Selamjie

> His only crime was being a pedantic aspie.

If you actually read the article by Selam G., you'll immediately see that this is false.

"When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him."

This is clearly a case of sexual coercion. If, due to autism, RMS was totally unable to avoid sexually harassing women he had power over, then clearly he should never have had a position of power in FSF or anywhere else.

"Many, many years ago, women in the AI and CS labs met to deal with the problematic atmosphere for women in the labs. We met as a group, discussed the issues, complied examples, presented them to the labs, then wrote a report. In the early 80’s, it was a pretty big deal but it would seem it did not have lasting effects."

RMS clearly harmed many women over many years. It's telling that people like you never acknowledge the accounts of women who have specific, individual complaints against him. Even the Stallman Support page you link to has a bunch of pedantic corrections over whether RMS "really" defended Epstein, in addition to generic articles about cancel culture that say nothing about RMS harassing women grad students at MIT.

EFF was correct in criticizing RMS. He shouldn't have been…

I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it.

Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together.

I think name-calling, especially of a large group which shares only one thing in common is antithetical to building inclusive human communities. Literally we're excluding people and calling them Stasi members because we disagree with them.

If you want people to be kind to each other, and if you're against cancelling people for their opinions, it's got to start somewhere.

I also want to speak to your two other examples, Linus and RMS.

WRT Linus, I personally know many talented people who wouldn't touch Linux development specifically because of him. It's cool that Linus has made your life better. He's also made a lot of people's lives worse. Where's their due process?

WRT RMS, I take issue with the idea that he was not given due process. In fact he was allowed to stay for years, despite harassing women and acting inappropriately in his position. The Epstein email was a last straw. But also: What makes you think he wasn't given due process? He says he was "pressured" by MIT and resigned. Do you think he couldn't have fought it? It sounds like he decided not to fight it. That's different than not being given due process.

Again with RMS, it's clear that his behavior was deeply upsetting to a lot of people. …

I found this satire article insightful: https://medium.com/@ultralux97/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22

He posts hundreds of posts on his personal blog condemning rape, and they cherry-pick the one post where he argued for a different definition of rape.[0]

He is accused of being transphobic despite asking everyone to "honor their preferences about their gender identity" with respect to pronouns.[1]

The letter accused Stallman of sexual harassment. The appendix explains that for thirty years, had an unacceptable way of asking women out on dates. Note that he has never been accused of groping or sexual assault.[2]

The original open letter's Appendix[2] has two true claims (and one false claim I won't address here):

- In 1999, he had a mattress in his office which he slept on. This made some women avoid RMS because they considered it abnormal and creepy.

- In 1985, he told a woman he'd kill himself if he didn't date her.

EDIT: The accusation of sexual harassment may have validity as he was known to hand out pleasure cards.

[0]: Ctrl-F this for "rape": https://web.archive.org/web/20210325013942/https://stallman.org/archives/2018-may-aug.html

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26584613

[2]: https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88

Right but what are we actually doing to cancel Bill Gates?

The information that Bill Gates had meetings with Epstein came to light 2 years ago but we still had articles promoting the Gates foundation and Gates work with vaccines.

Bill Gates worked with MIT on quantum dot tech: https://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history-skin-1218

Bill Gates donated money to MIT's Media Lab:
https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-connections-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations-ronan-farrow-2019-9?op=1

Will MIT be returning that money as well?

>But you'll find that the biggest critics of Stallman were also the biggest critics of Gates.

>I was shocked. I continued talking to my friend, a female graduate student in CSAIL, about everything, trying to get the full email thread (I wasn’t on the mailing list). I even started emailing reporters — local and national, news sites, newspapers, radio stations. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Selam+G+Stallman&t=ffab&ia=web
>https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794
>https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88

and yet:

>https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Selam+G+Bill+Gates&t=ffab&ia=web

Nothing.

https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88

Among other examples:

“When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him.
I felt bad for him and also uncomfortable and manipulated. I did not like being put in that position — suddenly responsible for an “important” man. What had I done to get into this situation? I decided I could not be responsible for his living or dying, and would have to accept him killing himself. I declined further contact.
He was not a man of his word or he’d be long dead.”
—Betsy S., Bachelor’s in Management Science, ’85

His social cluelessness is legendary--no one really disputes it. Why it wouldn't be true toward women as well, I have no idea.

I'm sure you will find a way to dismiss this, but there are plenty of stories out there if you look.

I am on a quest for facts, hard in this debate.

So this was the original post that lead to RMS resign.

https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

Here is a defending one.

https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vilified-by-those-who-dont-know-him-a3907b25b4c7

But there I have a question. Regarding the "Knight for justice (and hot ladies)" sign.

"not the sign about welcoming “hot ladies” on his MIT Media lab office door, which someone else wrote as a joke and which he removed but not before someone took a photo of it"

Was the sign a one-time joke, someone knowingly did, RMS left amused there for a while, days, weeks, months?

Or was he annoyed and removed it once he got to it?

Or was it part of a smear campaign? Even just happened recently at the time of the attacks, or way before?

Quite different scenarios. I suspect the first one to be true. But I am open to more solid facts, for example by someone, who actually was or is at the MIT.