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.

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.

Sure you are. Don’t you read what you write? You dismissed the entire issue.

It’s gotten that stupid.

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.

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.