Richard Stallman. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to think. On the one hand, he can be extraordinarily irritating and he holds all sorts of opinions that I and many people don’t agree with. On the other hand, no matter what else you think, the man is a hero of the Free/Open Source Movement and has the annoying habit of being proved right
I remember thinking when the GNU project was first announced that the chances of it gaining any real traction were small. And yet, here we are. We have Linux. We have gcc. We have Emacs. We have virtually all the Unix utilities and a bevy of language implementations. By any measure and no matter your politics, Stallman’s GNU project has been a resounding success.
The latest controversy involving Stallman involves his defense of Marvin Minsky in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. That defense has, of course, been mischaracterized by a lazy and ignorant press and the usual Twitter mobsters as his supporting Epstein and rape. Reasonable people can, I think, can hold opposing views on Stallman’s support of Minsky but I just came across a take on the controversy that no reasonable person can support.
A random Emacs user asked on the Web asked how he could monetarily support Emacs. That’s great, of course. Not everyone can contribute time or code and helping to support those that do is laudable. But then we have this:
Under normal circumstances, I would donate to the Free Software Foundation, but I personally refuse to donate to them anymore because of Richard Stallman’s “cancellation” (over something petty, in my opinion).
This is childish on many levels but isn’t the worst example of the sort. I’ve even seen people ask if it was all right to use Emacs given Stallman’s alleged sins. Sorry, but these people need to grow up. In the first place, Stallman has virtually nothing to do with the development of Emacs or any other GNU software. Yes, he’s still the head of GNU but he resigned from FSF and his current GNU role is mostly spreading the Free Software message by speaking engagements. As far as I can see, his only connection with development is occasional posts on the devel lists and even those are mostly about maintaining Free Software purity. Regardless, it makes no sense to punish the FSF—and the thousands of developers who depend on its work—for the actions of someone who is no longer affiliated with them.
Actually, it makes no sense even if Stallman were still the president of the FSF. Lots of Apple users hated Steve Jobs and felt his behavior regarding his daughter was reprehensible yet they kept right on buying iPhones because they thought iPhones were the best phones available. It’s not the organization accused of misbehavior but one of its employees. Sensible people can draw that distinction.
Finally, notice that our random user admits that even he doesn’t believe Stallman did anything really egregious. Rather, he’s outsourced his opinion making to a few activists on social media, most of whom probably don’t know who Stallman is or what the controversy is about. People whose analytical abilities are so weak should consider whether they’re in the right profession.
UPDATE : Renegade offers an alternative interpretation of the comment about not supporting the FSF. It’s much more benign than mine and I hope Renegade is correct. If true, it moves the transgression from the individual to the organization.