mastodon - Link to source

live your life so you're not on this list

'weird little guys of FOSS'

drewdevault.com/weird-guys/

Weird little guys of FOSS

drewdevault.com
in reply to Adrianna Tan
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Carlos Solís

Most awkward part: the inventor of the F in FOSS is in that list
in reply to Carlos Solís
mastodon - Link to source

firebreathingduck

@csolisr

Yeah. But even if every single accusation of sexual misconduct against Stallman is fake, his personal website *still* has defense of sex between adults and people aged 14. 🤮

stallman.org/archives/2017-jul-oct.html#21_October_2017_(Sex_offender's_list)
(among many other such statements)

The fact that he has so many defenders left is depressing.

2017: July - October Political Notes - Richard Stallman

stallman.org
@Carlos Solís
in reply to Cassandrich
mastodon - Link to source

Fish Id Wardrobe ⁂

@dalias @firebreathingduck @csolisr as an autistic person i sometimes find myself taking weird positions i think are _technically_ correct but clearly very broken in practice, and i wonder if this is that BUT:

as an autistic person i also have a lifetime of experience in reading the room, or trying to. that he was apparently unable to see how problematic this is, when it should be fucking obvious, is a MAJOR red flag to me.

@Carlos Solís @Cassandrich @firebreathingduck
in reply to firebreathingduck
mastodon - Link to source

ARGVMI~1.PIF

@firebreathingduck

Apparently he has since drawn a line at 13. stallman-report.org/on-children/

That's…better than his previous position, I suppose, but he's still failing to acknowledge that some dude in his 50s getting horizontal with a 14-year-old is still gross.

Uh he's 100% right about SB976, though. If algorithms are manipulative then adults are vulnerable too. And that's kinda the trouble with Stallman: half the time he's totally gross, and the other half the time he's totally right.

@csolisr

Appendix: Stallman's idiolectical use of "child"

Appendix: Stallman’s idiolectical use of “child” The main report makes the case that Stallman’s idiolectical use of “child” and “children” to strictly refers to minors younger than 12 or 13, and as such his 2019 retraction does not serve to retract r…
The Stallman report
@Carlos Solís @firebreathingduck
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF
mastodon - Link to source

mr_harm

@argv_minus_one @firebreathingduck @csolisr yeah it's not a strong defence to state "at least we're on the same page on not raping 13 year olds.

And generally: even someone who's a complete right wing nut might have a few political views anybody here can agree on. Being right sometimes doesn't negate that these people have a lot of very troubling positions.

@Carlos Solís @ARGVMI~1.PIF @firebreathingduck
in reply to khm
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Carlos Solís

Yeah, it doesn't help matters that the very fundamental concepts of copyleft were invented by a group of questionable people, but the ideas themselves are so useful on their own, if only a separate group of people had proposed them instead.
in reply to khm
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Carlos Solís

I don't care about venerating anyone, I care about a method of collaboration becoming morally unacceptable just because the first people to postulate it are immoral for unrelated reasons. The best type of movement leaders are the ones that can be forgotten without prejudice of the movement itself.

DNA schedule reshared this.

in reply to Carlos Solís
snac - Link to source

khm

what method of collaboration became morally unacceptable? do you regard this list to be an attack on free or open source software itself? because I do not think it is. I think it's a warning not to waste any time listening to these specific creeps
in reply to khm
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Carlos Solís

These people literally invented the concept of free and open source software. By engaging with it as a concept, we are intrinsically aiding and abetting their moral code, unfortunately. Unless somebody else comes with a similar concept that is independently formed and does not borrow anything from their ideas.
in reply to Carlos Solís
snac - Link to source

khm

that's not how morality works. bad people have also done things like grow crops and wear clothes.

come to think of it they're also not the people who invented it. they ran their mouths about it, got a lot of attention about it, but before apple v franklin software wasn't even protected by copyright

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 1:53)
in reply to Haelwenn /элвэн/
glitchsoc - Link to source

Laurent Bercot

@lanodan @dalias @tortitude That doesn't sound like a good reason at all. If she deserves to be on the list, she should be on the list, and the list could be renamed to "weird little people" or something.

We can't keep getting stuck on these trivialities. There's too much work to do.

@Cassandrich @Haelwenn /элвэн/ @Aisha the R211A
in reply to Adrianna Tan
mastodon - Link to source

Kepeken

"No. Who’s on the list or off the list will introduce weird social dynamics, and risks creating a kind of popularity contest. Also, if I published a list like that, it would paint a target on the backs of everyone on the list for harassment or worse."

this obviously also applies to the negative list

in reply to Adrianna Tan
mastodon - Link to source

Proto Himbo European

This list brings back to my mind something I've wrestled with for a long time: Can I ethically use something built by a morally bad person? If the profits of the thing support the moral badness, that's a pretty easy question for me to answer (i.e., "No").

It also highlights something pretty damn critical: Being intelligent or technically skilled has basically no relationship whatsoever to moral goodness or understanding social or political issues, something most reasonable people seem to understand with wealth (i.e., billionaires are not better than regular folks).

in reply to Proto Himbo European
mastodon - Link to source

Raphael Kabo

@guyjantic I think this is such an incisive distinction to make. Like, I'm disappointed that the maker of the ed25519 algorithm is on this list because I just want all people in FOSS to be good people, but I'm not going to stop using it because he doesn't make any money from it and it's just some complex math.
@Proto Himbo European
in reply to Raphael Kabo
mastodon - Link to source

Proto Himbo European

@Raphael Kabo
in reply to Glyph
mastodon - Link to source

mancube

@glyph
i can't remember exactly when it started but some time in the last decade i was watching one of his videos and just got hit with a feeling of "ugh, i'm gonna wake up one day and find out this guy is a fascist." every once in a while i'd check in to see if we were there yet. guess we have been for a while?

