On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 8:10 PM Dhaval Giani <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, 4:38 PM Dhaval Giani, <[email protected]> > 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. > > > >> 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. > > "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
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