Although your Kind Host is certainly the Beacon of Reason and Unfaltering Logic lighting your way through these treacherous straits, there are others that provide illumination.
That was a pretty strained opening. Nevertheless, we proceed. Just wanted to point out a few other people’s take on the on-going character assassination of rms. Each one is worth a read, including comments. You might see a pattern developing.
In which Christian Schaller expresses his thoughts on the matter. We get some really vile allegations in the comments section by the creater of the “afraid of code” slur-meme:
Given that death threats have been sent to Mono developers frequently by said fundamentalist fans of Dr. Stallman, we instead decided to launch the “I am not afraid of people writing code” meme.
ps. Yes, death threats are exactly and precisely the level that these fundamentalist people have reached. And yes, the Mono guys are exactly and precisely the most pragmatic guys (about such things) in the community. But you can’t ignore certain things anymore. They are getting increasingly fanatic, increasingly crazy and Dr. Stallman is increasingly positioning himself in support of those idiots.
Once confronted, he does the old reliable backpedalling dance. Read the comments for context and weak sauce explanations. “I meant that rms was supporting those idiots, not the things they do! It’s totally not the same thing!”
By the way, there is an interesting entry on the gentleman’s blog: Why females should participate in agile software development. It is because their brains are different, you see. Soon, I hope to see the series continued with such enlightened entries as “Why Asians should participate in mathematical software development” and “Why Blacks should participate in sports software development (but not hockey) .” Also, Stallman is a sexist.
There’s another nice appearance of the main motivator behind the recent sexism scare, who humbly asks us “were the folks who weren’t African-Americans who joined and vocally supported the Civil Rights movement in the 60s wrong to do so?”
Yes. You read that right. This man’s fight, bold and uncomprising in principle – is to be compared to the Civil Rights movement. Oh! To be alive now, when such magnificent humanitarian efforts are a-foot! One is truly honored to read the words of such a courageous leader.
In which Patryk Zawadzki expresses his thoughts on the matter.
Again we are treated to some keen insight by Rev. Dr. Martin “Lefty” King:
Yeah! And all those folks who joined the Civil Rights movements in the ’60s who didn’t happen to be African-American were wrong to do so. After all, the African-Americans should be perfectly capable of complaining themselves if they see fit.
Right?
Hell no! Struggle on, Brother! Too long have our Software Sisters sat behind a GUI while the Stallman lorded emacs over her! All that is short come to an end now that the Rev. Dr. Martin “Lefty” King has struck out against the Great Satan rms, fearless and bold behind his keyboard, uncompromising in his campaign of slander, lies and deceit!
Again, read the comments for the full on self-righteous martyrdom of this joker.
Don’t forget a little bit of the Godwin before you go though:
Ever hear the one that starts, “When they came for the Jews, I said nothing, because I wasn’t a Jew” and ends “When they came for me, there was no one left to say anything”…?
So, now it is Rev. Dr. Martin “Lefty” King-Schindler I guess. Stay classy, San Diego.
Summary
So now that we have Stallman painted with the “sexist” brush, I see some people casting glances to the “Death Threat Crazy” and “Nazi” brushes.
Let me clear: I wasn’t at the conference, and I don’t know exactly what Stallman said. It is possible he made an inappropriate remark. Some reasonable people say it was a joke gone bad; stuff like that happens.But, even if it were an honest-to-good malicious sexist remark (unlikely considering Stallman has a long record of supporting women’s rights in his writings and interviews), the character assassination has been totally disproportionate to the event. He may indeed need a word of correction from a trusted friend or even a letter of concern from a respected group. What he doesn’t need or deserve is a pack of snarling jackals lumping him in with lunatics making death threats and freaking Nazis. (Assuming the death threat thing is legit, I haven’t looked it up. I know I got a lot of death threats from owning peeps in Quake, so that junk can be serious business.)
