity at MIT ceases and he is also no longer president of the FSF. Something that seems unusual but that has its explanation, although in the free software media we were totally oblivious to certain things that were happening ...
It all comes from a MIT graduate who published a text on Medium last week under the title "RemoveRichard Stallman«. In that article he echoed an email from Stallman himself commenting on the case of Marvin Minsky, an MIT professor who was accused of sexual assault. The alleged victim said she was forced to have sex with the professor at the Epstein compound. In addition, a network of minors operated there and he was convicted as guilty of that.
These facts are really reprehensible by the teacher. But I want to make it clear that Richard Stallman has not been accused or convicted of anything (there is no confusion), since what he has done is comment on this case through the mail as I have already commented. But his comments have been used against him. Stallman said that «the term 'sexual assault' is somewhat vague and slippery»And that the victim«she came to Minsky totally ready«. To this is added that MIT received funding from Epstein with amounts that appear to exceed what they publicly acknowledged. The head of MIT and Stallman himself have decided to resign for these reasons.
Richard has commented that by his words there have been «a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations«, But due to pressure he has ended up resigning. I think it is the best decision when a mistake is made, big or small, to step aside so that it does not harm the projects. Some try to hold on to their positions despite everything and that ends up creating a bigger problem ...
Context:
For those who do not understand what actually happened:
A woman from MIT took internal emails in which Stallman gave his opinion about an event and put it on social networks to denounce Stallman for what he said.
https://medium.com/@se…/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
The girl says Epstein asked her to have sex with an MIT member who passed away in 2016.
Stallman came to his defense by saying that his colleague at MIT would never have had sex with a girl knowing she was coerced.
A witness who was there claims that the girl approached but was rejected by her colleague at MIT, so it seems that Stallman was not so misguided.
But it is the same, the enraged mass already asks for his head and it has to roll.
Also there is something circulating around that Stallman said in 2003 (16 years ago!)
https://stallman.org/archives/2003-mar-jun.html?fbclid=IwAR12tmEIRHCMm_ODTIfy9TvC1ihr2y3yTWde-lqeJIFdELlEkJefo2KTCHk
In which it says 2 points:
1- That in his opinion a person was naturally ready to have sex since he reached his sexual maturity (read from 14 onwards - post puberty)
2- That in his opinion there is nothing wrong with a person of the age to have sex and who is a minor having sex with his consent with a person of legal age.
(post-pubertal minor 14 or older)
Now, a few months ago this year, he wrote an article in which he corrected what he thought years ago
https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html?fbclid=IwAR2nFLoDL2CWH05uQQQDTgp0ClG5DQpudd5hAxRYj914iPLBPQPULRPQTgc#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong)
In which he says that after a conversation, he realized that it is not only about the physical but also the mental and that a minor has sex with an adult
It is wrong due to the psychological damage that it can cause to the minor.
In no case does he advocate pedophilia (read prepubertal sex, that is, under 14).
But also some time later I corrected and said that it is not okay for a minor (read under 18 years or whatever) to have sex with an adult under any circumstances (even if there is consent from the minor).
And in fact his point of view is based only on what he thinks logically, if you give him a logical argument that shows that he is wrong, simply
accept your mistake and voila.
Here are 2 more topics:
1- He wrote the correction a couple of months ago, so he did NOT do it to defend himself, but wrote it as his own reflection.
2- Is it a crime to say what you think? I mean, Stallman has not been accused of pedophilia or abuse or anything like that, he is only accused of writing what he writes.
It's amazing that one has to explain the obvious these days
People assume things out of nowhere and the newspapers just echo them to publicly lynch someone.
That's what seems most horrible to me.
Hello,
Thank you very much for the information. I did not know it. I will be republishing an article with all the information that I am gathering.
A greeting!
Thanks for the information again, now I have been able to have a clearer idea of something that I was totally unaware of. I hope this article makes it all clearer:
https://www.linuxadictos.com/richard-stallman-mas-sobre-el-caso-de-su-dimision.html
Dear User,
Apparently I am not the only one defending Stallman, what happens is that the radical position of today «Feminazi» seeks any flank to attack a comment that is considered out of tune or unusual and that violates his scheme of «Defense to their rights ”which goes from defense to an indiscriminate attack, misinformed and quite lacking in impartiality.
In this case, the person who suffers the attack is Stallman by a simple personal opinion and where he does not support sex trafficking or pedophilia at any time. It is unfortunate that for people like that student who only seek a quarter of an hour of fame on the net, they harm someone who has always sought to defend people's freedom in their own way.
It honestly pains me to see that many Linux community and group admins also threw lightning at Stallman without hesitation and without first reading posts like the ones you've shared.
I hope this post is spread in all the GNU / Linux communities and they stop being so sensational, irrational and unfair.