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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: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @04:59PM (6 children)
And this is part of the problem.
There are diplomats, and there are those unwilling to compromise. It is very, very, EXTREMELY rare to find someone that will believe in something with absolute passion, and stick to that belief .. and yet at the same time? Make immense moves towards compromise!
Compromise means altering your position, and yet this is something that CAN NOT happen if one is to stick to a specific, unyielding belief.
Do you think Steve Jobs compromised? What about our buddy at Facebook? What about M.L. King?
Stallman wasn't interested in making his software less free, or writing fewer utilities, or opening up development with licenses that were counter to his goals. He most likely saw immense frustration with the lack of progress, in terms of corporate influence, and licenses, and closed source software.
But.. this is what you want in certain cases.
Do you think anyone else other than Jobs could have taken Apple to eventual profit? Maybe, but we KNOW he did, and we know he wasn't happy go lucky the whole time.
What about Gates? Massive criminal activity, anti-trust issues, and more.. but, would M$ be what it is today, without him?
Would Black rights have progressed as far, without MLK? With someone willing to compromise? To talk about "working together", instead of "standing up"?
Would the world have been better for the US, if Kennedy said "OK, you can leave those missiles there", or what of Churchill?
All of these people, during the ENTIRE TIME they were fighting down the path they chose, ALL OF THEM, had endless friends, people in movements, and people in government begging them to a different course. Talking of appeasement, or compromise, or quite literally giving up!
So, people want this sort of personally it be entirely amicable, yes? Be quiet, reserved, metered in their responses, put great thought into thinking what others care, and so on...
You CANNOT have both. Not in the same person.
And here's the thing. Certain professions attract a certain type of person. And certain paths do too...
My thought on this? If people don't fuck off, and stop crying like children about statements people make, we're going to end up with everyone capable of creating immense change.. gone.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @09:09PM (5 children)
It's called "going Galt". (from the character John Galt, from the novel Atlas Shrugged, where the supposed movers of the world simply stop doing anything) It's already happening -- that's why there's a term for it.
More people are deciding that the amount of crap they get from others, from society, etc. despite the work they're doing -- in some cases because of the work they're doing -- that they're just not going to do it anymore. They don't scream or make a fuss, most of 'em. They just... leave. Retire early. Become an ex-pat. Whatever. They're no longer participating in a society that benefits from what they do, but that society gives only scorn or derision (or sometimes death) in return.
By work, I mean not just paid employment, but anyone doing something useful. Not just the high muckety-mucks or mad geniuses are doing this either, the mid-level folks who don't make the headline-splashing discoveries, but just do the day-to-day keeping the civilization going. Ever wonder why it seems like everything is getting worse? Nothing is made well, regardless of where is was made? Getting anything done is more like setting off on an epic quest of yore? Nobody seem to be able to do their job? It's not just that there's more stupid people everywhere... there's always been stupid people, but there's been quiet, competent people too, to keep the wheels turning. Hard to find the competent anymore... they're going Galt.
Have fun screaming about how horribly oppressed you are, while the people who have the knowledge and capability to keep our civilization going quietly discover that they no longer have the desire to do so, and simply stop.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @09:16PM (4 children)
Quoting Atlas Shrugged, pretty sad times SN has reached.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @11:38PM (1 child)
Any Rand bad owo owo owo
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:27AM
Just consider this: http://acceleratethecontradictions.blogspot.com/2009/03/going-galt-aftermath.html [blogspot.com] (Bob the Angry Flower)
(Score: 2) by chromas on Monday September 23 2019, @11:43PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @04:38AM
Explaining where the term came from is not quoting the book. But sure, just bitch about the source of the term, and ignore what the term is describing.