Comment by DonHopkins
5 years ago
That's true, those weren't your demands, but you're the guy who doesn't believe the women, and called my friend a creepy spoiled brat while lecturing me about civility.
Defending RMS's love of trees isn't the hill I'd choose to die on. If you really don't believe her, re-read what that wise woman wrote 35 years ago about RMS groupies, and tell me that it doesn't apply to you today:
>Yet I still hear people I love and respect talk about him as if he were some kind of deity, as if his Free Software Foundation were the noblest effort in the world. It is admirable, yes. But to glorify the thoroughly sick human being behind it into some sort of whole-life messianic figure is unconscionable. Meeting RMS groupies was yet another contributing factor to my punting of the computer world for the time being. So many of the "hackers" out there (hackers, not crackers/urchins/destructoids) seem to have their external values totally fukt. Sure, we're all entitled to different values. Fine. But it grieves me to see good people withering away behind a self-imposed wall of lonely techno-perfection, their frantic efforts to acquire friends and lovers made all the more poignant by the desperation in their eyes, voice, manner. Most of them know that they are lacking something important, but don't know what it is, or how to get it, or who to ask for it. Many can see themselves alienating people or spurning offers of friendship and affection, but don't know how or why they're doing so. They just look impassive and bored and in control, and damn themselves silently in their minds, self-inflicting the rejection and pain that they feared from the outside.
> you're the guy who doesn't believe the women
Nobody should believe "the" women. Not more that we should believe "the" men. Everybody can have hidden agendas. Being a woman is not a proof that somebody is not lying. Moreover. In fact, nobody should believe "me", or "you". Specially when there are a pattern of dissonances between what somebody claims, the quality of the proofs shown and the easy to find facts that don't match what is claimed.
> re-read what that wise woman wrote 35 years ago about RMS groupies
To start, she seems to have a poor and 'holier-than-thou' opinion about all [male] hackers that describes as "fu*d people", and this is not a good sign in my book.
I doubt also that RMS would have a lot of "groupies" or fame in 1986, five years before the first Linux. If something was proven with time is that he was right, and that the "such smart woman" was clueless as a blind chicken about the future impact of the FSF. Your example would be like talking about how disappointing was the impact to Bill Gates to our society at 8 years old.
> called my friend a creepy spoiled brat
Maybe is a great guy, but in this two photos it surely looks like one. You are not doing him any favor showing them here.
You're strangely obsessed with your mistaken belief that RMS loves trees, based on never having met him, and your Dendrophobia Deniel conspiracy theory that I and all the women I've quoted and my friend Devon are liars, based on never having met any of us or even RMS himself.
Devon just created an account and replied above. It turns out I was mistaken about the particular tree: it was actually the tree around the corner of the house that was outside the bedroom window. But Devon confirms that people of all genders at the AI/LCS lab hung ferns in their offices to keep RMS away.
You probably want to interrogate and insult him directly if you still believe he's a "lying" "creepy" "spoiled brat" (although I have no idea how you so "surely" inferred those specific labels from the photographs -- did you use Facebook's computer vision AI?), at the risk of being banned from HN for antisocial behavior, but I suggest you remain civil, since you're the one who's hypocritically defending RMS's behavior while lecturing other people about civility while incorrectly labeling and insulting them and their friends, based on your imagination and no evidence or first hand experience whatsoever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8VgjZUel6M&ab_channel=DullB...
I'm very specifically referring in my post to the creation of Linux, the kernel. Sorry if it was ambiguous to you. I'm aware that GNU predates Linux but a GNU without Linux never would had the same popularity as it has. HURD never has been widely adopted.
> You could trigger Stallman! is a bad man!
I'm not worried by that possibility. Maybe Stallman should be worried by my answers. Dunno.
If is a problem to you, can I suggest to call it LiGNUx as a compromise solution and end this old war? Feel free to also use Stallmanix, or Stallpple if you use Hurd. As long as it works, I don't care about the name.
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> And yes, RMS did have many groupies in 1986 and long before, and he was quite well known even in the 70's
I stand corrected, then. Thanks.
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