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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, Insightful) by Nuke on Tuesday September 17 2019, @03:17PM (2 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Tuesday September 17 2019, @03:17PM (#895178)

    I see no reason why Stallman can't have opinions about things other than FOSS.

    Of course he can, but it is not wise for a well-known figure to go public with opinions on matters outside his own field of expertise. It is like an expert mountaineer thinking he can deal with jumping into a shark pool just because he is an expert on mountains. The experts in that other field can make mincemeat of you. A nonentity like me however can get away with spouting opinions on any subject* because no-one takes any notice anyway :-) It does sound like he is being taken out of context here, easy to do if you are trying to defame someone.

    RMS was once asked why, if he wanted to make the World a better place (as he has said), he does not apply his efforts to solving things like World hunger instead to free software. He wisely replied along the lines that free software happened to be what he is good at, and he would be of much less value trying to solve World hunger - so he left that issue to others. Sounds like he did not really follow his own advice here.

    * Actually I try not to.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @11:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @11:08PM (#895399)

    You can have opinions about what the age of consent laws should be, and whether something should be thought of as sexual assault. Both of those are subjective, and it doesn't take "experts" to discuss that.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @09:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @09:36AM (#895547)

    but it is not wise for a well-known figure to go public

    As you can see this was not a public mail thread, what you can find our screen grabs from someone making a private communication public. (Which, to me, is the vilest thing that happened to/in that mail thread)
    I don't know how large the audience of this mailing was, but it was not public.

    Furthermore, public figures are allowed to express their opinion on anything. What's wrong and why you advice not to do it, has nothing to do with the public figure but with the inability from today's internet society to be something else than a mob.

    What all these internet platforms fail at, and even the media are bad at, is presenting those opinions as "informed / completely void of any knowledge on the subject / expert on subject matter / direct witness / ..."