Matthew Garrett ([personal profile] mjg59) wrote2019-09-14 07:57 am
Entry tags:

It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software

Richard Stallman has once again managed to demonstrate incredible insensitivity[1]. There's an argument that in a pure technical universe this is irrelevant and we should instead only consider what he does in free software[2], but free software isn't a purely technical topic - the GNU Manifesto is nakedly political, and while free software may result in better technical outcomes it is fundamentally focused on individual freedom and will compromise on technical excellence if otherwise the result would be any compromise on those freedoms. And in a political movement, there is no way that we can ignore the behaviour and beliefs of that movement's leader. Stallman is driving away our natural allies. It's inappropriate for him to continue as the figurehead for free software.

But I'm not calling for Stallman to be replaced. If the history of social movements has taught us anything, it's that tying a movement to a single individual is a recipe for disaster. The FSF needs a president, but there's no need for that person to be a leader - instead, we need to foster an environment where any member of the community can feel empowered to speak up about the importance of free software. A decentralised movement about returning freedoms to individuals can't also be about elevating a single individual to near-magical status. Heroes will always end up letting us down. We fix that by removing the need for heroes in the first place, not attempting to find increasingly perfect heroes.

Stallman was never going to save us. We need to take responsibility for saving ourselves. Let's talk about how we do that.

[1] There will doubtless be people who will leap to his defense with the assertion that he's neurodivergent and all of these cases are consequences of that.

(A) I am unaware of a formal diagnosis of that, and I am unqualified to make one myself. I suspect that basically everyone making that argument is similarly unqualified.
(B) I've spent a lot of time working with him to help him understand why various positions he holds are harmful. I've reached the conclusion that it's not that he's unable to understand, he's just unwilling to change his mind.

[2] This argument is, obviously, bullshit

Re: 20 years late ?

(Anonymous) 2019-09-18 07:28 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know whether "sexual assault" is "the most precise language for what happened", because I don't really know exactly what happened. A witness present on the island with Minsky and the victim, Greg Benford, says that the victim approached Minsky but Minsky turned down her approach. The victim's deposition says that she was ordered by Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with Minsky, but she never directly says whether she actually had sex with Minsky or not, so what she says doesn't on the face of it directly contradict what Benford says. But, I don't have all the evidence, so I can't really reach any conclusions as to what actually happened here. I totally believe that she was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell and various powerful men, but I honestly can't say whether or not she was a victim of Minsky. (If she directly and unambiguously claims that it happened, I'll believe her, but on my reading of the publicly released documents, she hasn't done that as yet.)

Stallman was making some assumptions about what happened. I don't know if his assumptions are correct. He said that, he thought that, if those assumptions were correct, then using the phrase "sexual assault" would be a misleading description of what Minsky did to her. He never said that phrase was a misleading description of what Epstein and Maxwell did to her. Indeed, Stallman calls Epstein a "serial rapist".

I'm not claiming we always have to use legally precise terminology, and I don't think Stallman was claiming that either. In fact, Stallman was claiming the opposite – that terminology can be legally accurate, yet create a misleading impression to people who aren't familiar with legal definitions. Whether or not he's right in this particular case, he's certainly right in the general case.

The other thing he was saying, is that we need to keep a clear distinction between morality and legality, when a lot of people mush them together and fail to distinguish them. Indeed, when discussing morality, we need to leave legal terminology out of the picture, since that isn't in the general case morally relevant. That's how this whole discussion about the age of consent in the Virgin Islands came up. The fact that it is eighteen, obviously that's a very important consideration in the legal judgement of what happened. But, is it important to the moral judgement of what Minsky did (if he in fact did it)? Stallman argues not, and I think Stallman's correct there. Consider some hypotheticals: the trip to the island gets delayed for a few months, and by the time it happens, the victim has turned eighteen; the legal history of the Virgin Islands turned out a bit differently, and it ended up with sixteen or seventeen as an age of consent instead of eighteen; instead of buying an island in the Virgin Islands, Epstein buys one in some other jurisdiction with a lower age of consent. Now, in terms of their potential legal consequences, these scenarios are all very different from what actually happened (if it happened). But, are they morally significantly different? I think not. If Minsky has done something gravely immoral in the actual world situation, then his act would have been just as immoral in those hypotheticals.

On the topic of an unconscious woman – do you think, Stallman actually believes that, if a man walking through a park comes across an unconscious woman lying in the grass, and instead of calling for help, he attempts sexual intercourse with her, that would not be rape and/or sexual assault? I doubt Stallman actually believes that. If a literal reading of his remarks implies that he does, well a literal reading isn't always a charitable one.

Re: 20 years late ?

(Anonymous) 2019-09-18 08:20 am (UTC)(link)
Stallman posited that Minsky had sex with her. Everything he said was on the assumption that that actually did occur, and that it was still incorrect to use "sexual assault" as the term.

He was trying to spin things to put Minsky in the best possible light. It could also have been a prostitution arrangement between Minsky and Epstein, set up with plausible deniability in mind.

Or, Minsky could have been forced to have sex with her, because otherwise Epstein was going to kill Minsky's wife. That would really make it that Minsky had no culpability. Why didn't Stallman propose that hypothetical?

Where does Stallman say "that terminology can be legally accurate, yet create a misleading impression to people who aren't familiar with legal definitions"? Please provide the relevant quote.

Because "absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation" sure doesn't sound like it can ever be legally accurate to use in an accusation.

Who cares about what Stallman thinks about the differences between morality and legality, and hypothetical situations? Stallman says that people should never use the phrase "sexual assault" in an accusation, which means he doesn't know what that term even means.

Yes, the literal reading of the phrase "absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation" means that if a man has sex with an unconscious woman then it would be absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.

How is that any less charitable than his views on the terms that the student made in the Facebook post?