...

are all aware of. Many women were uncomfortable around RMS and avoided him. Many refused to participate in our community because of interactions with him. Do you think RMS is more important than a community of developers he is pushing away?

See all the stuff you say we are all aware in this message is just rumors and innuendo to me.

Wait, so all these women saying those words are rumours and innuendo? You choose to disbelieve them? After a pattern of behaviour that multiple people have confirmed and talked about?

What are not rumors and innuendo are the historical facts on IBM, their influence, their power and powerful friends and most importantly their big ball of money which they spend on influenceing the influencers.

...

I want to explicitly state this. RMS is a major reason free software is where it is. RMS's contributions to free software are gigantic. However, RMS cannot be a leader of our community if he continues to isolate a significant population of prospective developers. RMS the contributor - YES. RMS the leader - NO.

RMS cannot be the poster child of our community if it is going to be relevant in the future.

This is where being the willing poster child of a charitable institution, used to raise funds, diverges from the science of truth and innovation.

In the legal science of truth, a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However, media and the media barons in conteol, crucify persons and their personas daily, just to make a buck.

And no one has charged RMS with a crime. All we are saying is, he is not representative of a majority of us, and we don't want him to represent us. Some of us are minorities who have heard racist statements being made by prominent folks in the community and have made us feel our contributions are not valued. It is not hard to believe after that experience that other prominent folks can be sexist. RMS has not stepped up and owned up to his actions and apologized. I have no problem with people growing. We all make mistakes. But doubling down like this, well I don't want to be a part of that community. And the reality is, there are tons of "other" people who will not join in and we will never know. So yes, if the choice is between thousands of those people, having a diverse community, growing and being relevant to the world, I would rather RMS step down than us lose this community. And I would rather you leave the community if you think being more welcoming to other voices is not important. We don't need your contributions at the risk of alienating many more people. Again, I restate this. RMS as a contributor - yes. RMS as a leader - no. He doesn't represent me, and he certainly doesn't represent the community of foss developers. This is a discussion about RMS, not the conspiracy theories you are throwing about. Dhaval

On 4/2/21 5:27 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 4:38 PM Dhaval Giani, <dhaval.giani@gmail.com <mailto:dhaval.giani@gmail.com>> wrote:

> >> are all aware of. Many women were uncomfortable around RMS and avoided >> him. Many refused to participate in our community because of >> interactions with him. Do you think RMS is more important than a >> community of developers he is pushing away? > > > See all the stuff you say we are all aware in this message is just rumors and innuendo to me. >

Wait, so all these women saying those words are rumours and innuendo?

You know what, thats exactly what innuendo is, saying "all these women" without even a link to a personal quote from them, not a one. That's a very dangerous to do. Lots of cases of mistreatment against minorities or other groups historically aren't reported because of power conflicts. I mean would you really we comfortable with staying the same

Greetings, thing if it was happening to children? I'm not stating the facts would hope up in a court but just stating to forget about them because there is no trail runs into this problem of power conflicts. Not to mention if they are stated then it runs into another problem of being traced back to them which is a dangerous in another light. Forgetting about this isn't a good idea.

You choose to disbelieve them? After a pattern of behaviour that multiple people have confirmed and talked about?

I can't disbelieve that which I can find no record of. What multiple people are you talking about?

What I can do is check some facts, to the best of my abilities. This link I came across in my opinion has a more balanced view than yours.

https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ <https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/>

> What are not rumors and innuendo are the historical facts on IBM, their influence, their power and powerful friends and most importantly their big ball of money which they spend on influenceing the influencers. > >> >> I want to explicitly state this. RMS is a major reason free software >> is where it is. RMS's contributions to free software are gigantic. >> However, RMS cannot be a leader of our community if he continues to >> isolate a significant population of prospective developers. RMS the >> contributor - YES. RMS the leader - NO. >> >> RMS cannot be the poster child of our community if it is going to be >> relevant in the future. > > > This is where being the willing poster child of a charitable institution, used to raise funds, diverges from the science of truth and innovation. > > In the legal science of truth, a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However, media and the media barons in conteol, crucify persons and their personas daily, just to make a buck.

Sure but again your assuming being guilty in a court of law is better than being found guilty by the public. There is lots of evidence that the court system isn't as infallible as you think it is for both cultural and other reasons.

>

And no one has charged RMS with a crime. All we are saying is, he is not representative of a majority of us, and we don't want him to represent us. Some of us are minorities who have heard racist statements being made by prominent folks in the community and have made us feel our contributions are not valued. It is not hard to believe after that experience that other prominent folks can be sexist. RMS has not stepped up and owned up to his actions and apologized. I have no problem with people growing. We all make mistakes. But doubling down like this, well I don't want to be a part of that community. And the reality is, there are tons of "other" people who will not join in and we will never know. So yes, if the choice is between thousands of those people, having a diverse community, growing and being relevant to the world, I would rather RMS step down than us lose this community. And I would rather you leave the community if you think being more welcoming to other voices is not important. We don't need your contributions at the risk of alienating many more people.

Wow that last paragraph was a completely off the wall projection of negative personal attributes towards RMS without a shred of evidence. I wasnt aware that Stallman was a deemed racist by association.

Its bad enough that someone on this list deemed him to be an incel. Just type incel into google and you can see the links to terrorisim.

Again, I restate this. RMS as a contributor - yes. RMS as a leader - no. He doesn't represent me, and he certainly doesn't represent the community of foss developers. This is a discussion about RMS, not the conspiracy theories you are throwing about.

I first came across evidence of survelance capitalisim at a tlug meeting in 2003 or so. So its not a theory to me, it is a fact of the corporation and its predatory nature in order to make profits for the investors.

What conspiracy theories are you talking about.

Survelance capitalisim is a real thing, funded by real corporations. Stallman is aware of this and pissed lots of people off by talking about it in public.

Or are you saying IBM didn't develop software and market it to both sides of the conflict in WW2. Thats not a conspiracy its business as usual for a global corporation like them.

Just to be clear, IBM weren't the only ones who made money from the holocost. You should read the quote about remembering the past on this site.

https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW <https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW>

Coca Cola sold its german equipment to a company now known as Fanta.

