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Thomas Bushnell, former maintainer of GNU Hurd until his dismissal by Richard Stallman, has opined in a biased blog post that the forced resignation of Stallman from MIT and the Free Software Foundation is deserved.
https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-departure-of-rms-18e6a835fd84
So Richard Stallman has resigned from his guest position at MIT and as President of the Free Software Foundation. You can easily find out all you need to know about the background from a web search and some news articles. I recommend in particular Selam G's original articles on this topic for background, and for an excellent institutional version, the statement from the Software Freedom Conservancy.
But I'll give you a personal take. By my reckoning, I worked for RMS longer than any other programmer.
[...]4) RMS's loss of MIT privileges and leadership of the FSF are the appropriate responses to a pattern of decades of poor behavior. It does not matter if they are appropriate responses to a single email thread, because they are the right thing in the total situation.
5) I feel very sad for him. He's a tragic figure. He is one of the most brilliant people I've met, who I have always thought desperately craved friendship and camaraderie, and seems to have less and less of it all the time. This is all his doing; nobody does it to him. But it's still very sad. As far as I can tell, he believes his entire life's work is a failure.
6) The end result here, while sad for him, is correct.
The free software community needs to develop good leadership, and RMS has been a bad leader in many ways for a long time now. He has had plenty of people who have tried to help him, and he does not want help.
MIT needs to establish as best it can that paramount are the interests of women to have a safe and fair place to study and work. It must make clear that this is more important than the coddling of a whiny child who has never reached the emotional maturity to treat people decently.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:11PM (6 children)
I can tell you not all white men, or white women recieve that 'white privilege' everyone talks about.
It's not as bad as being a random ethnic minority around the wrong group of people, but plenty of us get persecuted from both sides of the aisle. The indignant SJW types bash us for the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our 'breeding' status by being straight, the less enlightened and indoctrinated folks of color (I haven't actually met many of these, although my ex-GFs parents and some of her siblings were, and she had 'race traitor' issues. As if we're not all the same race, and as if black ethnic groups don't hate on the wrong kind of blacks, or whites hate on the wrong kind of whites...) The point is, the persecution comes from all sides, in all forms, and the only ones with the gall to throw that in other peoples faces haven't taken the time to consider a walk in the other's shoes. Or even just asking them about their own personal experiences. I remember when I was younger, people, it didn't matter their color, would tell you off on why you were wrong if you did that in their face. Not some vague white privilege bullshit, but actually drive a point home. Some wouldn't give time for a retort or lend an ear back. Some were obviously talking from experiences of privilege, but except for the overtly narrowminded, never was it some uniformly a line as it has become, on all sides of the divide as it is today. People parrot arguments, soundbytes, and other clips verbatim, without any thought going into them, or providing any intelligent discourse of their own. I fear for what this means for the future, but I also wonder if anyone will have the time to pay attention with all the information they are inundated with. History repeats because man forgets.
Also yeah, I support the equality/egalitarian point of view. Until equilibrium is reached we will just shift who is the derided party for the day.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:08PM (1 child)
There's no such thing as privilege. The reason that not all men get it is because it's not privilege, it's achievement. Certain individuals and groups have the spoils of achievement and others don't.
That's not to say that it's completely fair and that the achievements were earned on an equal basis, just that bad mouthing some groups because they actually bothered to build the necessary infrastructure for success isn't helpful. What is helpful is figuring out how other groups can do the same and ensuring that the rungs on the ladder haven't been removed to prevent others from following.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @10:24PM
AKA those groups that achieved having used their privilege. Check.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 23 2019, @10:20PM
Yes they do.
Having white privilege doesn't mean your life doesn't suck or nobody ever says something mean about you. It means that your skin color isn't stopping you from, for example, surviving police encounters, getting a job, or renting an apartment.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @10:25PM
Such uses of privilege are not about individuals. They are a cultural advantage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:24AM (1 child)
All "privilege" means is "However much your life sucks or does not suck now, would it suck more if you were not $THING? If yes, you have $THING privilege." This isn't difficult. And privilege by itself isn't evil, it's just one of the emergent phenomena arising from the intersection and interplay of who you are and the society you find yourself in. Now what *is* evil is when you don't recognize it and punch down.
Examples: I have white privilege, can pretend to straight privilege because I'm mostly femme and don't "look gay," am not overweight or visibly disabled (hearing aside), am of above-average intelligence, and had the advantage of a college degree, as arguable as that may now be due to debt. My life has also sucked in a lot of ways, being from generational poverty and having endured things I do not propose to speak about here and now. But it would have sucked worse, so much worse, if I were black, or if I were more butch, or if I had an IQ of 85, or if I were obese, or if I didn't have a Bachelor's.
Knowing all this, what can I do? I can take into account that many, indeed most, people don't have my advantages. I can think about the implications for other peoples' lives. I can interact with them in ways that bring them up instead of patronizing or condescending to them. It's not hard. It just takes some thought.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:54PM
Maybe your life would not suck the same if you didn't have white-female-non-straight-entitlement where you think you deserve $SOMETHING to be happy. Probably with an IQ of 85 you would be much happier.