I received a lot of reactions on my post about #copyleft and RMS with people complaining that RMS was highlighted.
I’m currently trying to understand more the issues with him. You can help me.
If you have a first-hand account of RMS acting badly towards you (or someone else but you were there), could you please send it by mail to masto@ploum.eu ? (or here by private message)
I keep it confidential between you and me or even anonymous.
Please forward to people that may have something to say.
@ploum I think the problem with RMS is mainly centred around this event:
https://rms-open-letter.github.io/
and
https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix
RMS has since (somewhat clumsily and given the accusations incompletely) excused himself: https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community
@ploum Absolutely. I'm curious to see what you'll find (or what testimonies will find you).
However, I'd like to add, that my gut feeling is that this is - at least in part - a conflict where RMS has become the figure head for a problem that is much wider spread in the community than a few persons. So, it might be hard to even distinguish between the overall noise of dickishness and what happened to anyone in particular.
And the fact that this conflict look so nasty is (again at least partly) due to the fact that "the community" is changing and the new approach clashes against the social/behavioural conservatism that used to be mainstream in the 80s.
@cweickhmann : yep, you’ve got a very good point. For older accusations, it’s very hard to say if it’s more about the community changing and needing a scapegoat or if it is about the person itself.
Really interesting.
@ploum Which, just to re-iterate, does not free him from blame. But I think focussing on him may be counterproductive for the community and its process as a whole.
I've been in a community myself for more half of my life now that struggles with its white male domination and I've heard similar comments even as late as the 2010s. It seems less prevalent than what I've read about the 1980s, but still I (a white male) did notice. To me, it seems that computer science is changing faster than electrical engineering, though (and I really hope my personal experience is not representative for the whole field).
@cweickhmann : I’ve heard famous academical professors discussing, with a big smile on their faces:
— I hope that the #metoo trend will not come here or else, we will be in a bad position.
— Indeed, especially you.
I was having a lunch with them. They assumed that, as a white male, I was on their side. I was terrified.
@ploum Wow. But it shows the state of mind. Thinking that equal opportunities and not being a dick against others was bad, really requires something I can't even understand.
@cweickhmann : well, the interesting part is that people have very different view of the "main problem with RMS".
Also this one build on many others and principaly on online opinions RMS expressed (and, sometimes corrected).
When it comes to actual events, the testimonies I’ve read are from the MIT era (80’s) and mostly vague "strange/jerk behaviours". (the vagueness could be because of going 40 years back).
Those are interesting and I’m looking for other direct testimonies.