Ford motors provided truck engines and parts to germany.

Through a blind company Standard Oil provided their propritarey additive for gasoline to the Luftwaffe for their planes so they performed better at altitude.

So let me phrase this issue a little differently once again.

What part of the money which IBM used to purchase Red Hat, that came from investments made by IBM, after they obscenely profited by trading with the Nazis, is the amount you would be willing to use to fund your work, voluntarily or paid at Red Hat today.

So that's a logical fallacy Russell you can't just attack someone's opinion by overextending it like that. Nick

Dhaval

Russell

“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” F. P. Dunne

--- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On 4/2/21 6:34 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 5:46 PM Nicholas Krause <xerofoify@gmail.com <mailto:xerofoify@gmail.com>> wrote:

On 4/2/21 5:27 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote: > On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 4:38 PM Dhaval Giani, <dhaval.giani@gmail.com <mailto:dhaval.giani@gmail.com> <mailto:dhaval.giani@gmail.com <mailto:dhaval.giani@gmail.com>>> wrote: > >      > >      >> are all aware of. Many women were uncomfortable around RMS and avoided >      >> him. Many refused to participate in our community because of >      >> interactions with him. Do you think RMS is more important than a >      >> community of developers he is pushing away? >      > >      > >      > See all the stuff you say we are all aware in this message is just rumors and innuendo to me. >      > > >     Wait, so all these women saying those words are rumours and innuendo? > > Greetings, > You know what, thats exactly what innuendo is, saying "all these women" without even a link to a personal quote from them, not a one. That's a  very dangerous to do. Lots of cases of mistreatment against minorities or other groups historically aren't reported because of power conflicts. I mean would you really we comfortable with staying the same thing if it was happening to children? I'm not stating the facts would hope up in a court but just stating to forget about them because there is no trail runs into this problem of power conflicts. Not to mention if they are stated then it runs into another problem of being traced back to them which is a dangerous in another light. Forgetting about this isn't a good idea.

You know there is a very famous loaded question journalists use to generate headlines, to which there is no correct yes or no answer. "Have you stopped beating your dog/wife/child yet?. If you answer yes you are damned as a dog/wife/child beater. If you answer no you are damned as a dog/wife/child beater.

That's not what I stated. The problem for you is that your assuming that power doesn't speak in the case with RM but does for IBM. You have to show why RM should get a break but not IBM. You can't just play favors.

Mixing factual metaphors when someone's professional reputation is on the line, makes your question about children just over the top for me. I'm not sure which is most dangerous to democracy, innuendo whether legal or other, or actual slander and libel. So to answer your question, I never said forget about anything, I said do the research and make your arguments. I said this to someone who dismissed me entirely by editing my post in order to invalidate me, I guess as some sort of reactionary, instead of acknowledging that there may be more to this situation than meets the eye.

It's a sad fact of the internet and the newspeak of tabloid journalism, also known as yellow journalism apparently for the colour of the cheap paper those inflammatory statements were published on, that sensational stories sell copy or in the modern sense get you likes on twitter etc. It's a new kind of journalistic capitalism but journalistic capitalism all the same.

That's why I posted the link to someone who is digging deeper.

> >     You choose to disbelieve them? After a pattern of behaviour that >     multiple people have confirmed and talked about? > > > I can't disbelieve that which I can find no record of. What multiple people are you talking about? > > What I can do is check some facts, to the best of my abilities. This link I came across in my opinion has a more balanced view than yours. > > https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ <https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/> <https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ <https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/>> > > >      > What are not rumors and innuendo are the historical facts on IBM, their influence, their power and powerful friends and most importantly their big ball of money which they spend on influenceing the influencers. >      > >      >> >      >> I want to explicitly state this. RMS is a major reason free software >      >> is where it is. RMS's contributions to free software are gigantic. >      >> However, RMS cannot be a leader of our community if he continues to >      >> isolate a significant population of prospective developers. RMS the >      >> contributor - YES. RMS the leader - NO. >      >> >      >> RMS cannot be the poster child of our community if it is going to be >      >> relevant in the future. >      > >      > >      > This is where being the willing poster child of a charitable institution, used to raise funds, diverges from the science of truth and innovation. >      > >      > In the legal science of truth, a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However, media and the media barons in conteol, crucify persons and their personas daily, just to make a buck. Sure but again your assuming being guilty in a court of law is better than being found guilty by the public. There is lots of evidence that the court system isn't as infallible as you think it is for both cultural and other reasons.

I never said I thought the court system was infallible. What I always try to say is that Canada is governed under the rule of law and nobody should be judged guilty without evidence and based on gossip, innuendo and worse, misstated and omitted facts. While again your assuming facts are the be all end on on this. Favors have to be interpreted and your stating that the legal system is better because that's how Canada is governed. That's my point you can't just appeal to authority like that you have to show why that's better. Your argument about IBM could be used against legal systems so being consistent shouldn't you be attacking the legal system as well?

