On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 02:31:28PM -0700, Luke W Faraone wrote:
> Myself, I signed this letter based on both public information and the
> numerous times I've heard, unprompted, stories from women and
> female-presenting people who have had uncomfortable / creepy experiences
> with Stallman, in the Debian / free software community, the MIT
> community, and elsewhere.
>
> I have heard first-hand stories from women who were new to the Free
> Software movement and, at a conference, were excited to meet its leader
> -- only to be hit on by Richard and invited back to continue the
> conversation at a residence. These people did not stay in the Free
> Software movement, and our community is poorer for it.
>
> None of those incidents would have turned into a police report, and I'm
> not demanding that you rely on it. But it comes up so frequently at
> conferences, student clubs, and bar chats from so many different people
> that I have little reason to doubt its veracity.
>
> It's also interesting to note that over 12 former FSF staff, who worked
> directly with Richard, also saw it fit to sign the letter.
This! Thank you!
I have regularly been among people sharing horror stories of what
happened when they hosted RMS at some event or another.
In my experience there is an unwritten, alternative "RMS Rider", that
you should know before hosting/handling him, with things like "don't
you *ever* leave RMS alone with a woman!", "avoid mentioning this list
of words", "a number of basic expectations of human decency don't apply,
and you should be prepared for that".
As long as he was in a somewhat official position of guru/leadership,
I was part of a community that tried its best to *handle* him, and to
*minimize his damage*. I understand that many people close to him tried
to talk to him, and that Stallman is about as famous for speaking as for
not listening. I believe that all this has held Free Software back
significantly.
We had finally moved on from having a significant amount of the
community energy spent on *handling Stallman*. And now he's supposed to
be back "and I'm not planning to resign a second time"?
Stallman can certainly *speak* about Free Software. Stallman cannot
*lead* the Free Software movement, or any influential part of it.
We had moved on, and we had mostly gotten away with it[1]. I don't want
to go back.
Enrico
[1] Possibly we don't deserve it. As a community we had enabled him to
be indecent on others for decades!
--
GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>
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