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Richard Stallman: Open Sores' Arrogant Sexist? [UPDATED x3]
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by dysamoria | July 18, 2009 at 02:30 am
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UPDATE: 8-20-09: i wish to retract my unduly harsh use of the term "sociopath" in describing Richard Stallman. my sincere apologies. there are some excellent arguments, very well worded in a comment posting below the story, which brought me down from my feelings of harshness at Mr. Stallman. i DO still think he needs to rethink his use of language for his audience and a very well worded example of how to do that was provided by "anony mous" in the comments below the story. So, Mr. Stallman, please accept my apologies for taking this all too personally. i believe in passionate journalism and it can get carried away like i did with calling you a sociopath.
See an 8/11/2009 UPDATE near the end of article...
UPDATE: Original Complaint to Richard Stallman (URL).
richard stallman is a self appointed "voice" of "open source" in the computer world. he's arrogant, opinionated, &, it seems, an insensitive sexist [...]. let me say up front: i've always disliked this [guy] based on all i've read from him, but only recently found a really concrete angle on which to bash him:
why do it myself when Thom Holwerda of OSnews.com did a fantastic story about the events. (OSnews.com is one of my old playgrounds back when i crusaded for a more humane computer industry; i occasionally return to have a looksee at the current news... only to find not much has changed... linux linux linux... but at least Thom Holwerda and Eugenia Loli-Queru are smart, friendly voices of reason who still fondly remember BeOS). here's the story of richard stallman's anti-social personality unveiled: "Richard Stallman's Possibly Sexist Remarks at GCDS" (not "possibly;" "DEFINITELY")
Some of my favourite bits:
and:
no, it doesn't excuse him, or anyone.
and, personally meaningful to me was this single line:
major points to OSnews/Thom Holwerda for addressing this, & to the people who personally took "RMS" to task on his anti-social arrogant sexism. i point out that RMS' refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing AND ESPECIALLY his attempt to redirect matters to suggest HE has been wronged is a demonstration of sociopathic traits. something that should not come as a surprise... i assume he started life a socially abused geek/nerd, developed BPD as defense mechanism & now runs about acting superior since he found a niche area where he can be a raging control freak, like so many other sociopaths. hey, if the pattern fits...
UPDATED Tuesday August 11, 2009 at 12:10pm:
the reason why this "joke" of Stallman's has only just recently been taken to task was mentioned in the original article. essentially, the audience members have, for a very long time, been mostly all male (males who don't feel the need to take to task something as tasteless as this "joke"). the number of females attending Stallman's talks, and participating in the open source communities, has finally grown to where Stallman (and others with his sexist language) would be utterly foolish to NOT reconsider his (their) behavior. in the days gone prior, he was preaching to a collective of mostly male "computer geek" stereotypes. since the open source community has grown beyond that limited audience, there are now plenty of people who find his behavior not just sexist but generally rude and arrogant. this will do one of two things:
1. push away this new audience (to the detriment of the community).
2. bring Stallman's reputation down into the mire of the "narrow minded arrogant jerk" swamp, where people will stop listening to him and asking/paying him to speak to audiences.
bringing this issue to light, making an issue of it, is exactly what needs to be done to help Stallman "wake up" to the reality of his current, and changing, audience in order to avoid those two possible negative outcomes. it is in his best interest.
as for my use of the term "open sores," it was to literally point out the sores on the surface of the computer technology communities such as sexism, and to get attention for readership. that's quite fair.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (12)
at 02:32 on July 18th, 2009
apologies for the lousy formatting. this is a problem i've complained about on NP for about a year now. i don't have Dreamweaver on my current machine to clean the code for the picky tools on NP, despite the fact that it looks EXACTLY as i intended it while in EDIT MODE.
at 05:29 on July 18th, 2009
i've edited this story, based on and with respects to "generaldecay" for responding to my admittedly inflammatory email with a more constructive response than the initial copy/paste message i hate receiving from NP editors. i apologize for my own inflammatory attitudes, but this IS an opinion topic, it DOES relate to something that EVERYONE should be concerned about (sexism in ANY social circle is unacceptable) and i really wanted to point NP readers to OSnews.com for the full details.
what crime am i committing here by not writing stories that are nothing but quotes from other news sources and by not writing about death, destruction, war and the death of pop stars?
