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from the resign:-to-sign-and-sign-again? dept.
Richard M. Stallman Resigns as FSF President and from its Board of Directors
https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns (emphasis from original retained):
On September 16, 2019, Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of
the Free Software Foundation, resigned as president and from its board
of directors.The board will be conducting a search for a new president, beginning
immediately. Further details of the search will be published on
fsf.org.For questions, contact FSF executive director John Sullivan at
johns@fsf.org.Copyright © 2004-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Privacy Policy.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 license (or later version) — Why this license?
Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Resigns from MIT Over Epstein Comments
Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Resigns From MIT Over Epstein Comments
Famed free software advocate and computer scientist Richard Stallman has resigned from MIT, according to an email he published online. The resignation comes after Stallman made comments about victims of child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, including that the victims went along with the abuse willingly.
"I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT," Stallman wrote in the email, referring to MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. "I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations."
[...] Last week, Motherboard published the full email thread in which Stallman wrote that the "most plausible scenario" is that Epstein's underage victims in his campaign of trafficking were "entirely willing." Stallman also argued about the definition of "rape" and whether the term applies to the victims.
[Ed.'s note - just because Vice say things in the above blockquote does not mean that SoylentNews or its editors consider it a demonstrably provable representation of reality. We're just reporting that they are reporting, nothing more. At least this Ed. finds out-of-context quoting of short inflamatory phrases to be particularly disingenuous, and perhaps even a warning sign that manipulation of a quote has taking place. -- FP.]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:05AM (1 child)
Stallman may have had enough of being president, or whatever. If so, that would be fine.
Resigning because journalists are incapable of reporting correctly? And there's a shit-storm of clueless idiots on social media? That would be the wrong reason to resign. Social media is always full of clueless idiots.
The situation reminds me of the NYT article about Kavenaugh: New accusations by third parties who claimed to have seen him molesting a woman. Only the woman in questions says no such thing ever happened [conservativedailynews.com]. That last bit might be important, yet it was somehow omitted from the NYT article. Modern journalism at its best.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:15AM
I think you misunderstand - he "resigned", as in he was told that he can resign or they will fire him.
I do agree with you though, he should not have been fired over this. It is true he has a history of saying crass things (or as some like to put it, things that are too intelligent for the internet), many of which are not related to FOSS and that he probably should keep to himself. But so do a lot of people.
This is clearly a targeted attack on him. I am not sure if it is to protect Reif at MIT (who is also under fire, now that they found a letter from him thanking Epstein for his generous contribution), or if there is further dirt being hung over another MIT faculty that they do not want released.