Stallman's word to the free software community.

Stallman's word

En Linux Adictos we have been covering everything related to the return of Richard Stallman to the steering committee of the Free Software Foundation. The protagonist's own word was missing.

Stallman's word

At Lóleo Eventos, news section from the Foundation's website, RMS wrote:

Since my adolescence, it felt like there was a movie curtain separating me from other people de my age. He understood the words of their conversations, but could not understand why they were saying what they were saying. Much later I realized that I did not understand the subtle signals that other people were responding to.

Later, I found out that some people had negative reactions to my behavior, which I didn't even know aboutto. By being direct and honest with my thoughts, sometimes he made others uncomfortable or even offended, especially women. This was not a choice: I did not understand the problem well enough to know what options there were.

Sometimes I lost my nerves because I didn't have the social skills to avoid him.or. Some people could bear it; others felt hurt. I apologize to each of them. Please direct your criticism at me, not at the Free Software Foundation.

Every once in a while I learned something about relationships and social skills, so Over the years I have found ways to improve in these situations. When people help me understand one aspect of what went wrong, and that shows me a way to treat people better, I teach myself to recognize when to act that way. I keep making this effort, and with time I get better.

Some have described me as a deaf person, and it's fair. With my difficulty understanding social cues, that tends to happen. For example, I defended Professor Minsky on an MIT mailing list after someone concluded that he was just as guilty as Jeffrey Epstein. To my surprise, some thought that my message defended Epstein. As he had previously stated, Epstein is a serial rapist, and rapists must be punished. I wish that his victims and those harmed by him receive justice.

False accusations - real or imagined, against myself or against others - especially infuriate me. I knew Minsky only from afar, but seeing him wrongly accused made me come to his defense. I would have done it for anyone. Police brutality infuriates me, but when police officers later lie about their victims, this false accusation is the ultimate outrage to me. CI wave racism and sexism, including their systemic forms, so when people say I don't, that hurts too.

It was fine for him to talk about the injustice against Minsky, but it was a lack of tone that he did not recognize as context the injustice Epstein committed against women or the pain he caused.

I have learned something from this about how to be nice to people who have been hurt. In the future, that will help me to be nice to people in other situations, which is what I hope to do.

My opinion

I understand what Stallman is talking about, as a visually impaired I miss a lot of non-verbal cues and have had some communication difficulties. Although, not as serious as his. Someone commented in a chat, although I have not verified it, that he suffers from some type of disorder of the autism spectrum. The truth is that it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no moral motive behind the brutal campaign promoted by some corporations that earn more from open source than they return. And the invaluable help of people who see open source as a political platform.
I would not have written the paragraph

It was fine for him to talk about the injustice against Minsky, but it was a lack of tone that he did not recognize as context the injustice Epstein committed against women or the pain he caused.

It seems to me an attempt at submission to the dictatorship of the politically correct that requires demonstrating purity of faith by reciting ritual phrases. There were reasons for Stallman to talk about Minsky, but he had no reason to comment on Epstein


4 comments, leave yours

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  1.   yo said

    Richard Stallman has asperger's.

    1.    Diego German Gonzalez said

      Thanks for the tip

  2.   Tepuflipo said

    You would not have written one of the paragraphs, but I think the whole letter should have been unnecessary. Stallman clearly did not support any crime and it cannot even be said that he had little delicacy with victims. But even not being nice or rude does not mean being a criminal and it has nothing to do with your position in the FSF.

    This is evident to any honest person who looks at the case. What happens is that this is a witch hunt and not a trial and in witch hunts nothing really matters. The case against Stallman takes advantage of the aberration that is the new puritanism of the politically correct, but I have no doubt that this is the excuse that is being used for not raising criticism of other reasons (personal satiety, desire to change FSF policy, etc). It is like when Philip IV of France accused the Templars of Satanism and other heretical rites to be able to seize the pasta without being criticized.

    However, the letter and even the paragraph that you criticize seems good to me because it thus makes it clear that his dismissal is not for what he thinks but that it is a simple excuse. It won't do you any good, of course, but it stays that way for when the case is analyzed in the future.

    1.    Diego German Gonzalez said

      Great your comment.