Apologia
This is another one of those times I have to adopt a mocking tone, because if I were to give these cretins a serious response I would work myself into a right powerful rage, disturbing weather systems and startling genteel ladies everywhere with my sexist body. I know this is not quite up to my normal Aristotelean discourse. Double your money back if not satisfied.
#1 by Dan Serban on July 13, 2009 - 7:29 pm
I have also not seen any evidence of any death threats on any pro-Mono or anti-Mono blogs (and I read many).
I also strongly suspect some people’s definition of what constitutes a death threat is pretty fuzzy.
Just like receiving a friend request from a pretty woman on Facebook doesn’t mean she is hopelessly in love with you, being told to “STFU and GTFO” in an online argument isn’t a death threat by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus, any actual death threats that aren’t a figment of someone’s imagination would be dealt with by law enforcement, we don’t need Team Mono for that, thank you very much.
#2 by Matthew Garrett on July 13, 2009 - 9:49 pm
It is very, *very* easy to be rationally gender blind. That’s actually the hardest part of discussing it in the free software world – people often feel that they’re smart enough to have got past that and of course they don’t think of women differently and hey, those women, eh?
The problem is that nobody is gender blind. Claiming that you are is self-delusion, something that discourages the kind of self-awareness that lets you examine your own behaviour. I don’t think Richard’s consciously sexist. I think he’s absolutely sincere in finding the entire concept abhorent. But the fact is that he made an argument that appeared to suggest that it was the role of the experienced male emacs user to remove the virginity of the unenlightned female non-emacs user (yes, I know it’s actually more complicated than that) and doesn’t appear to understand why people might perceive that as sexist. His absolute certainty that he doesn’t engage in any form of sexist behaviour means that he’s unwilling to entertain the concept that the natural interpretation of what he said was offensive.
I admire a huge amount of Richard’s work. I disagree with him to some extent on the Mono front, but I understand his arguments and think he should be voicing them. But simply saying “I’m not sexist” doesn’t automatically make it true.
#3 by Jason on July 13, 2009 - 11:11 pm
@Matthew,
You make some very good points in there. I will agree that simply saying something doesn’t make it so, but I would think past writings and speech give some weight in the sense of determining how to react to a given situation.
#4 by Jason on July 13, 2009 - 11:12 pm
@Dan
Exactly. I’d like to see the actual “theats” before saying much more about them.
Everyone knows the internet is serious business.
#5 by Matthew Garrett on July 13, 2009 - 11:29 pm
My point is that a track record of standing up for racial integration counts for little if you’re caught making a racist slur and won’t even try to understand why people are offended. If the response had simply been “I understand why people are offended and having thought about it I’m going to change my behaviour to avoid doing so in future” then everything would have been fine, but instead it comes across as “Sorry some people were offended, but I’m not sexist so I don’t need to change”. Nobody’s perfect, but I do think people should be judged on how they respond to criticism.
#6 by Mackenzie on July 13, 2009 - 11:43 pm
Being unintentionally sexist doesn’t make it not-sexist. When someone proclaims to be not-sexist and then says something sexist, the expectation is that when you point that contradiction out, they will say, “oh…oops, I guess I can see how that would be interpreted that way. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He didn’t, so he’s obviously not getting the point.
It’s like he knows on an academic level that sexism is bad. Theoretically. He’s just having a little trouble putting theory into practice.
#7 by Jason on July 14, 2009 - 7:49 am
@Mackenzie,
That is a good point. It does, though, imply it is not malicious – the vibe I’m getting from this thing is as if Stallman actually came out and said something like “What are you women doing here? Get back in the kitchen and bring us alpha-he-men some beers while we code!”
Also, I’d like to raise the point that it is premature to judge how Stallman actually feels about the reception to the incident. I think it is giving “Lefty” way too much credit to think that Stallman’s response to him reflects Stallman’s inner nature. I know I would blow off some random from the Internet with a “I’m not sexist. Sorry you think so, now FOAD.”, whereas if someone I respected brought it up I would certainly pause and give it thought.
That is one of the more vile aspects of publishing private correspondance without consent; it is presenting someone in a different environment than they responded in. It is, quite explicitly, taking someone out of context.