Between the low quality of the tools here (the story editor environment, HTML code handling, quote mechanisms, the broken widget) and the knee-jerk copy/paste responses i get, AND the people who respond with nothing but a totally unconstructive "This story is disgusting" to an article that asks people to consider what affect they have on other people around them... i'm very seriously considering deleting my broken widget from my blog, deleting my account at NP (or just abandoning it) and forgetting i ever believed in the ideals and goals of NP to begin with.
someone convince me to stay.
at 06:42 on July 18th, 2009
i could have chosen a really nasty image, to be a jerk and all that, but i thought this was a pretty decent photo of the man...
at 08:33 on July 18th, 2009
dysamoria, thank you for adding more to this story and for the PM conversation we have had about this story. I can now see the context of this person's remarks (and I agree that's he sexist) and the reasons for your reaction to him.
at 08:20 on August 11th, 2009
thanks, generaldecay, for discussing this with me and helping me to improve this story with your feedback :-)
at 12:26 on July 18th, 2009
thank you, generaldecay, as in our PM conversation, sorry for any rudeness from me. i'm having a hard time of life these years and stories like this are things i'm passionate about. thanks for being interactive :) best wishes to you
at 05:39 on August 11th, 2009
I am failing to understand why people are jumping on RMS now (mid 2009) after he has been making that joke (and I emphasize the word "joke") in speeches for almost 20 years. I am personally very upset by it. It was as if some women stopped Gandhi on the street while he was fighting for India's independence or MLK Jr. while he was fighting for civil rights for African Americans and ridiculed him by picking some completely insignificant point and crying "You sexist, you!"
I don't see anything sexist about what he said (forgive me, I will concede that I am male). If there were something sexist about it, people would have let him know immediately the first time he told that joke (sometime in the late 80s or early 90s).
I encourage all of you to take a step back and rethink who you are criticizing, because I will simply echo what one distinguished MIT professor said about him ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#MIT2001 ):
"
I won't appear on the same panel him, but if you asked me to name five people alive in the world who have truly helped us all, Richard Stallman would be one of them.
"
And also, your use of the term "open source" makes me think that you have been brainwashed by corporate propaganda. I encourage all of those who use the term "open source" and "linux" (to refer to the OS) to read:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html
at 08:09 on August 11th, 2009
the reason why this "joke" has only just been taken to task was indeed mentioned in the original article. the audience members have, for a very long time, been mostly all male (males who don't feel the need to take to task something as tasteless as this "joke"). the number of females attending his talks has finally grown to where Stallman would be utterly foolish to NOT reconsider his behavior. in the days gone prior, he was preaching to a collective of mostly male computer geek stereotypes. since the open source community has grown beyond that limited audience, there are now plenty of people who find his behavior not just sexist but generally rude and arrogant. this will do one of two things:
1. push away this new audience (to the detriment of the community).
2. bring Stallman's reputation down into the mire of the "narrow minded arrogant jerk" swamp, where people will stop listening to him and asking/paying him to speak to audiences.
bringing this issue to light, making an issue of it, is exactly what needs to be done to help Stallman "wake up" to the reality of his current audience in order to avoid those two possible negative outcomes. it is in his best interest.
as for my use of the term "open sores," it was to literally point out the sores on the surface of the computer technology communities such as sexism, and to get attention. clearly it got your attention, but you don't seem to comprehend the wider scope of meaning behind this entire news item.
at 05:42 on August 11th, 2009
I am failing to understand why people are jumping on RMS now (mid 2009) after he has been making that joke (and I emphasize the word "joke") in speeches for almost 20 years. I am personally very upset by it. It was as if some women stopped Gandhi on the street while he was fighting for India's independence or MLK Jr. while he was fighting for civil rights for African Americans and ridiculed him by picking some completely insignificant point and crying "You sexist, you!"
I don't see anything sexist about what he said (forgive me, I will concede that I am male). If there were something sexist about it, people would have let him know immediately the first time he told that joke (sometime in the late 80s or early 90s).
I encourage all of you to take a step back and rethink who you are criticizing, because I will simply echo what one distinguished MIT professor said about him ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#MIT2001 ):
"
I won't appear on the same panel him, but if you asked me to name five people alive in the world who have truly helped us all, Richard Stallman would be one of them.
"
And also, your use of the term "open source" makes me think that you have been brainwashed by corporate propaganda. I encourage all of those who use the term "open source" and "linux" (to refer to the OS) to read:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html
at 08:18 on August 11th, 2009
the story has been updated to include my reply to your [double] posting.
at 16:23 on August 11th, 2009
Sorry for the double-posting. My response is embedded as follows:
"essentially, the audience members have, for a very long time, been mostly all male (males who don't feel the need to take to task something as tasteless as this "joke"). the number of females attending Stallman's talks, and participating in the open source communities, has finally grown to where Stallman (and others with his sexist language) would be utterly foolish to NOT reconsider his (their) behavior."