>      > > >     And no one has charged RMS with a crime. All we are saying is, he is >     not representative of a majority of us, and we don't want him to >     represent us. Some of us are minorities who have heard racist >     statements being made by prominent folks in the community and have >     made us feel our contributions are not valued. It is not hard to >     believe after that experience that other prominent folks can be >     sexist. RMS has not stepped up and owned up to his actions and >     apologized. I have no problem with people growing. We all make >     mistakes. But doubling down like this, well I don't want to be a part >     of that community. And the reality is, there are tons of "other" >     people who will not join in and we will never know. So yes, if the >     choice is between thousands of those people, having a diverse >     community, growing and being relevant to the world, I would rather RMS >     step down than us lose this community. And I would rather you leave >     the community if you think being more welcoming to other voices is not >     important. We don't need your contributions at the risk of alienating >     many more people. > > > Wow that last paragraph was a completely off the wall projection of negative personal attributes towards RMS without a shred of evidence. I wasnt aware that Stallman was a deemed racist by association. > > Its bad enough that someone on this list deemed him to be an incel. Just type incel into google and you can see the links to terrorisim. > > >     Again, I restate this. RMS as a contributor - yes. RMS as a leader - >     no. He doesn't represent me, and he certainly doesn't represent the >     community of foss developers. This is a discussion about RMS, not the >     conspiracy theories you are throwing about. > > > I first came across evidence of survelance capitalisim at a tlug meeting in 2003 or so. So its not a theory to me, it is a fact of the corporation and its predatory nature in order to make profits for the investors. > > > What conspiracy theories are you talking about. > > Survelance capitalisim is a real thing, funded by real corporations. Stallman is aware of this and pissed lots of people off by talking about it in public. > > Or are you saying IBM didn't develop software and market it to both sides of the conflict in WW2. Thats not a conspiracy its business as usual for a global corporation like them. > > Just to be clear, IBM weren't the only ones who made money from the holocost. You should read the quote about remembering the past on this site. > > https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW <https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW> <https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW <https://www.holocaustcentre.com/HEW>> > > Coca Cola sold its german equipment to a company now known as Fanta. > > Ford motors provided truck engines and parts to germany. > > Through a blind company Standard Oil provided their propritarey additive for gasoline to the Luftwaffe for their planes so they performed better at altitude. > > So let me phrase this issue a little differently once again. > > What part of the money which IBM used to purchase Red Hat, that came from investments made by IBM, after they obscenely profited by trading with the Nazis, is the amount you would be willing to use to fund your work, voluntarily or paid at Red Hat today. > So that's a  logical fallacy Russell you can't just attack someone's opinion by overextending it like that.

You think that's a logical fallacy and an over extension, how so?  Is it because a multinational corporation can spin itself off into other corporations and sever the past associations or change operations to a country of convenience, or all the other tools of making big money?

Or don't you believe IBM made money from both sides of the second world war? That's pretty much a historical fact for survivors of the holocaust.

So I'm still trying to figure out what conspiracy theory I was accused of propagating. I don't think what I said about IBM's acquisition of Red Hat is a logical fallacy at all. I think it's all just business as usual for dominating US based corporate profiteers.

But that's just my opinion. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy Your comparing IBM's holocaust to RM's case meaning one is easier to defend.

That's my final thoughts on this, Nick

Nick > >     Dhaval > > Russell > > “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” F. P. Dunne > > --- > Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org <mailto:talk@gtalug.org> > Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk <https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk> >

-- Russell

That's why I think Stallman should be allowed the benefit of the doubt, as a person. His personal history seems to be one of family dysfunction and then finding comfort and direction in studies in computer science at university.

Give him the benefit of the doubt. Just do not make him representative of the movement. Dhaval

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 8:10 PM Dhaval Giani <dhaval.giani@gmail.com> wrote:

Russell,

My assumption here is you are here in good faith as opposed to one of those "white men are being persecuted" crowd. If you are the latter, please let me know, I will send all future emails from you to

Your assumption is correct. I suppose any difference of opinion you and I may have come from the fact that in my other interests which involve Community Action Participation, we use a social contract we all decide upon and review with each talk. That is not the case here.

/dev/null.

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 2:27 PM Russell Reiter <rreiter91@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 4:38 PM Dhaval Giani, <dhaval.giani@gmail.com>

...

...

...

...

are all aware of. Many women were uncomfortable around RMS and

avoided

...

...

...

him. Many refused to participate in our community because of interactions with him. Do you think RMS is more important than a community of developers he is pushing away?

See all the stuff you say we are all aware in this message is just rumors and innuendo to me.

Wait, so all these women saying those words are rumours and innuendo?

You know what, thats exactly what innuendo is, saying "all these women" without even a link to a personal quote from them, not a one.

...

You choose to disbelieve them? After a pattern of behaviour that multiple people have confirmed and talked about?

I can't disbelieve that which I can find no record of. What multiple

wrote: people are you talking about?

...

What I can do is check some facts, to the best of my abilities. This

link I came across in my opinion has a more balanced view than yours.

"In your opinion". In the opinion of many others, an apologist. If it was a balanced article, why is there no link to the other petition?

I said I think it is more balanced than your statements. It is a collection of facts. Quite a few of them which I will review, but all the inflammatory rhetoric doesn't make it any easier. I'd hate to think that is what open source is all about.

...

https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/

https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 - She has listed multiple (anonymous for obvious reasons) women who are willing to talk about the toxic environment. It doesn't even begin to count the numbers who are not, and would just wish it could go away.

...

...

...

What are not rumors and innuendo are the historical facts on IBM,

their influence, their power and powerful friends and most importantly their big ball of money which they spend on influenceing the influencers.

...

...

...

I want to explicitly state this. RMS is a major reason free software is where it is. RMS's contributions to free software are gigantic. However, RMS cannot be a leader of our community if he continues to isolate a significant population of prospective developers. RMS the contributor - YES. RMS the leader - NO.

RMS cannot be the poster child of our community if it is going to be relevant in the future.

This is where being the willing poster child of a charitable

institution, used to raise funds, diverges from the science of truth and innovation.

...

In the legal science of truth, a person is innocent until proven

guilty in a court of law. However, media and the media barons in conteol, crucify persons and their personas daily, just to make a buck.

...

And no one has charged RMS with a crime. All we are saying is, he is not representative of a majority of us, and we don't want him to represent us. Some of us are minorities who have heard racist statements being made by prominent folks in the community and have made us feel our contributions are not valued. It is not hard to believe after that experience that other prominent folks can be sexist. RMS has not stepped up and owned up to his actions and apologized. I have no problem with people growing. We all make mistakes. But doubling down like this, well I don't want to be a part of that community. And the reality is, there are tons of "other" people who will not join in and we will never know. So yes, if the choice is between thousands of those people, having a diverse community, growing and being relevant to the world, I would rather RMS step down than us lose this community. And I would rather you leave the community if you think being more welcoming to other voices is not important. We don't need your contributions at the risk of alienating many more people.

Wow that last paragraph was a completely off the wall projection of negative personal attributes towards RMS without a shred of evidence. I wasnt aware that Stallman was a deemed racist by association.

