SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:42PM (12 children)
No, it is recognizing the reality that for a very, VERY long time the system has been such that men have already had more than a safe and fair place to study and work. Where women have not.
You can change that to "interests of all people" when it becomes equal. Until then the power disparity can be recognized for what it is.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 23 2019, @05:17PM (3 children)
> such that men have already had more than a safe and fair place to study and work.
Is that really true? Even if the men are Muslims? Jewish? Christians outside the West? Democrats outside the West?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Monday September 23 2019, @11:15PM (2 children)
It's all relative. My wife can't even walk down the street without getting harassed. Most of your list are invisible unless the men volunteer the info.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:52AM (1 child)
Alternatively, if you don't look manly enough you can get your share of problems without volunteering anything whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:06PM
True, though the same thing happens with women, except it is looking too masculine. Too fat as well.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:06PM (7 children)
Not true. Considering how many places the women worked in the home and didn't get out much, it's the other way around. Men mostly didn't have safe places to work and study, but the women did.
Afghanistan is a pretty good example, people make it sound like the women being prevented from leaving the house was a bad thing, but outside the house was where all the bombings and mayhem was going on. As oppressive as it was to be forced to stay home without an escort, it was far safer to be at home than not.
Most of this bullshit about women being oppressed is spin. Women agreed to those terms because it was in their interest to do so. They didn't have the risk that the men had, but it meant having fewer rights as rights were granted primarily based upon what society needed people to be doing. Men were generally the ones expected to fight, so they generally wound up being the ones running the government. Women didn't usually get to run the government, but they were off the hook for numerous civic duties outside the home in most societies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:53PM (6 children)
So, women should be systematically oppressed for their own good, even if they want to leave the house without escorts? Maybe give them a choice, at least? What you're advocating for here is literal patriarchy: Government-mandated oppression.
Too bad you couldn't move to North Korea, as it seems like that government would be more in line with your values.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @07:27PM
Women over time gave up essential liberties for a little immediate safety, until eventually they had neither liberty nor safety except at the whim of a man.
This is a warning all people should heed, whatever their background. Because the freedoms they are taking from others are not always the freedoms they themselves will retain. As soon as an excuse is given to categorize them in with the incels, the SJWs, the liberals, the rednecks, the fools, etc they will find themselves falling upon the very sword they gleefully tossed others upon.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Monday September 23 2019, @10:49PM (2 children)
The situation in Afghanistan and other places is that BOTH sexes are oppressed. As has been the case for almost everywhere forever. Basically, you appareled to be entirely ignorant of the rights and responsibilities of the people in Afghanistan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:27AM (1 child)
Yeah, but that doesn't conflict with what I said. That person seemed to be advocating for oppression.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Demena on Tuesday September 24 2019, @01:51AM
It is arguable either way as to which sex is more oppressed in Afghanistan. The women "forced" to stay at one of the male children selling their butts to support all their female relatives because their elders have died, been killed or have gone off to fight?
Feminism is past its use-by date as it has become a tool of oppression in and of itself.
I am an equalitarian and I have distain for overt sexism. Idealism and realism have to be balanced.
For example; "take back the night" - wonderful idea except for the fact that we never had the night in the first place. That is why we have street lights. So what are men being asked to do here? Hang around the streets at night looking for trouble (they will find it out of boredom)? Maybe there should always be a reliable man to escort a woman(polite society)? Not "let" women out without an escort (Current Islam)? Exactly what direction is this going and is it wise? For both men and women going out at night involves some risk and it always will, as there will always be hostiles out there. A safe world is an ideal, it can never be a reality. Safety can be improved by more police, more lights, more cameras, curfews, more tracking, more control. People are going to have to decide where they draw the lines. More safety is less freedom and more freedom is less safety.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:41AM (1 child)
My view is that both men and women were being oppressed in this scenario. It's not like the men could choose to stay home either.
To play Devil's Advocate, you _could_ argue that the men are being treated as expendable (heading out into the warzone outside), while the women are too valuable to risk.
GP has a point - in older times there was a logic borne out of necessity when most 'out of the home' jobs were dangerous and better suited to male physiology (i.e. brute strength). That isn't the case any more, so it no longer makes sense to have 'male' and 'female' roles in society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @03:29PM
When you are a man, and one day you have children, you discover that babies and toddlers crave for a female for everything care-related, and for a male for stimulation.
There ARE male and female roles.