Even if you don't give a shit about misogyny and sexual harassment in tech/free software, if you're a leftist of any stripe you should be very disappointed with the individualist lens that frames free software discussions, and we have Stallman to thank for that too.
Say cancel culture one more time :brace-cowboy:
After reading Melody Horn's article titled Post-Open Source about a couple weeks ago I've been doing a lot more thinking than I normally do about the state of the Free Software movement. I suppose this expose of Stallman's habits over the past several decades can serve as another gravestone to cap off an era which has ultimately failed in making free computing a reality for the masses.
I used to think of Stallman as being simply idiosyncratic, but after reading this I think it is pretty clear he's been actually harmful. It is a hard pill to swallow when you use things like GCC and Emacs, and thousands of programs licensed under his brainchild, the GNU GPL, but is the truth. He doesn't have a monopoly on the concept of Free Software, and in a lot of ways, the longevity of the project was doomed by his canonization along with the more general failure to consider what the implications of private ownership would do consumer devices and the Internet as a whole.
Little by little, I see the seeds of a more radical free software movement sprouting up, questioning the assumptions of the old guard. I look forward to what the new generation will usher in.
You'd probably enjoy this too: https://lipu.dgold.eu/original-sin
I am so fucking heated about this, and about seeing some Stallman apologia on this site of all places.
Surprised how much "wow fuck Stallman" I saw on /r/linux, though, which is good to see.
I'll admit when I read the original medium post my thoughts were that he's just sort of a weird mouthy dumbass who didn't understand fully what Minsky was accused of and was reacting reflexively to an Important Computer Science Figure being attacked, but reading this it really does seem like a pattern.
The thing that gets me the most fired-up isn't even the harassment. It's a statement like this:
I don’t have any experience working with women in programming projects; I don’t think that any volunteered to work on Emacs or GCC.
On the one hand, it's good that Selam G.'s post brought attention to his shit. On the other, most of the resulting discussion is about his libertarian ideas of the age of consent and other random uninterrogated colonialist and misogynist views he's put out into the world over the last few decades, which is beside the primary point I think.
Who cares about the man? His ideas launched a movement that changed the world. He did a ton of good. When he started his crusade, there was no such thing as a libre compiler. Today, there is, and it's the best one. It's like saying Ghandi should be cancelled because he was problematic. What's more important, the deeds or the man?
