MESSAGE
| DATE | 2019-10-30 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Women and GNU and RMS (was Re: something else)
|
The more I read this, the more disgusting it is. Let us parse all the
falsehoods you wrote here.
On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 05:22:03PM -0600, Sandra Loosemore wrote:
> On 10/30/19 8:00 AM, Marcel wrote:
> >What I also see is a list of thirty men pretending that the leader of
> >the movement they volunteer for excludes women, yet I cannot find the
> >name of a single woman (forgive me if I missed it) in your list. I know
> >there are women participating in GNU, so the question is, were none of
> >them willing to participate in your power grab?
>
> For those of you who don't already know me, let me introduce myself:
> I'm Sandra Loosemore, I am female, and I've been involved with the
> GNU project since 1991, when RMS hired me to write the GLIBC manual
> as a FSF employee.
Not just that but I have personally seen Stallman reach out to women in
dozens of venues, and never once has he ever bullied or embarassed any
of them.
> Nowadays I am a maintainer for GCC and Binutils
> and an occasional contributor to GDB.
Hold that thought.... because obviously you don't like the man and have
an axe to grind and nobody ever threatened your particpation in GNU, so
I'll get back to this...
>
> I haven't seen anything resembling a "power grab", so by definition
> I'm not on the list as participating in one.
For someone who does complielers that is pretty twisted because that
doesn't even parse.
There has been a power grab here. That is a fact and it largely has
come out of a small group in France, but not exclussively. And it has
been a political conflict that has been steaming for decades now. But
Stallman never required personal allegence to him to lead projects or
participate in GNU or the FSF, so here we are now.
> I did previously send
> some comments to the private gnu-and-fsf-at- address that was
> previously announced as the place to send them, though. To
> paraphrase and expand what I said there (speaking only for myself,
> and not attempting to be a representative for all "women
> participating in GNU"):
>
> It has bothered me for a long time that there are so few women
> participating in the GNU community. I think I might be the only
> female maintainer on either GCC/Binutils right now (I haven't gone
> through the lists, but the others I used to know about have stepped
> down). The photos of the attendees at recent Cauldrons show a group
> that is roughly 99% male.
I can't speak of recent Cauldrons but in meeting after meeting, campus
after campus, he has met with large numbers of young women.
The reason there aren't more women in GNU is a good question, but it is
a general trend in IT in the general.
Let me tell you something about this, actually, from my own experience.
In the middle of the dot com bubble the number of women entering the BS
program at NYU was on the steep uprise. In fact, if I recall correctly,
by 2001 there were more women in those classes than men. And in every
workforce I was in within NYC, from About.Com, NYU, and several start
ups, pharmacy companies and even the board for NYLXS, we had many young
women entering a field that was proving itself to be profitable and wide
open to women.... and then the Dot Com bubble happened and then 9-11 happened
and the number of women in the freshmen classes literally dried up.
When the job opportunities dried up, they were GONE.
When I graduated LIU with my masters degree, at LEAST have the students
were women.
Believe it or NOT, there are sociological forces at work here that even
the might powers of RMS and GNU can not solve on there own.
> The steering committee is 100% male.
> There is something wrong with our community that we cannot attract
> more women, and we need to fix it, because a developer community
> that consists almost exclusively of old white men is not
> sustainable.
Maybe and maybe not. I think you need to be blind to not see the large
number of non-US born women in IT and working all kinds of software.
They have no problems working and coding. They want to get paid. YOU
where paid. It might well be that aging white men might be JUST the
category of coders that you want to lead GNU and the FSF, if they are
working for free and contributing of there own free time and are
wealthy enough to do it and have resources and are interested in the
politics and the educational and outreach. Or maybe not.
But the proposition that they are being put off by RMS and the current
leadership is pure NONSENSE.
It remains to be seen if and how women enter the GNU projects. It won't
be because of a lack of effort by RMS himself and his leadership.
>
> I have never personally experienced or even witnessed any form of
> sexual harassment from anyone in the GNU community, including RMS.
> I've also always felt that my technical contributions have been
> taken seriously by my colleagues. OTOH, it's clear to me that some
> women have indeed felt threatened by RMS's behavior,
No that is not clear. I have CLEARLY seen women flock to him for
advice, and seek out his help and his opinions. Not just a few, but a
great many. So what you are saying here is either a lie, you a complete
misunderstanding on your part. In either case, it has ZERO anchorage in
reality.
> been put off
> from participating by offensive sexual comments
Richard doesn't make those.
>and "jokes" from
> others in the free software community,
Is it others or is it Richard. In either case, I've seen ZERO of this
happen.
> or felt that they were being
> belittled or ignored because of their gender.
Richard NEVER does that.
> It's also clear to me
That doesn't hold a lot of water at this point since the last one was
off the wall.
> that a lot of men are aware of this stuff going on and find it
> offensive and inappropriate too.
No, they don't, because it doesn't happen. There is a lynch mod looking
for excuses to defame any white men they could ... are you part of that
group? It would seem that you are, if your email is representative of
your political leanings.
>
> And then there were RMS's disgusting public comments defending
> sexual exploitation of minors, which were plastered all over the
> news and social media last month.
Now you are deep into being offensive and gloves need to come off. RMS
NEVER made any public comments defending sexual exploitation of minors.