Stop for a moment. I said, knowing enough prominent folks who have made racist statements, it is not hard for me to believe RMS could have made sexist statements.

Again I have a real difficulty with guilt by association. Much less relying on the prominence of people, That's the kind of thing that makes one person label another as like a terrorist when no such thing is true.

...

Its bad enough that someone on this list deemed him to be an incel. Just type incel into google and you can see the links to terrorisim.

And I believe a number of us called him out on that.

I see but the damage is done right there, on this list in any case. You may think that is trivial, I do not.

Russell, I made a good faith attempt to search for your contributions to foss projects. I have been unable to find anything. If you look at https://rms-support-letter.github.io/ , that seems to fit the profile of most signatories in there. https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ on the other hand has prominent FOSS organizations, as well as a number of prominent developers, many of whom I recognize.

I fail to understand why you believe that RMS is more important than countless women we are losing.

What I believe is when the mob grabs the torches and the pitchforks anyone can look like frankenstein. Sorry I can't think of a pithy comic book reference, but I wasn't much on reading those.

I have been contributing to the Linux kernel for over 14 years now. I have been through the times (and this was supposed to be better than the time before I started) when it was absolutely expected to have a thick skin, and flame wars were quite common. That was a terrible environment. Many people burned out and left. A big part of my role today is to mentor new developers (to Linux kernel) into the open source project. One of the common questions I have to answer is why do we need to work in this toxic environment (and this is better than the time I started working in). These are all men. It is impossible to hire women because they (rightly) don't want to deal with the toxicity. It is not a made up toxicity. I have been to top conferences, talking with women friends of mine, who are then being hit on, right in front of me. AT A PROFESSIONAL EVENT!

You mean while the presenter was talking, or afterwards at the social mixer. Mixing business with pleasure, as most open source conferences do, has its drawbacks.

I cannot speak for women, I am not one. I can however speak to racialized events. There was one on this very mailing list not too long ago. There have been enough times I have been spoken over by other folks not because I was wrong, but because they believed I had no clue of what I was talking about. Despite having written that code. Despite having designed that code. I go to conferences, which are supposed to be the most important ones, and I do not see very many people who look like me or talk like me. I have been to conferences where people have thought it is funny to joke about my accent.

These are all the things we talk about when I move in spaces and we organize to establish a social contract where every opinion is valid, even the wrong ones. It is what democracy is all about.

One of my fears is, Linux and FOSS will soon become irrelevant. Simply because we are too busy being assholes, and not interested in getting more (diverse group of ) people in. People who probably have a bigger concern about privacy and tracking (than your big corp tracking your every move). We lose these people when we let RMS be our face.

I often use Subjective Units of Disclosure when I operate in marginalized spaces. I was the first webmaster of the Canadian Harm Reduction Network. I was recruited for that position after my own personal site illustrated my commitment to social justice, of the day. I knew from historical reading, that our network would come under scrutiny. So I tested the system, simply. I went to the library to log into my harm reduction account, no problem. I went to an Employment Resource Centre, the site was blocked as activist. So every time I was blocked at an ERC, I sent an email to the government. This went on for a couple of years. Now Harm Reduction is a national/global strategy. Needless to say I can use the words harm reduction without being overtly negatively labelled, in public or private any longer. At least I hope so, but you never know. So yeah, I don't contribute to FOSS, the kernel or anything like that. I'm just a bona fide, dyed in the wool, dumpster diving linux hacker and I do have a social conscience even if it is not apparent to you at this time.

Again, I say this again. RMS as a contributor, yes. RMS as a leader, no.

I am not going to step into your Godwin's law discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law ). It is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

That wasn't my discussion. I'm talking about Surveillance capitalism, which grows more important to me day by day. I just think there is a lot of shooting the messenger with RMS.

Dhaval

-- Russell

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 9:03 PM Dhaval Giani <dhaval.giani@gmail.com> wrote:

...

...

Again, I say this again. RMS as a contributor, yes. RMS as a leader, no.

I am not going to step into your Godwin's law discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law ). It is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

That wasn't my discussion. I'm talking about Surveillance capitalism, which grows more important to me day by day. I just think there is a lot of shooting the messenger with RMS.

Then this thread should prove to you exactly why RMS cannot be your messenger. You could be 100% factual, but it is what the other side receives is of greater importance. Your cause is lost, when your messenger causes your message to be lost.

I don't see that at all. Firstly I have no cause, except to perhaps help my peers in marginalized spaces access and use computing to help to elevate themselves out of poverty. I do have an interest in current events tho. What I see most recently is that RMS called out canonical for surveillance capitalism and bashed WSL for being a ploy to undermine free software. That's not an easy thing to do or say, if it goes against the corporation. It looks to me like the wagons were circled, the torches were lit and the pitchforks were raised a few years after he did that. Disinformation is misinformation squared repeated and squared again. Engage, encompass and eradicate aren't pithy statements; they are official US DOJ protocols, which place America's corporate interests first and the rights of individual people, warts and all, take a back seat to the corporate interests which sustain America's economy. Often these ideals are driven by NGO's who are funded by both corporations, individuals and government donors. The trouble is they very soon start to believe their own hyperbole. Just look at the WE fiasco to see how well meaning people were sucked into that dark web of NGO malfeasance. Propaganda is a subtitle craft, it works slowly and insidiously and often it is the innocents who carry the torch without really knowing why. I've never met RMS I only know of him from reading about him over the years. Is his sexual personality any more odious than bill clintons or any other public prominent person people will talk about and actively try to dig up the dirt on. Muckraking journalism was profitable for the broadsheet industry. Twitter and Facebook and the entire interweb are the digital media replacements for those things, without even the hint of corporate social responsibility. I mean vague references to mattresses in RMS's office with shirtless people on them, hardly seem damning. That's the problem with innuendo, it falls far short of the truth. My issues with this thread are the fact that everyone feels free to trim what I actually say and restate it in their own words, as if that could change my opinion on the morality of the whole thing. IMO it's very hard to take the moral high ground on flawed messaging, but people follow the trend and do it all the time, sometimes just to fit in with the crowd. -- Russell

On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 8:28 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

| From: Russell Reiter via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

| I do have an interest in current events tho. What I see most recently is | that RMS called out canonical for surveillance capitalism and bashed WSL | for being a ploy to undermine free software.

