Discussion of RMS
Richard Stallman originally stepped down from the
FSF because of some remarks he made regarding the Jeffrey Epstein
revelations, back in 2019. MIT AI researcher Marvin Minsky -- onetime
head of the MIT AI lab -- had been accused of having sex with one of
Epstein's 17-year-old victims, and RMS objected very specifically to
the description of this as "assault". In some 75% of US states,
including Massachusetts, 17 is above the age of consent. RMS did not
in any way deny the egregious inappropriateness of Minsky's actions.
This might (or might not) be forgiven as
"tone-deafness" on Stallman's part. However, Stallman also has a long
history of unwanted and at least somewhat manipulative sexual advances
within the MIT community. Some of this is documented at
selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88.
He has also a long history of statements that others have found
offensive, and has not responded to objections.
Stallman is remarkably outspoken about a range of
human-rights issues.
He is also widely described as being on the
"autism spectrum", though I am not aware of any actual medical
diagnosis.
Zombie SCO FUD!
Remember the SCO lawsuits against Linux users, on
the theory that they owned "Unix"? It turns out that SCO was
bought by Xinuos, who is now suing IBM and Red Hat (owned by IBM).
Most interesting point in the ZDnet story: SCO
(with partner Caldera) should have been a serious Red Hat
competitor in 2001.
Also, SCO sold their Unix interest in 2007 to
UnXis, who decided to re-spell their name as Xinuos. At the time of
the purchase, UnXis announced they had no interest in the lawsuit, but
hard times lead to changed standards.
The lawsuit also claims that IBM and Red
Hat conspired to eliminate "competition" in the Linux market. Which is
really really odd.