#8 by nachokb on July 14, 2009 - 12:33 am
The main issue I see with it is that the joke, simply put, is not sexist. He was mocking the Catholic church. If the joke felt sexist to some, well, I’ve got news for you: most catholic myths are sexist!. So, if he jokes about sexist myths, the outcome may feel sexist to some… That’s part of the mocking.
Now, taking that out of proportions just because some people don’t like what rms said about mono is indeed character assassination. And, furthermore, it doesn’t help women in free software at all.
In fact, hysterical cries of bullshit only damage the chances of inclusion of any minority.
nachokb
#9 by vexorian on July 14, 2009 - 8:18 am
I didn’t understand the character assassination pics until I read this post. Um.
I think the “I am not afraid of people writing code” “meme” just shows how lame the Mono promoters are getting. As a meme it sounds incredibly bad. It takes people to be very immerse in the context of the current “battle for Mono” to even remotedly understand it. And those people have already taken a position. Let’s give this guy a B for the effort and move on to serious discussions, really. I don’t think he deserves much more than that, specially not attention.
#10 by Lefty on July 15, 2009 - 2:12 am
Maybe you need to update your mention of Christian in light of his latest comment:
“…I just had a longer conversation with a female coworker about the issue and her relating her experiences is causing me to re-evaluate my stance on how much sexism there actually is in the community in general. While I do think the general tendency in online discussions to degenerate to play a major part in this issue, I do see that the general degeneration can easily and often take a sexist tone towards women.”
#11 by leo_rockway on July 15, 2009 - 2:15 am
“The main issue I see with it is that the joke, simply put, is not sexist. He was mocking the Catholic church. If the joke felt sexist to some, well, I’ve got news for you: most catholic myths are sexist!. So, if he jokes about sexist myths, the outcome may feel sexist to some… That’s part of the mocking.”
That’s exactly what I thought and I really don’t understand why people don’t see it that way. But then again, maybe they do and they are only spreading FUD because of Mono…
#12 by Jason on July 15, 2009 - 7:18 am
@Lefty,
Why would I update my mention? I just linked to the blogs to show there is honest debate in the wider community over the statements. To show it’s not just us wacky, drooling anti-mono kooks that have some questions.
Beyond that is the fact that the quote doesn’t directly apply to rms’ statements, and only tangentially to the subsequent online campaign against him.
Which, of course, anyone honest bothering to read my original post and the quote would now. Since I know you are an honest man without ulterior motives, I must confess I am at a loss to why you would think I need to update anything at all?
@leo
Yes, I suspect nachokb is a lot closer to the truth of the matter.
#13 by jon skip on July 15, 2009 - 7:27 pm
I find it telling that the only people attacking Lefty are people who were not at the conference. People who were at the conference agree with Lefty.
#14 by Mackenzie on July 16, 2009 - 3:10 am
@Jason:
Refusing to apologize for being offensive and essentially blaming the victim (the offended) for being offended, however, is an arse move.
#15 by Jason on July 16, 2009 - 7:16 am
@Mackenzie,
Thanks for the comments!
“Blaming the victim” is an arse move, but I don’t think that’s rms has done. Nor do I think he has “refused to apologize”.
On the Blaming the victim, I see some of that being kicked around. There can also be a gray area between “Taking offense at everything” and “Blaming the victim”, so I have tried to stay away from that line of argument myself. Furthermore, and more directly to the point, I don’t think anyone can say rms is blaming the victim. In the larger context – as a debate generally on sexism in the community – you have a very good point. In the specific case of rms himself, I don’t see that.
On the refusal to apologize point, I’ve tried to get across the point that I don’t think Lefty’s emails are worth putting any stock in. If others think so, that’s fine. I don’t.
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” – Cardinal Richelieu
Let’s just say I think Lefty is a smidge closer to Cardinal Richelieu than Sojourner Truth.
