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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 17 2019, @05:11AM   Printer-friendly
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.]


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:13AM (6 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:13AM (#895050) Journal

    Stallman was discussing a topic with more intelligence than the internet could handle and it wasn't written for the general public on the internet

    It is not wise to use intelligence when discussing matter of law.
    You know? The IANAL acronym got its notoriety for good reasons - and this is a very good example on why those reasons are rational (even if they are illogical).

    Otherwise:
    1. this page contains the leaked mail thread [vice.com] (or use https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/pages/09132019142056-0001-p1-normal.gif [documentcloud.org] and cycle in the [1-20] range with the number in the trailing "p1-normal.gif")
    2. Stallman might not have needed to get involved in this anyway; it seems that there is a witness able to exonerate the friend Stallman was trying to defend: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/339725/ [pjmedia.com]

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 17 2019, @10:02AM (5 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday September 17 2019, @10:02AM (#895088) Homepage
    My respect for Stallman has increased - he's the only one who doesn't seem to top-post!
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday September 17 2019, @01:21PM (4 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 17 2019, @01:21PM (#895122) Journal

      On Monday September 16, 22:02, FatPhil (pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi) wrote:
      > My respect for Stallman [...] - he's the only one who doesn't seem to top-post!

      I prefer bottom-interleaved-with-trimming posting style too (Pine was my first email client).
      This being said, it's not the most useful style for blind people using text-to-voice, as they need to listen again something they already know before they get to the new stuff (trimming/summarizing becomes a show of consideration)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 17 2019, @01:39PM (3 children)

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday September 17 2019, @01:39PM (#895133) Homepage
        Why would a screen reader be any less capable of offering to read out marked-up-as-quoted material, or to skip past it, or even delete it, even paragraph by paragraph, and even to split the paragraph if desired?

        If Linus Torvalds, Nazi hater of downtrodden minorities that he is (or so I read in a story about RMS earlier today), can add 'add -p' to git, why can't other people add equivalent functionality to their software?
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday September 17 2019, @02:04PM (2 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 17 2019, @02:04PM (#895143) Journal

          Why would a screen reader be any less capable of offering to read out marked-up-as-quoted material...

          I don't know, is it because they don't have the power of emacs behind and RMS didn't bother to implement a text-to-speech extension in emacs?

          If Linus Torvalds, Nazi hater of downtrodden minorities that he is (or so I read in a story about RMS earlier today), can add 'add -p' to git, why can't other people add equivalent functionality to their software?

          Because definitely such a thing does use neither blockchains nor deep-AI, it's just something plain boring and useful.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:22PM (1 child)

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:22PM (#895889) Journal
            Why not try a screen reader for yourself - the answer will become obvious even to a blind person :-)

            Simple answer - screen readers lack intelligence , and adding intelligence would mean that they may make wrong assumptions and not give an accurate rendering of what is written. For example, skipping stuff already read previously may give the false impression it's the start of a new thread.

            Same with any other sort of markup - which is why you include quotation marks for people who use screen readers - they will say "quote" (you can even modify them to say "scary quotes ".

            Hopefully that answers your question.

            --
            SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:34PM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:34PM (#895892) Journal

              Hopefully that answers your question

              (Note to myself: grin more often, possibly in bold)

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford