He changed the whole world of software. We wouldn’t have the thriving scene of quality FOSS we have today without him, including the operating systems on which we run it.
Absolutely. I didn’t mean to say he “only” changed my view, in case that’s the impression.
He is a great man, the entire (digital) world is built on his legacy so to say, yet barely anyone knows about him.
PS: little anecdote as I once went to an Apple Store and scrolled through the software licenses in the settings on an iPad of iOS and found one crediting Richard Stallman as the author. I just left it like that, thought it’s funny having his name on an iPad in the Apple Store :p
Yeah. I’m not a big “celebrity” person but he’s had a net positive impact to the world and devoted his life to his cause. I have a signed copy of his hacking book from a seminar in college. I hope he comes out on the other side. I have a lot of respect for him despite his eccentric statements.
I’m with you. I have a lot of friends with Aspergers and other ASDs (one of the joys of a life in tech - lots of interesting and intelligent friends). Stallman’s post following his return to the board of FSF and his unnecessary public comments and debate around Epstein, his guests, and child abuse strongly reminded me of some of the troubles my ASD friends have gotten themselves into by not quite groking social cues, “reading the room”, or knowing which topics and situations welcome debate and which ones don’t or will likely get emotional responses from other participants rather than rational.
He’s definitely been taken for a ride by the media, but his statements about “voluntary pedophilia” weren’t very smart to make in a public context.
He’s not a pedophile, but entertaining the idea that there are ways a child could have voluntary sex with an adult are not a good look. I know this is something that was debated back in the day, but everyone else has moved on from that notion decades ago.
He’s also had a long documented history being generally weird and creepy around women, to the point where women in tech cancel tickets for events he’s announced to speak at. There’s a chance it’s all just his Aspergers making him miss social cues, but after so many years you’d expect him to learn when to shut up eventually.
It’s hard to say where the autism stops and where the creepiness starts, there’s probably no way to tell. I’m quite allergic to the “he has autism so it’s okay” excuse, though; you can be autistic and be an absolute dick/creep at the same time, being neurodivergent is an explanation but not an excuse. It’s on him to get help learning to mask properly so he can fit into nornal society if he means to partake in it.
Regardless, someone like him simply shouldn’t be at the positions he has held if the open source community is to gain progress. Intentionally or not, he’s often creepy and weird, and the communities aggressively leaping to his defence whenever someone makes a credible accusation of him is driving many people away from his movement. He should’ve stepped down from any public function years ago.
Even if I don’t agree with you on all of what you said I agree with most of it. Sound reasoning and all that. The autism/aspergers ‘excuse’ is definitely hard to accept given his history.
Regardless, someone like him simply shouldn’t be at the positions he has held if the open source community is to gain progress.
I’m conflicted here. The fact that he’s a weirdo is kind of irrelevant imo. He’s philosophically uncompromising and unmoved by social pressure. The only thing separating him from most tech CEOs is that he lacks an organization investing millions into his health, image, publicity etc Most big time executives are degenerates but no one cares because they are good at what they do. I think he’s good at making software free even if he’s a socially inept [insert criticism here] in his personal life. Additionally I’m saying this as someone who disagrees with him on basically every other issue he takes a stand on.
He’s a great programmer and his efforts and principles have definitely moved software development forward in ways few others could have accomplished.
However, like so many people on the spectrum, he lacks the soft skills that someone with his profile needs. You can send your average programmer on media/PR training, but with people like Stallman I question how effective that would be. His behaviour at conferences and other venues makes him a questionable guest to invite at the very least. That is part of his professional life.
He’s no longer just a guy hacking away in the basement, showing the proprietary software industry how things can be changed for the better even if there’s not much profit in them. His organisation has gained a central role in the software world, and that comes with certain responsibilities.
What separates him from most tech CEOs is that a) he’s not a psychopath, which is frighteningly common in big business, and b) that he lacks the social skills that millionaires have. Nobody cares that Bill Gates isn’t a great human being, he’s buying back his soul by spending billions on fighting malaria; however, if he starts acting like a creep online or at conferences, that image will quickly be tarnished. Jeff Bezos has the social skills not to send an email to a public mailing list describing ways in which a convicted sex offenders may have been misrepresented. Every single controversy surrounding him was started by an email or blog post he wrote, mostly completely unprompted. Succinctly put: he should’ve learned when to shut up.
As someone on the spectrum (though probably not as deeply as him), I’d love to live in a world where Stallman could lead a public life like he does, and I tend to agree with some of his Vulcan-like logic when it comes to his position on controversial law, but that’s not the world we live in.
The kind of life he’s led has not given him the types of socially safe situations in which to learn the things that you shouldn’t say. I think it’s fair to say that the same influences that might have moderated his public statements would also have moderated his public work and he would not have accomplished what he has.
When I listen to him talk I hear a type of clarity of thought and direction of speech i’ve never heard from someone who isn’t autistic, like I am myself. I think with him it’s a case of you taking the good with the bad, and recognizing that when he says something it’s not necessarily coming from the same place as it would be from someone else with a similarly wide public exposure.
I’ve not heard that he’s done anything horrible to anyone, and if memory serves his worst statements still recognized the importance of consent, while totally missing the definitional limits of being able to provide it. What i’m getting at is that he doesn’t seem to be a horrible person. He seems to be a tone deaf person with very little context for understanding how other people’s brains work, and perhaps no idea how different his really is.
Everyone is so depressed about this thing, that they don’t even want to write comments here
Yeah just fucking sad. This guy changed the way I think about software, releasing code I write, contributing etc. Would be so sad to see him go.
He changed the whole world of software. We wouldn’t have the thriving scene of quality FOSS we have today without him, including the operating systems on which we run it.
Absolutely. I didn’t mean to say he “only” changed my view, in case that’s the impression. He is a great man, the entire (digital) world is built on his legacy so to say, yet barely anyone knows about him.
PS: little anecdote as I once went to an Apple Store and scrolled through the software licenses in the settings on an iPad of iOS and found one crediting Richard Stallman as the author. I just left it like that, thought it’s funny having his name on an iPad in the Apple Store :p
Yeah. I’m not a big “celebrity” person but he’s had a net positive impact to the world and devoted his life to his cause. I have a signed copy of his hacking book from a seminar in college. I hope he comes out on the other side. I have a lot of respect for him despite his eccentric statements.
I’m with you. I have a lot of friends with Aspergers and other ASDs (one of the joys of a life in tech - lots of interesting and intelligent friends). Stallman’s post following his return to the board of FSF and his unnecessary public comments and debate around Epstein, his guests, and child abuse strongly reminded me of some of the troubles my ASD friends have gotten themselves into by not quite groking social cues, “reading the room”, or knowing which topics and situations welcome debate and which ones don’t or will likely get emotional responses from other participants rather than rational.
He’s definitely been taken for a ride by the media, but his statements about “voluntary pedophilia” weren’t very smart to make in a public context.
He’s not a pedophile, but entertaining the idea that there are ways a child could have voluntary sex with an adult are not a good look. I know this is something that was debated back in the day, but everyone else has moved on from that notion decades ago.
He’s also had a long documented history being generally weird and creepy around women, to the point where women in tech cancel tickets for events he’s announced to speak at. There’s a chance it’s all just his Aspergers making him miss social cues, but after so many years you’d expect him to learn when to shut up eventually.
It’s hard to say where the autism stops and where the creepiness starts, there’s probably no way to tell. I’m quite allergic to the “he has autism so it’s okay” excuse, though; you can be autistic and be an absolute dick/creep at the same time, being neurodivergent is an explanation but not an excuse. It’s on him to get help learning to mask properly so he can fit into nornal society if he means to partake in it.
Regardless, someone like him simply shouldn’t be at the positions he has held if the open source community is to gain progress. Intentionally or not, he’s often creepy and weird, and the communities aggressively leaping to his defence whenever someone makes a credible accusation of him is driving many people away from his movement. He should’ve stepped down from any public function years ago.
Even if I don’t agree with you on all of what you said I agree with most of it. Sound reasoning and all that. The autism/aspergers ‘excuse’ is definitely hard to accept given his history.
I’m conflicted here. The fact that he’s a weirdo is kind of irrelevant imo. He’s philosophically uncompromising and unmoved by social pressure. The only thing separating him from most tech CEOs is that he lacks an organization investing millions into his health, image, publicity etc Most big time executives are degenerates but no one cares because they are good at what they do. I think he’s good at making software free even if he’s a socially inept [insert criticism here] in his personal life. Additionally I’m saying this as someone who disagrees with him on basically every other issue he takes a stand on.
He’s a great programmer and his efforts and principles have definitely moved software development forward in ways few others could have accomplished.
However, like so many people on the spectrum, he lacks the soft skills that someone with his profile needs. You can send your average programmer on media/PR training, but with people like Stallman I question how effective that would be. His behaviour at conferences and other venues makes him a questionable guest to invite at the very least. That is part of his professional life.
He’s no longer just a guy hacking away in the basement, showing the proprietary software industry how things can be changed for the better even if there’s not much profit in them. His organisation has gained a central role in the software world, and that comes with certain responsibilities.
What separates him from most tech CEOs is that a) he’s not a psychopath, which is frighteningly common in big business, and b) that he lacks the social skills that millionaires have. Nobody cares that Bill Gates isn’t a great human being, he’s buying back his soul by spending billions on fighting malaria; however, if he starts acting like a creep online or at conferences, that image will quickly be tarnished. Jeff Bezos has the social skills not to send an email to a public mailing list describing ways in which a convicted sex offenders may have been misrepresented. Every single controversy surrounding him was started by an email or blog post he wrote, mostly completely unprompted. Succinctly put: he should’ve learned when to shut up.
As someone on the spectrum (though probably not as deeply as him), I’d love to live in a world where Stallman could lead a public life like he does, and I tend to agree with some of his Vulcan-like logic when it comes to his position on controversial law, but that’s not the world we live in.
The kind of life he’s led has not given him the types of socially safe situations in which to learn the things that you shouldn’t say. I think it’s fair to say that the same influences that might have moderated his public statements would also have moderated his public work and he would not have accomplished what he has.
When I listen to him talk I hear a type of clarity of thought and direction of speech i’ve never heard from someone who isn’t autistic, like I am myself. I think with him it’s a case of you taking the good with the bad, and recognizing that when he says something it’s not necessarily coming from the same place as it would be from someone else with a similarly wide public exposure.
I’ve not heard that he’s done anything horrible to anyone, and if memory serves his worst statements still recognized the importance of consent, while totally missing the definitional limits of being able to provide it. What i’m getting at is that he doesn’t seem to be a horrible person. He seems to be a tone deaf person with very little context for understanding how other people’s brains work, and perhaps no idea how different his really is.
A lot of them may have commented on the first post.