I missed or forgot that. I guess he expressed this in 2017 (it seems like a lifetime ago). I haven't found what he actually said (too lazy).

Personally, I think that imitation is fair game. GNU and LINUX certainly copied UNIX (and killed it but propagated many of its ideas).

Evan's talk this month will be another step down that road.

Fair competition is health for everyone (but not every thing).

I see, for example, the competition between Intel and AMD on the X86 front as killing Itanium, the favoured path of Intel.

On the other hand, enclosure is scary to me. Linux has been enclosed in the appliance world. And those folks have rarely upstreamed any of their work.

Is WSL enclosure? It doesn't seem to be.

Is WSL somehow better than Linux? If so, we have work to do to catch up.---

I would posit from my corner of the world that Win10 is not an advancement. Nor does WSL help much. If running win10 makes something wonderfully easy - - - - then by all means run it but - - - - Win10 insists on being a keystroke logger and updating a little bit like a totally blotto individual wandering down the street. Neither activity is actually a benefit for the user but does allow an extreme level of control to be implemented by the OS. As I still remember the slogan from in the early days of PCs : "computing - - your way" and refuse to relinquish control to any other entity and having found that my 'style' of using a system is quite unusual so would be quite constricted in any such 'controlled' atmosphere (I won't touch Ubuntu anymore either because of their also flying down this path) so I will disagree, vehemently so in fact, that WSL is better. If you needs are very very simple I doubt that there would be a problem and if you don't care about intellectual freedom run WSL- - - - I think that as your needs get more complex the more you need to have computational organizational freedom. That computational organizational freedom just doesn't exist in WSL (and a few other areas as well). Regards

On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 9:28 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:

| From: Russell Reiter via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

| I do have an interest in current events tho. What I see most recently is | that RMS called out canonical for surveillance capitalism and bashed WSL | for being a ploy to undermine free software.

I missed or forgot that. I guess he expressed this in 2017 (it seems like a lifetime ago). I haven't found what he actually said (too lazy).

Personally, I think that imitation is fair game. GNU and LINUX

I believe that is the fact under copyright law. The closest contextual description I can think of, given the current covid situation, is the political debate on pharmacology during Toronto and elsewhere's sars issues a few years ago. The issue was copyright infringement by the government engaging and manufacturing a licensed pharmaceutical, outside international supply chain regulations as they stood. I believe the outcome, at least what the government was going to do if necessary, was to state that it was only the process of manufacture that could be copyrighted, the end molecular product was not; it would manufacture its own supply and sort the details out later. Monsanto's RoundUp product court decisions may call this into question for their own line of pesticide protected organism's. However, it is direct human health, as opposed to abstract human health, which is the government's top priority, at least I would hope so in this case. certainly copied UNIX (and killed it but propagated many of its ideas).

Evan's talk this month will be another step down that road.

Fair competition is health for everyone (but not every thing).

I see, for example, the competition between Intel and AMD on the X86 front as killing Itanium, the favoured path of Intel.

On the other hand, enclosure is scary to me. Linux has been enclosed in the appliance world. And those folks have rarely upstreamed any of their work.

Is WSL enclosure? It doesn't seem to be.

How about an encroachment rather than an easement. An easement is hidden in an administrative record. An encroachment is a visibly apparent use of property where the owner of the property either ignores or is unaware of the situation at the time of use.

Is WSL somehow better than Linux? If so, we have work to do to catch up.---

In that case, in the debate between GCC and clang LLVM, as someone who is unable to write an operating system from scratch; who relies on documentation and the help of like minded people; my vote goes to GCC. It preserves support for what I see as program necessary artifacts. Plus I see python and other interpretative hooks into machine code a risk, which must be well balanced, from a SigInt perspective. In such a case of reconstructionism, I believe GCC is the better philosophical option. https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/ed416/PP3.html my .02¢ Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org

Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

-- Russell

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 11:21 AM Jamon Camisso via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: tl;dr I believe GCC supports more traditional languages than LLVM. On 05/04/2021 09:31, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

In that case, in the debate between GCC and clang LLVM, as someone who is unable to write an operating system from scratch; who relies on documentation and the help of like minded people; my vote goes to GCC. It preserves support for what I see as program necessary artifacts. Plus I see python and other interpretative hooks into machine code a risk, which must be well balanced, from a SigInt perspective.

1. What's the debate about? Links please.

It sorta started here. With this headline, as the OP frames his libel in a later post. https://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/2021-March/009994.html I won't quote the written spurious defamation. Then it wasn't forked but prompted this. Which I will quote from my own perspective of Social [Ir]Responsibility. https://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/2021-March/010016.html "All wins for the side he champions have been provisional. For example, the GPL has not prevented Linux to be "enclosed"; GCC is in the process of being supplanted by LLVM. He/we can never rest."

2. What do you mean by interpretative hooks? What is the risk model that you are conflating with with LLVM, and how is it any different than GCC?

For me, as a reader of documentation, it is the risk of losing support structure and ceeding to competitive advantage without the abstraction of critical thinking. I call this the IBM DITTO interference effect. Direct Internal Text Transfer Object references can be misleading.

Do you verify all your binaries and compiler and all the intermediate objects when you build software? As Ken Thompson said, "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself... No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code[1]."

Since the "debate" as presented here is framed in terms of (specious until proven otherwise) risk, I suggest that focusing on the compiler is a secondary concern to the main trust issues that must be addressed, which are formal verification and reproducible builds. Perhaps the CompCert compiler would be better for your needs[2].

...

In such a case of reconstructionism, I believe GCC is the better philosophical option.

Why do you believe it is better? Is using LLVM restricting developers from writing software that can create social change? Does GCC somehow better enable developers to engage in critical thinking about the world? Is any of the above the reason that you use a compiler or write software? I'd like to understand how either compiler helps or hinders you, or other developers.

