[GTALUG] RMS on britannica.com

[Russell Reiter]

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 10:21 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk, <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> | From: Russell Reiter via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> |
> | I stumbled across this. I think it's concise and well written. Cuts
> through
> | the fud pretty well.
> |
> | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Stallman
>
> I don't know exactly what you are referring to as "FUD" (fear,
> uncertainty, and doubt).
>

Fear that Stallman has no moral centre of self abounds on this list and
elsewhere.

Uncertantity that the real evidence may not absolutely validate his ouster.

Doubt must be reasonable.

I mean when someone on this list asks me to tell them I am a white racisist
so they can send me to /dev/null over an offhand remark I made about the
issue. I can say without a doubt, I know there is something terribly wrong.

Not with me, or the list. I would place that statement, which was directed
to me, at the heart of the ethical source of the controversy. This comes
from my personal expierence of this kind of hate on this list.

I have a couple of mantras which I use to overcome such adversity. One such
mantra is;

If you give sharp tools to blunt minds, chaos is the only expected result.

Remember not everyone on this list is an elite kernel hacker, as some
others hold themselves out to be. Some of us are just users trying to keep
linux working on our desktop.

Sometimes against all odds, or so it seems.


>
> The article seems to be mostly limited to non-controversial and positive
> things.  It seems to be written very sympathetically.  That's probably
> appropriate.
>

I wouldn't necessatily say sympathetically. I would say journalism's
ethical cannons were well preserved in the telling.

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

>
> I certainly object to "One of the last of the “hackers,” computer
> programmers who strongly believed in freely modifying and sharing computer
> code,".  That's nonsense unless qualified somehow.
>

It is an opinion, perhaps nonsensical but only an opinion.

>
> The covering of the Epstein / Minsky issue is very superficial and
> consequently probably not misleading.  I've avoided studying the
> underlying story so I cannot say much.
>
> It has NO coverage of the other controversial issues.
>

Well the controversy is steeped in ongoing virtue signaling and emotional
values related to universities, engineers, carreers and associated career
retardation and advancement; not my balliwick.

Personally on this list, I just hack away using linux and furthering my
understanding of the tools that come with it.

The other contraversial issues stem from the vanity press of the interweb.
I got my kickstart recognising digital vanities on bbs, then by reading
usenet posts, so I fend off the trolls as best I can.
.

>
> So, no, I don't think that this cuts through the FUD.
> I don't know that all the controversy is FUD.---


True, not repeating the fud doesnt cut through it. However, it can serve to
stem a rising tide when viewed in the proper context.

Call it more of a dignifed telling from someone who is not one of Stallmans
friends talking about him, or someone who has just met him casually
relating one hearsay or another.

When the wagons are circled around a business friend it is often a career
limiting move to remain friendly to that person.

This is the sad fact of politics of administration at University's and any
of the the other corporations which enable them. Especially those state
actors in the US and perhaps other jurisdictions as well.

When I am personally attacked on this list for proffering my opinion and I
am offered the choice to vacate the list or /dev/null. I always choose
/dev/null

Heck I've even sent procmail rules to the haters on this list, to make it
easier for them to avoid abusing me for my having my own opinion on what is
and is not linux topicality and the proper framing of referential objects.

But thats just me, others might not have such thick skins and silently
leave.

However I fully believe that perception is not reality; in my own case
fending off the trolls or Richard Stallmans issues with the totum of his
current troubles, whatever they may finally turn out to be.


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>
> 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
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