Again, let me stress that doesn’t mean I am dismissive of the larger issue of sexism in the community, but to be frank that’s not what this blog is about, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time getting into tangential areas – regardless of thier objective importance. One can only fight so many battles.
On the “respect” point: I’m not sure what I said that gave you that impression. I try to treat everyone with dignity and good manners until I have reason to change that opinion.
#16 by Mackenzie on July 16, 2009 - 3:13 am
Er wait…that last bit: are you saying you don’t give everyone respect to start out with, then determine whether their level of respect goes up or down based on their actions? Because, um, my understanding is that everyone is to be treated with respect from the get-go.
#17 by Lefty on July 17, 2009 - 12:43 am
I’ve written a blog posting on the pernicious notion that the distress about Stallman’s sexist “joke” is “really all about Mono”.
It’s gotten that stupid.
#18 by Lefty on July 17, 2009 - 8:19 am
…let me stress that doesn’t mean I am dismissive of the larger issue of sexism in the community…
Sure you are. Don’t you read what you write? You dismissed the entire issue.
#19 by Jason on July 17, 2009 - 9:40 am
No I didn’t. I dismiss you and the manner in which you raised the concern. I consider it obvious baiting and grandstanding, and nothing I have seen from you since has changed that opinion.
Maths FTW
A ={People talking about sexism in the community}
B ={Mono apologists}
C ={People attacking Stallman}
A ∩ B ∩ C = People I am talking about.
Interesting stuff, this thing you hu-mans call logic. Now we can see clearly that:
1. I do not think all concern about sexism is really about Mono.
2. I do not think all concern about sexism is really an attack on Stallman.
3. I do not think all Mono users attack Stallman.
4. You continue to intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent my position.
Hooray for hu-man logic! Seriously, if you can’t put all that together yourself, then just don’t bother man.
One can recognize there is a problem, and still see someone taking an incident, and making a lot of hay about it for ulterior purposes. There are these creatures called politicians that do it on a regular cycle, I am told. Comparing Stallman to those making death threats, nazis, insinuating he is some sort of predator inviting students into his office to have sex, or that he somehow condones or encourages rape are way way way beyond what is appropriate. It’s disgusting and vile and I reject it.
I also happen to think sexism is disgusting and vile and I reject it. But, I am not convinced Stallman is a sexist, whereas I’m more confident in my assessment of your finer qualities.
#20 by jon skip on July 17, 2009 - 9:53 pm
Sort of like your obvious baiting and grandstanding on this blog?
#21 by saulgoode on July 18, 2009 - 12:20 am
It seems that no recordings (audio or video) of Mr Stallman’s “St Ignucious” skit from GCDS 2009 are available. As far as I’ve been able to determine, the summit organizers did not record any of the keynotes and the video recordings of Mr Stallman’s keynote did not include the controversial skit.
Nonetheless, there is video of a Stallman speech presented in Oslo earlier this year during which the St Ignucious skit was performed in a manner that by all accounts is representative of his GCDS keynote. (This is not surprising as the skit has pretty much followed the same script for nearly two decades.)
http://www.ping.uio.no/video/
Ironically, the allegory of “Emacs virgins” presents the same message as that of those raising cries of sexism: i.e., the “duty” to aid women in joining our community. Personally, I don’t like the innuendo of “deflowering” in that passage of the skit, but it is ludicrous to consider Mr Stallman sexist owing to it. If you watch the above video, you will notice that throughout speech he employs feminine pronouns when referring to programmers and users — this is hardly a trait of someone who does not feel women should be welcome to participate in the Free Software community.
Moving on, the accusation that the protests being raised are related to the Mono controversy are in my estimation completely unfounded. While I find the cries of sexism in this case very much overblown (and the nature of the email exchange and its disclosure indefensible), the issue of gender roles in the community is quite topical and a recurring subject at just about any technical conference. Furthermore, Jono Bacon and Matt Zimmerman blogged on the subject just weeks before the summit (and Matthew Garrett earlier in the year) and were likely sensitized to the issue going into the conference.