Well as a linux user, or LUSER as some of the hate mail directed at me because someone harvested my email from this list linux had once deemed me; I think others like me, who rely on code we cannot write for ourselves ie. the operating system code, we have no choice but to trust those who do. I'm not sure I'd actually trust someone who writes computer code and doesn't understand me as a person, to write software which can create social change. I'd rather the social change retain my humanity and keep the hate out of it. Otherwise the rather innocent lady on this list wouldn't have deemed Richard Stallman a baby killing rape endorser, because someone else alluded to that fact by claiming he was incel. https://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/2021-April/010120.html And that's as close to similar inflammatory rhetoric as I'm going to go with this. Except to point out that the list machine placed a carat in front of the first line of my list response to her list post, but not the rest of what I wrote.

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210 [2] https://github.com/AbsInt/CompCert --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

-- Russell

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 11:07 PM Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> wrote:

folks, Keeping with the in context process.

You are correct, context is important.

On Fri, 2 Apr 2021, Dhaval Giani via talk wrote:

...

...

...

Again, I say this again. RMS as a contributor, yes. RMS as a leader,

no.

...

I am not going to step into your Godwin's law discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law ). It is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

That wasn't my discussion. I'm talking about Surveillance capitalism, which grows more important to me day by day. I just think there is a lot of shooting the messenger with RMS.

Then this thread should prove to you exactly why RMS cannot be your messenger. You could be 100% factual, but it is what the other side receives is of greater importance. Your cause is lost, when your messenger causes your message to be lost.

This is absolutely correct. I had no idea who rms was until the current discussion. Within ten minutes I came across an open letter demanding that the free software foundation's entire board step down and that rms be removed. This letter linked to gathered details about rms, not hearsay, but direct posts with links from his own website, where he suggests that a women get an abortion should she learn her child will have downs syndrome.

In Canada and elsewhere abortion is legal. This was the result of feminist activisim and the doctors who agreed that in some cases it is best to terminate a pregnancy. However abortinon is now universally available here, no questions asked, if a woman wants one.

And that laws against under age sex are wrong if the child is willing.

In Canada the age of consent is 16, absent positions of trust and even lower if both are in the 13 to 16 age group. I won't restate the rules for you, I'll just link to them. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/clp/faq.html Here is what Stallman actually said. "I think it is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17," Stallman wrote. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/richard-stallman-leaves-mit-afte... Certainly, there were comments about the ways associates have enabled rms,

working around his stance and behavior. but that paled when his own words called into question why I, as an outsider to he subject, should give any weight to his opinion...about anything. I will take your word that he is a talented coder, contributing much to the free software movement. Such does not make him a suitable leader, if one cannot stop wondering how he can make such statements about human beings, and their right to be born.

We are all entitled to our own opinion, however it's hard to formulate an honest opinion if the facts are dishonest. Just my take, Karen

--

Russell

On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 at 16:38, Dhaval Giani via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

...

are all aware of. Many women were uncomfortable around RMS and avoided him. Many refused to participate in our community because of interactions with him. Do you think RMS is more important than a community of developers he is pushing away?

See all the stuff you say we are all aware in this message is just rumors and innuendo to me.

Wait, so all these women saying those words are rumours and innuendo? You choose to disbelieve them? After a pattern of behaviour that multiple people have confirmed and talked about?

...

What are not rumors and innuendo are the historical facts on IBM, their influence, their power and powerful friends and most importantly their big ball of money which they spend on influenceing the influencers.

...

I want to explicitly state this. RMS is a major reason free software is where it is. RMS's contributions to free software are gigantic. However, RMS cannot be a leader of our community if he continues to isolate a significant population of prospective developers. RMS the contributor - YES. RMS the leader - NO.

RMS cannot be the poster child of our community if it is going to be relevant in the future.

This is where being the willing poster child of a charitable institution, used to raise funds, diverges from the science of truth and innovation.

In the legal science of truth, a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However, media and the media barons in conteol, crucify persons and their personas daily, just to make a buck.

And no one has charged RMS with a crime. All we are saying is, he is not representative of a majority of us, and we don't want him to represent us. Some of us are minorities who have heard racist statements being made by prominent folks in the community and have made us feel our contributions are not valued. It is not hard to believe after that experience that other prominent folks can be sexist. RMS has not stepped up and owned up to his actions and apologized. I have no problem with people growing. We all make mistakes. But doubling down like this, well I don't want to be a part of that community. And the reality is, there are tons of "other" people who will not join in and we will never know. So yes, if the choice is between thousands of those people, having a diverse community, growing and being relevant to the world, I would rather RMS step down than us lose this community. And I would rather you leave the community if you think being more welcoming to other voices is not important. We don't need your contributions at the risk of alienating many more people.

Again, I restate this. RMS as a contributor - yes. RMS as a leader - no. He doesn't represent me, and he certainly doesn't represent the community of foss developers. This is a discussion about RMS, not the conspiracy theories you are throwing about.

I've spent a lot of time thinking and reading about RMS since the first thread started in TLUG. I don't know if anyone has mentioned this: Stallman founded the FSF (maybe most people know that, but I'd forgotten). Sometimes organizations grow beyond their founders. As Dhaval says: free software, and particularly the GNU project, would never have achieved what it has without him. That doesn't make him a nice guy: he's influential, intelligent, and a good coder. I've dealt with him myself - 20 years ago, but it was a memorable experience and not in a good way. His utter inflexibility was on full display. He believes what he believes, and no compromises are acceptable. That kind of focus drove free software forward in its early years, but now organizations like FSF are more about outreach than bulldozing a path for a new way of doing things. And I think multiple articles already mentioned have shown that if there's one thing RMS is not, it's a diplomat. RMS should rightly be honoured for his contributions, but he's not the person I want as the face of an organization that represents my beliefs. His attitudes and rigidity make him unwelcoming to newcomers. No, he hasn't done anything illegal: but he doesn't have to to be a poor choice as a public representative. What Linux and free software need right now are leaders who can usher people in rather than driving them away. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 10:13 PM Alvin Starr via talk, <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

On 4/2/21 2:29 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

Red Hat has just dropped its Free Software Foundation funding and support.