I'm having a hard time believing this. In fact, as proof, if you look at a lot of his speeches posted at http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ (dating from 2001), you will notice that there are atleast some females in the audience. And the speeches posted online are only a small fraction of the total number of speeches he has given over the years. If the joke was sexist, and there was atleast 1 member in the audience who was female, it would have been immediately pointed out to him. Stallman has given literally thousands (yes 4 digits) of speeches like this one, and I would say that he has recited this joke in atleast 10% of those speechs. And I should also mention, he has given speeches to non-technical (non-geek) audiences as well (just browse through http://audio-video.gnu.org/ and you'll find an example). So, it goes against odds, that there was no such speech where there was a significant amount of females in the audience such that the inappropriateness of his joke would have been pointed out to him.
"this will do one of two things:
1. push away this new audience (to the detriment of the community).
2. bring Stallman's reputation down into the mire of the "narrow minded arrogant jerk" swamp, where people will stop listening to him and asking/paying him to speak to audiences."
You think ridiculing him on the blogosphere won't push away this new audience _and_ bring Stallman's reputation down? I think this does much more damage, if anything, especially considering that Stallman doesn't really browse the web (in the conventional way) in the first place. See http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html . He sends mail to a program which fetches web pages and mails them back to him. So, chances are he won't ever read your blog. Which means your blog is completely destructive. IMHO, the better thing to have done was to have more people who thought his joke was inappropriate confront him about it (in person or via email), saying something respectfully like:
"Dr. Stallman,
With all due respect, this joke about emacs virgins... It might give people the wrong impression. And given that it might be making the audience uncomfortable, I advise you to omit it in speeches."
This is not only a much more civil and constructive way of handling the situtation; I think he would have been much more receptive to this. Although, I still don't see what all the fuss is about, because, again, I don't see the joke as sexist to begin with. Awkward? Yes (especially for a large audience) Ungraceful? Yes. But not sexist.
But no, you and your peers chose to politically crucify him on the internet. What's worse is that the first blogger who started this mess, had the nerve to post private emails between him and Stallman, which I thought was _complete_ invasion of Stallman's privacy. I actually tried responding to that absurd blog as kindly as I possibly could - I assure you it wasn't a flame - and he decides to deny my comment posting. So much for freedom of speech in the blogosphere...
"bringing this issue to light, making an issue of it, is exactly what needs to be done to help Stallman "wake up" to the reality of his current audience in order to avoid those two possible negative outcomes. it is in his best interest."
This will not work, for the reasons I have stated above, and there is a better way of dealing with the situation, also stated above.
"richard stallman is a self appointed "voice" of "open source" in the computer world."
This I know to be complelty untrue, because Stallman has on most occasions said he is _not_ part of the "open source" movement. Download almost any video/audio from http://audio-video.gnu.org/ and there is some member of the audience asking some question in reference to the "open source" movement, at which point Stallman interrupts the member saying he has never been a member of the "open source" community. He has always been the founder of and part of the free software movement.
"as for my use of the term "open sores,"..."
I did not criticize your use of the word "open sores". I criticized your, Mr. Holwerda's (and the millions of other people's) use of the term "open source". Again, read what I stated above.
"he's arrogant, opinionated, ..."
Most geniuses are eccentric, atleast to some degree. But more importantly, he has every reason to be arrogant and angry. Just look at his political notes at http://stallman.org/archives/polnotes.html . Here, he points out so many of the gross injustices that take place in this wonderful world of ours. He once said at the Keynote address for the "New York Linux Bazaar":
"People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the world."
"i've always disliked this [guy] based on all i've read from him, but only recently found a really concrete angle on which to bash him:"
A true journalist deals with his subjects/sources using a neutral point of view. You lose objectivity when you immediately establish your hatred. You also basically admit that you were waiting for such an opportunity to ridicule him, which further tells me that whatever you have against Stallman is strictly personal. If you simply presented the facts to your readers and then voiced your opinion, it would have been more credible. For example, "Stallman said... In my opinion, this is inappropriate (or sexist) because..." This would have been better, although, not accurate IMHO because I still don't consider Stallman's joke to be sexist.
"...and to get attention for readership. that's quite fair."
That's sensationalism - a cheap tactic to increase your readership - a practice which is frowned upon by most professional journalists. A true journalist reports the news as it is without sensationalizing it.
"His contributions to the Free software movement are huge"
This statement by Mr. Holwerda is sort of an understatement, because he _founded_ the free software movement 25 years ago and was instrumental in making it as powerful and beneifical to the world as it is today. IMHO, that's much, much more than a "huge contribution".
"but does that excuse him for being an asshole?"
Obviously not, but IMHO, there is nothing that Stallman said in that speech that indicated that he is an asshole/jerk/whatever.
"i assume he started life a socially abused geek/nerd"
There might be some degree of truth to this. Read this: http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch03.html
"...developed BPD as defense mechanism..."