@jornane @skinnylatte

@Adrianna Tan @Glyph @Jørn
in reply to mancube
mastodon - Link to source

Sordid Seraphim

@mancube @glyph @jornane
He genuinely has had that vibe for awhile now and I recall some kinda weird stuff on old streams when he brought up women.

It kinda felt like seeing your neighbor you've known for years start raising a flag but you can't quite see what the flag is over the fence.
You see a bit of red but you've known them for awhile and really like their barbeques so you're really just hoping they're Dutch.

@Glyph @mancube @Jørn
Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 4:48)
in reply to Sordid Seraphim
mastodon - Link to source

Glyph

@Sordid_Seraphim @mancube @jornane yeah I wasn’t too surprised because some of the language that he used when he was fighting with municipal authorities in NYC was … troublingly coded. as you say, ambiguous and weird, the city DID do him dirty, so being mad about it made complete sense, but the tone with which he described it was Limbaugh-adjacent
@mancube @Jørn @Sordid Seraphim
in reply to Glyph
mastodon - Link to source

Sordid Seraphim

@glyph @mancube @jornane That's exactly what I mean, it's not that he did anything yet, it was how he conducted himself.

Really it was the entire fucking City at the top from government to real estate scam artists or at times Apple.
Just sucks because it's hard to empathize with someone that I know has probably been a quiet saboteur of my own rights.

The smartest thing he did was avoid left vs right politics on his channel but cats out of the bag now.

@Glyph @mancube @Jørn
Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 4:59)
in reply to Glyph
mastodon - Link to source

Jacob Christian Munch-Andersen

@glyph @jornane I really don't see much evidence against Louis Rossmann. The comment on his video is really vague, the paraphrasing on the list is quite liberal. Everything else regarding that video quite strongly suggest that he does not have a problem with trans people.

As for KF, it seems that he uses his account to have a say whenever they discuss him or his videos. I would certainly have left that site alone, but I'll still judge him primarily on what he posts.

@Glyph @Jørn
in reply to James Holden
mastodon - Link to source

ARGVMI~1.PIF

@jamesholden

The hell of it is he's one of the few who considers computing freedom genuinely important and has been completely consistent about it.

We kinda need him. Or at least someone like him. And damn near everyone else these days is tripping over themselves to sacrifice such principles on the altars of AI and online age checks (i.e. in-home video surveillance) and so forth. We need people with principles, badly.

If only we had people with both principles and sanity…

@skinnylatte

@Adrianna Tan @James Holden
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF
mastodon - Link to source

ARGVMI~1.PIF

@jamesholden

Although I have to wonder if principles and sanity are mutually exclusive. Most “sane” people don't seem to have principles at all, and just follow the path of least resistance toward solving their short-term problems, with little if any regard for consequences suffered later or by others.

People who actually give a damn about anything beyond that are extreme psychological outliers…and now the world is collapsing as a result of this widespread shortsightedness.

@skinnylatte

@Adrianna Tan @James Holden
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF
mastodon - Link to source

Martin Owens

@argv_minus_one

There are lots of people with principles, most of yall don't listen to us preferring weird guys with principles to considerate nice folks with principles.

I'm not sure why. Perhaps we're required to have some quirky gimmick before a lot of people will actually pay attention.

Although as bad as RMS is, he's just a weird guy and not a network of covert Nazis like a lot of the other people in that list. Yikes.

@ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Martin Owens
mastodon - Link to source

ARGVMI~1.PIF

@doctormo

Yeah, that's another thing about Stallman: he's an open book. You don't need to guess what he believes because he'll explain it all in gory detail to anyone willing to listen.

Too bad the book has some very detestable things written in it…

Anyway, if you're both principled and sane, then I appreciate your existence and hope you'll stay with us. Maybe it's just my perception, but the world supply of people like you appears to be growing desperately scarce.

@Martin Owens
Unknown parent
sharkey - Link to source

Willow 飛柳

What's so interesting is that I was able to subconsciously clock those two.

I didn't know about what Louis was up to, but his whole vibe in his videos is so edgelordy that warnings started blaring in my head. I liked his advocacy for right-to-repair, but I couldn't get through more than a few videos before I couldn't get over my distaste for his vibe.

Unknown parent
mastodon - Link to source

Proto Himbo European

@decay @Uair @lown That's exactly what I want to do, but I think it's a little more complicated. Maybe questions will clarify some issues:

  • Is it OK to pirate JKR's movies if your kid really loves them? You aren't giving her money or arguably perpetuating her shit.
  • Microsoft does evil stuff. If your work requires you use MS products, is it morally permissible to do so? You are definitely perpetuating their evil and funnelling money into their pocket. Is the only solution to take a stand and get fired?
  • Is it OK to use Android despite the evil shit Google does? There aren't a lot of alternatives, especially if you're not very techy and don't want to install GrapheneOS.
  • Many activist groups use facebook to organize, despite everything. If you want to know when the protests are, participate in boycotts, find opportunities to phone bank, etc. you have to be on FB. Should people in that situation simply refuse to participate with those activist groups because they make Zuckerberg richer?
@Raphael Kabo @Uair @decay