Now that Red Hat is pretty well owned by IBM, wouldn't you like to ask all those people, how far back in IBM's own history of misdeeds; notwithstanding rumors, innuendo and just plain gossip; the rest of us should look when judging the actions of others.

I sure would.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Stallman was outspoken about surveillance capitalisim and WSL. Those are big cages to rattle with one tiny tin cup.

Just in case you don't think an NGO is capable of such insider machinations. I highly recommend the following book which has a pretty good evaluation of how the powers that be; leveraged trends, NGO (charity) connections and industry (read IBM) influences which gave Bill Gates his silver spoon running head start with MS DOS.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2760759-the-making-of-microsoft

Don't even get me started on WSL as an organized plan to disrupt linux freedom.

Engage Encompass and Eradicate are proven techniques of imperialism and capitalisim.

I think Red Hats "Woke Spoke" is Broke on this one, but with all that IBM money behind them, they will break this one guy out of the big picture, just because they can.

Russell

I may just be thick but I don't see what any of the above has to do with Surveillance Capitalism.

Or at least my understanding of Surveillance Capitalism that can be described by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism

Heres Richard Stallman on open source surveillance capitalisim eight years ago. https://youtu.be/CP8CNp-vksc

And for the life of me I can't see what any of this has to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Surf_League.

Heres an article on WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux but I understand your confusion. https://fossbytes.com/richard-stallman-microsoft-linux-love-will-hurt-free-o... I guess the entire thread is about protecting the right to engage free speach and the cost to individuals who go against the populist notions which are propigated by powerful organizations and their associate influencers. At least thats my take on these current events as they relate to linux topicality.

-- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133alvin@netvel.net ||

--- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Russell

On 4/2/21 10:45 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 10:13 PM Alvin Starr via talk, <talk@gtalug.org <mailto:talk@gtalug.org>> wrote:

On 4/2/21 2:29 PM, Russell Reiter via talk wrote:

...

Red Hat has just dropped its Free Software Foundation funding and support.

Now that Red Hat is pretty well owned by IBM, wouldn't you like to ask all those people, how far back in IBM's own history of misdeeds; notwithstanding rumors, innuendo and just plain gossip; the rest of us should look when judging the actions of  others.

I sure would.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust>

Stallman was outspoken about surveillance capitalisim and WSL. Those are big cages to rattle with one tiny tin cup.

Just in case you don't think an NGO is capable of such insider machinations. I highly recommend the following book which has a pretty good evaluation of how the powers that be; leveraged trends, NGO (charity) connections and industry (read IBM) influences which gave Bill Gates his silver spoon running head start with MS DOS.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2760759-the-making-of-microsoft <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2760759-the-making-of-microsoft>

Don't even get me started on WSL as an organized plan to disrupt linux freedom.

Engage Encompass and Eradicate are proven techniques of imperialism and capitalisim.

I think Red Hats "Woke Spoke" is Broke on this one, but with all that IBM money behind them, they will break this one guy out of the big picture, just because they can.

Russell

I may just be thick but I don't see what any of the above has to do with Surveillance Capitalism.

Or at least my understanding of Surveillance Capitalism that can be described by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism>

Heres Richard Stallman on open source surveillance capitalisim eight years ago.

https://youtu.be/CP8CNp-vksc <https://youtu.be/CP8CNp-vksc>

OK.  But you did not reference anything like this in your original posting. You kind of came out of nowhere making statements that seemed to have no relationship to your subject.

And for the life of me I can't see what any of this has to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Surf_League <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Surf_League>.

Heres an article on WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux but I understand your confusion.

https://fossbytes.com/richard-stallman-microsoft-linux-love-will-hurt-free-o... <https://fossbytes.com/richard-stallman-microsoft-linux-love-will-hurt-free-open-source-software/amp/>

This is not an amazingly new idea. Something like 25 years ago a group of us developed a way to run Unix binaries on top of DOS. It was not the end of Opensource software which was GCC and EMACS at the time. A chunk of the work we did ended up in the IBCS2 binary emulation in Linux. WSL is just a optimized VM engine. Think of it as an integrated VirtualBox or VMWare. I am really not a fan of Microsoft as just about anybody who knows me will attest to but I also don't see them as being run by a Mike Myers Dr. Evil kind of character. Most of the "Windows weenies" I know will run screaming from WSL and I expect that the primary uptake will be by Linux users who are forced by corporate doctrine to use Windows as a platform. It may be that in the long run WSL will actually erode the dominance of Windows and MS. That of course is my particular take and you are free to disagree.

I guess the entire thread is about protecting the right to engage free speach and the cost to individuals who go against the populist notions which are propigated by powerful organizations and their associate influencers.

At least thats my take on these current events as they relate to linux topicality.

-- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||

On 2021-04-04 1:18 a.m., Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:

As for erosion: consider that this sector that MS dominates is an ever-shrinking piece of the IT pie. PC gaming has to compete with dedicated consoles and the looming VR.

Microsoft does extremely well with its XBox product line, don't forget. Not merely do they have a line of the premiere gaming hardware, they are also considered a AAA game development shop. They've come a long way from MS Olympic Decathlon on the TRS-80. One thing that Microsoft does that it's very open about is accessibility research and development. Many of the standards it contributes to are truly open. Its line of accessibility hardware for the XBox - which can also be used as a general-purpose BT/USB programmable adaptive input device which any system that supports it - is priced not much above cost. Which for the accessibility device market is unheard of: they've been used to charging ~$100 for a single input switch. The disability tax is real, and Microsoft are challenging that. Needless to say, Linux's support for accessible/adaptive input is pretty terrible. Sure, many distros enable BRLTTY on boot, but Braille isn't universally useful. The state of screen readers and alternative input technologies (switch/menu scanning or eye-gaze tracking) is barely there on Linux. cheers, Stewart

On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 1:19 AM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

On Sat, 3 Apr 2021 at 22:45, Alvin Starr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

[much snipped] <Ditto.> , what reason does anyone have that suggests a breakthrough in the future? Weyland?