Clearly, this is just hitting below the belt. When someone has been socially abused (and I'm not claiming that Stallman has been), is this how you treat them? This is the height of insensitivity.
"now runs about acting superior since he found a niche area where he can be a raging control freak, like so many other sociopaths"
Well, he did learn calculus by age 8, aced nearly every standardized test thrown at him, completed Math 55 at Harvard ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Math_55 ), got the MacArthur Fellowship (aka "Genius Award"), got 10 honorary doctorates, oh and did I mention, change the face of the world for the better?!? So, if he were acting superior - which is not what he is doing - I would think he certainly has the credentials to. But no, if you listen to his speeches, you will begin to realize how "down to earth" this guy really is. After all, he could have easily been a millionaire (or billionaire) if he chose the conventional path and accepted a job in Corporate America. But no, as he himself admits:
"I faced a stark moral choice. The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker. Most likely I would also be developing software that was released under nondisclosure agreements, thus adding to the pressure on other people to betray their fellows too. I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place." ( http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html )
So, what you call a "sociopath", I call a saint.
The argument that the joke is sexist would be more credible if there was any other evidence (besides the joke itself) of sexism. I don't think there is any. Just look at the man's website ( http://stallman.org/ ). The man should not only be given full credit for starting the free software movement and making it the voice of freedom in the digital world that it is today (which the vast majority of people fail to do, especially when they use terms like "open source" and "linux"), but he should also be given credit for his non-GNU-related political notes listed at http://stallman.org/archives/polnotes.html . Where is the sexism? The following posts, in fact, just to cite a few recent ones, show quite the contrary:
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#10%20August%202009%20(More%20Blackwater%20shenanigans)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#29%20July%202009%20(Nicaragua:%20total%20ban%20on%20abortion)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#28%20July%202009%20(Truce%20between%20Taliban%20and%20the%20Afghan%20government)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#26%20July%202009%20(Obama%20may%20grant%20asylum%20to%20international%20domestic%20violence%20victims)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#08 July 2009 (Natalism)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#06%20July%202009%20(Maliki%20is%20accused%20of%20moving%20Iraq%20towards%20dictatorship)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#27%20June%202009%20(Violent%20Iranian%20fundamentalist%20militia-men%20target%20women!)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#24%20June%202009%20(Hospitals%20are%20sterilizing%20HIV-positive%20women)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#21%20June%202009%20(Pseudo%20withdrawal%20in%20Iraq)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#05%20June%202009%20(Urgent%20Note:%20Take%20action%20for%20abortion%20rights)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#05%20June%202009%20(Ryanair%27s%20Michael%20O%27Leary%20defends%20pay-per-pee%20fee)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#05%20June%202009%20(Fanatic%20who%20murdered%20Dr%20Tiller)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#04%20May%202009%20(Iraqi%20women)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#6%20August%202009%20(Woman%20challanging%20Sudan%20gov%27t%20over%20Islamic%20dress%20laws)
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2009-may-aug.html#31%20July%202009%20(Woman%20confronts%20flogging%20in%20Sudan)
And to put things in perspective, there are countless females all around the world suffering the worst forms of sexism at the hands of sexist governments, sexist employers, etc. in sexist countries. Feminists should be targetting them, not Stallman for making an innocent joke.
To summarize, there is absolutely no ground for the criticism being voiced not only here, but all over the internet. Just type "Stallman sexist" into a web search engine, and you will see how this minor, trivial incident has been blown compltely out of proportion, completely undercutting the incredible good that this man has done for the world.
You and your peers seem to have grossly misunderstood Stallman (and wronged him). I would encourage you to read the following books (both freely downloadable) before passing any immature judgment on him:
http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/
http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/
Anyways, thanks for letting me say what I had to say.
at 18:09 on August 20th, 2009
your arguments are quite excellent and well worded/written. i have to concede that i have been too harsh too soon. however, crediting him as a genius/saint because of his accomplishments doesn't earn him any points for me. in fact, it makes him a lot more like me than you might think. i bet he has autism of some sort. i don't make sexist jokes. yes, there could have been a much more polite and down to earth way of addressing the issue, but maybe people you DON'T know had really had ENOUGH of hearing this same sexist joke over and over and were no longer willing to be ... polite(?)
i'm not going to argue with you. i would suggest you get an account here. you are certainly a well spoken individual who does research very well. i concede your many points. if you post a name/identity, i will make this statement in the article's body.
just so you know, i intentionally chose a very down to earth and nice photo of the man instead of the others floating around the web that are rather unflattering because i wanted to demonstrate that my attack wasn't a deeply personal one, just an attack on behavior. citing Stallman to be sociopathic was off base. i eat my words.
Thank you.