In fact, he never made any such comments in PRIVATE, which is what the
mailing list in question was. So you are being hatefully misleading
TWICE in one sentence.
> The absolute worst thing the
> public-facing representative of *any* organization can do is bring
> negative publicity to the organization about things that are
> irrelevant or contrary to the organization's mission.
That is just bullshit. George Paton, Bill Clinton, US Grant, Billy Martin, George
Steinbrenner, for that matter, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Linus
Tovalds, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson ... etc etc, etc, have all taken
publicity hits from time to time. When you play in the big leagues,
that's just the way it is sometimes. There is always someone there
ready to exploit any perceived weakness, real or imagined to disparage
people who are in the spot light, let alone in the spot light for 30
years. And it means nothing. It is not like Richard was having an
extra-marital affair with a women who ended up dead in a river in his
car... or something like that. The only thing he has been guilty of is
people like you making up stories about him and misrepresenting both the
substance and cognitive meaning of his words. Just because YOU say he
is defending sexual abuse of minors doesn't make it so, no matter HOW
many times you say it.
i> As a result
> of RMS's comments, all of a sudden the public conversation about the
> GNU project was not about how good our software is and how free
> software is taking over the world and beneficial to everybody, it
> was about how we're an organization with an ingrained culture of
> harassing and demeaning women,
Now your just disparaging the whole community with inflammatory speech
based on lies.
Fuck You.
> and that we have such a cult of
> personality surrounding RMS that our policy is not to challenge the
> remarks and behavior of our Fearless Leader
And now we get to turn back to you being hired, and never threatened,
and being supported by RMS... and so your entire misrepresentation here
of how things with RMS and GNU works is pathetic.
Let me tell you how it REALLY works in the real world. Individual after
individual who disagrees with Stallman or wants to take over the FS and
GNU take rabid potshots at Stallman. And Stallman NEVER responds in
kind and accepts the contributions and rolls for these people over and
over again. Not a single person I've every witness viewed Stallman as
the unquestionable fearless leader. I've seen the entire GNOME
foundation walk out of an RMS talking... just out of spite over petty
issues.
I'll tell you what does happen though. People exploit that RMS has some
disabilities, and rag on him in public over if and when he showers, and
so on. It is TERRIBLE to see the cruelty that Stallman has endured for
decades by people because he is a little bit different then others. It
is sad. It is condemning of humanity and it is NOTHING like what you
wrote here. You wrote a completely unjustifiable rant. It is
disgusting and your behavior in this matter is contemptible.
> no matter how offensive
> they are -- not just to women, in this case, but to anyone who cares
> about human rights. It's been a public relations disaster for the
> GNU project. :-(
Nobody care about Human Rights, and has DONE more for human rights than
RMS has. He is a giant in this regard compared to you.
>
> IMO, to regain control of our public image, I think we have to take
> some explicit and public steps to disassociate the GNU project from
> RMS's comments. If the CEO of a corporation made such controversial
> and offensive statements, the board would likely demand his
> immediate resignation as part of damage control.
No they wouldn't. Your just making things up. If you think the
Rockefeller was going to be removed from Standard Oil because he was
pinching the tuchas of young girls in public, you are living in a
fantasy world.
> I think the FSF
> and GNU maintainers collectively have a similar responsibility as
> custodians of the GNU project,
No Stallam is the custodian of the GNU project... as a matter of fact.
> and I do think RMS needs to resign
> for the good of the project. I appreciate his past technical
> contributions and his promotion of the concept of "free software" to
> begin with, but he is not a good public ambassador for the GNU
> community
He is the best. He has proven his leadership over decades.
> and has not seemed to do much actual leadership of the
> project (either technical or management) for many years now.
>
> My perspective is that the GNU project's mission is to produce
> high-quality software that is free for everyone to use,
Well that is wrong. GNU has a very specific mission and that aint it.
> and we
> should welcome contributions from anyone who wants to support that
> mission.
And they have, even from the likes people such as yourself who have made
grave and ugly false accusations of RMS and then followed them up with
outrageous exaggerations and flat out misrepresentations.
> We certainly should not make affirming support for RMS's
> non-free-software-related beliefs necessary for people to contribute
> to the GNU project, or to take a GNU maintainer/leadership role.
There is nothing wrong with RMS's belief system and you should be proud
to be affiliated with him.
> Nor should there be any kind of personal loyalty oath to RMS
> involved in being a GNU contributor or maintainer.
And there you go again and saying a lying exaggerations for the purpose
of defaming someones good name.
RMS has my loyalty because of what he says, what he does and what he
stands for. YOU OTOH are offensive.
>
> BTW, I'm not sure if this has come up before, but the "GNU" brand is
> not the personal property of RMS.
Actually it is.
> The trademark is owned by the
> Free Software Foundation (it shows up in the search at uspto.gov as
> registration #4125065).
Obviously you fail to understand trademark law as well.
> So I think it is probably ultimately the
> FSF's responsibility to protect their brand and decide who they want
> to put in charge of overseeing it. OTOH they rely on volunteer
> labor to do the actual software development, maintenance, and
> release management for each individual software package, so it's
> important to take organizational decisions that strengthen the
> developer community rather than weaken it.
>
> -Sandra
Ruben
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
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http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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