- Evan

I'd seriously consider Wayland. I'm assuming you don't mean any of these Weyland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyland Also I'm going to try for a 2 4 1 here and start by saying thanks for the tip on GraphineOS. I shook the short change out of the old fruit jar which I keep at the bottom of the tickle [tk] trunk, and purchased a Pixel 4 and installed GraphineOS. The sandboxing of RF aligned with my own ideology. Without a doubt this is the best sim voice connectivity I have ever had. Clear as a bell conversations on cellular. This is now my emergency cell device and not my daily driver. I use VOIP for that. To do this, I had to revert to stock on Fedora on Wayland. I tried following all the helpful information. ie. what library setup to use on linux etc. No joy, My personal frankensteined box wasn't up to the task. In my last effort to install, I even tried the over the web flash. It was the "error connecting to radio" message that saved the day for me. I installed stock F33 from scratch and did the OTA flash. It just worked. Actually in the docs Fedora was not recommended, ARCH being the preferred dev platform. I was mindful of the hypervisor issues of mapping usb through the virtual machine. However, I will probably try that at the EOL of this device, assuming that is still an option. I did lose the KDE functionality of Kaffeine in the process, so I don't have such a slick combo/video interface anymore but VLC, awkward as it is as a point and click tv tuner, has matured substantially. Conversely, as Cgroup V2 moves us deeper into the dynamic ILP fold, I imagine that this KDE support will return with many improvements. This assumes of course, that there is impetus to make those improvements. I do use VLC for most video transcoding now so I always install it. It is handy to just drag and drop the channel list or a web url into the interface and have it just work. F34 beta has Gnome 4. Gnome is the interface I most prefer on Fedora so I'm going to take a look, after I install from scratch media. Udevadm settle hangs around after a live media install and since this is deprecated now, this presents a different set of issues for us linux users. -- Russell

On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 04:44:40 -0400 Russell Reiter via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: <snip lots of very important stuff around here>

I changed the original subject because I was just trying to limit the list liabilities, in case of a libel suit. Not that Stallman would ever read Evans' post labeling him incel. But this was my reason for changing the subject after someone else simply dropped the libelous wording from the subject line.

Rational debate is one thing, ad hominem personal attacks are another.

+1

On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 3:24 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

Out of all the rationales for malice out there, hypocrisy is among the weakest. Because a person/corporation did bad thing A does not silence them when speaking out against unrelated bad thing B. Compounding this with guilt-by-association -- of Red Hat bearing the weight of all IBM's past (and very real) sins -- makes such accusations even weaker.

You were the one who associated Stallman the person with incel. Google fills in the rest of what the public knows ... terrorisim. That's a far cry from being just an asshole. That was associating the man with some of the most abhorrent news items of our times. You did this instead of the rational constructive criticism reasonable people would expect. As for the rest of guilt by association IBM, Red Hat or any other thing or person; How much trading in past and present terrorisim as opposed to assholeisim is allowed in a free and democratic society. Those corporate ideologies of the big multinational corporations who fully believe it is only illegal when you get caught, are the mainstay propagandists of our time.

SUSE also withdrew their FSF funding. Anyone care to draw a link between that and the fact that its HQ is in Nuremberg? And what dirt are we going to dig up about the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose position on the FSF is well more extreme than Red Hat's?

I'm not diggin up dirt on anyone or anything. I am pointing out similar facts of how economic weight has grown to the point that the truth is no longer just out there, it is hidden in the bowels and recesses of private dealings of corporations and their allies and spokespersons. Associative facts work both ways, not just one way. In fact history has always been written by the victors, and in some cases rewritten in the context of assimilation of the good facts and purging the bad facts as in what is good for us and what is bad for us.

In any case, let's remember that the actions taken are against the FSF, not Stallman himself who has not been muzzled at all (last I checked his blog is unaffected by all the commotion). It is the FSF that is being rightfully being punished for bringing him back to leadership when what is needed is diplomacy and allies, and there are so many good software freedom advocates out there who are not divisive assholes. It is telling that the loudest voices against the FSF are those who have actually interacted with Stallman (including those who have shared his ideology for decades), while most of his defenders have never met him.

Maybe RMS spoke out against surveillance capitalism. So what? Who cares? He's spoken about a bunch of stuff unrelated to what he's best known for, which is trying to re-invent Unix and promoting software freedom. He's a seminal speaker on those two issues, but far from expert in the others. Indeed, it's largely regarding his stances on issues far removed from software freedom that RMS finds himself banished from MIT and in this current mess.

As for me, when I think of people I want to follow on the issue of corporate surveillance, there are many better versed and articulate commentators on the issue than Stallman. Zuboff. Snowden. Braxman. Orwell! Many others. Indeed, it's *good* that these others are *not* funded by orgs involved in surveillance (or even supposed countermeasures such as VPNs) because that would clearly suggest conflicts of interest.

Sure, IBM's interests and agendas are suspect. Ditto Microsoft, Oracle and many others. But these days I prefer vigilance and skepticism over conspiratorial thinking.

If it's an actual plan then it's not just a theory any longer. https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-a-conspiracy-theory-when-you-see-one...

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 at 14:30, Russell Reiter via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

Red Hat has just dropped its Free Software Foundation funding and support.

Now that Red Hat is pretty well owned by IBM, wouldn't you like to ask all those people, how far back in IBM's own history of misdeeds; notwithstanding rumors, innuendo and just plain gossip; the rest of us should look when judging the actions of others.

I sure would.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Stallman was outspoken about surveillance capitalisim and WSL. Those are big cages to rattle with one tiny tin cup.

Just in case you don't think an NGO is capable of such insider machinations. I highly recommend the following book which has a pretty good evaluation of how the powers that be; leveraged trends, NGO (charity) connections and industry (read IBM) influences which gave Bill Gates his silver spoon running head start with MS DOS.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2760759-the-making-of-microsoft

Don't even get me started on WSL as an organized plan to disrupt linux freedom.

Engage Encompass and Eradicate are proven techniques of imperialism and capitalisim.

I think Red Hats "Woke Spoke" is Broke on this one, but with all that IBM money behind them, they will break this one guy out of the big picture, just because they can.

Russell

-- Russell