from Hacker News

The Burden of Leadership: Why Richard Stallman Was Right to Step Down

by renegadesensei on 9/17/19, 10:19 PM with 22 comments

• by lettergram on 9/17/19, 10:58 PM

  Having spent a bit of time with Stallman (an afternoon), honestly, I don’t think he understands how his comments impact people. At least initially.

  I also agree that the media has over stepped here (as has Stallman).

  Stallman approaches things with an uncompromising view of moral integrity. He was wrong in this case, but IMO it’s the equivalent of me telling my non-tech friends about how we should lock down our phones. They don’t get it or care. Stallman likewise didn’t seem to care too much here, and now he’s paying the price.

  All that being said, his belief system guides the FSF. I’m concerned that the FSF will degrade with him being gone.

  Still head priest at the church of GNU though.

• by agateform on 9/17/19, 11:46 PM

  The following is the quote from RMS found on page 16 in the document posted by vice https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929-091320191420...

  "We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates."

  The following quote posted on righteousruminations blog does not appear in the PDF file posted by vice. Here is the quote from the blog -> "it might not be so terrible if a 73 year old * an underage girl if he didn't know she was underage and being coerced." (I removed the curse word so this post doesn't get blocked)

  I assume the quote by the righteousruminations blog to be an opinion and not an actual quote from RMS.

• by tunesmith on 9/17/19, 11:17 PM

  More generally, if your leadership position depends on making and defending an argument that is based off of strong premises, and you seek to amass a lot of support for that argument, it seems the most effective pathway is to be very visible when making that argument, and rather private otherwise. This is just because if you are trying to maximize support among those that agree with your argument, you are going to attract people that disagree on other arguments. It requires focus. As soon as you, a leader, weigh in on another divisive argument that has nothing to do with your charter, it acts as a filter that can jeopardize large swaths of support.

  I'm also a little fascinated, just generally, by the tendency for very smart people to make "good points for bad reasons" - strenuously quibbling with some premise that would make no relevant impact to the lemmas and conclusions constructed atop them. It's like an inability to grasp larger points.

• by new_realist on 9/17/19, 11:34 PM

  A responsible leader wouldn’t have waded into the Epstein issue at all, knowing that any comments made would reflect on the FSF. There is no upside reason to risk the FSF, but Stallman can’t think that far ahead.

• by peterwwillis on 9/17/19, 10:59 PM

  I forgot that whole Stallman-performing-nasal-sex-on-himself-at-dinner and please-use-my-body-for-necrophilia comment. It was a simpler time back in 2003...

  .... However, I did not know about his quote on this page (https://stallman.org/archives/2003-mar-jun.html#28%20June%20...) starting with "The nominee is quoted as saying". I honestly cannot tell if that was an attempt at a bad joke or dead serious.

• by mixologic on 9/18/19, 3:07 PM

  "Right wing SJW" what... is that?

• by TheOperator on 9/17/19, 10:58 PM

  Feels weird for right wingers to be defending a hippie like stallman.

• by stillbourne on 9/17/19, 11:29 PM

  This video by Tim Minchin basically sums up my feelings on RMS.

  (NSFW: Language) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFsZRQL6QdI

  I grew up with RMS as one of my heroes, even if a lesser hero and one that I tended to shy away from for his dogmatism. I no longer have any respect for him. His work was good for the FSF but them's the breaks. No more respect.