Episode: 3311
Title: HPR3311: Bradley M. Kuhn's article from 2019 on Richard M. Stallman
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3311/hpr3311.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 20:36:52

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,311 Formundi, the 12th of April 2021.
Today's show is entitled Bradley M. Coons article from 2019 on Richard M. Stallman.
It is the first show by new host Anonymous host and is about 26 minutes long and carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, this text to speech article, requires listener discretion.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Warning this show contains information that may not be suitable for all.
Listen a discretion is advised. Recently Richard M. Stallman announced that he has
rejoined the free software foundation's board of directors, an open letter on GitHub called for him to be removed again,
and for the FSF and I aboard to resign. When he resigned in 2019, Bradley M. Coons,
from the Free Us in Freedom podcast, wrote an article titled, on recent controversial events,
about the issue. I am submitting that article here under the terms of the creative commons at
ribution share a like free point near a United States license.
The post contains many links and is available in the show notes for this show.
Some examples are included at the end of the blog post and listen a discretion is advised,
on recent controversial events. Tuesday 15 October 2019 by Bradley M. Coons.
The last 33 days have been unprecedentedly difficult for the software freedom community
and for me personally, folks have been emailing, phoning, texting, tagging me on social media,
the last of which has been funny because all my social media accounts are placed on the accounts.
But, just about everyone has urged me to comment on the serious issues at the software freedom
community in our faces. Until now, I have stayed silent regarding all these current topics.
From Richard M. Stallman, RMSS public statement, to his resignation from the Free Software Foundation,
FFF, to the Epstein scandal, and its connection to MIT, I also avoided generally commenting
on software freedom organizational governance during this period. I did this for good reason,
which is explained below. However, in this blog post, I now share my primary comments on the
matters that seem to currently be on the utmost attention of the open source and free software
communities. I have been silent for the last months because, until two days ago,
I was a large member of FFF board of directors, and a voting member of the FFF.
I was a member of FFF to leadership bodies, I was abiding by a reasonable request from the FFF
management, and my duty to the organization. Specifically, the FFF asked at all communication during
the crisis come directly from FFF officers, and not from a large director, and sassure voting
members. Furthermore, the FFF management asked all directors, and voting members to remain silent
on this entire matter, even on issues only tangentially related to the current situation,
and even when speaking in our own capacity, for example, on our own blogs like this one,
the FFF is an important organization, and I take any request from the FFF seriously,
so I am I did fully with their request. The situation was further complicated because
folks at my employer, software freedom conservancy, where I also serve on the board of directors,
and strong opinions about this matter as well. Fortunately, the FFF and Conservancy both
have already created clear protocols for what I should do, if ever there was a disagreement,
or divergence on news between Conservancy and FFF. I therefore was recused fully from the planning,
drafting, and timing on Conservancy's statement on this matter. I thank my colleague
Matt the Conservancy for working so carefully to keep me entirely outside the loop on their statement,
and to diligently assure that it won't trade forward for me to manage any potential
organizational disagreements. I also thank no Matt the FFF, who outlined clear protocols ahead
on time, back in March 2019, in case a situation like this ever came up. I also know my colleague
Matt Conservancy care deeply, and I do, about the health, and welfare on the FFF, and its mission
on fighting for universal software freedom for all. None of us want, nor have, any substantive
disagreement over software freedom issues. I take very seriously my duty to the
various organizations, where I have, or have, and affiliations. More generally, I champion
non-profit organizational transparency. Unfortunately, the current crisis left me in a quandary
between the overarching goal of community transparency, and amiding my FFF management
directives. Now that I've left the FFF board on directors, FFF voting membership, and all
my FFF volunteer roles, which ends my 22 year uninterruptive affiliation with the FFF,
I can now comment on the substantive issues that face not just the FFF, but the free software
community as a whole, while continuing to adhere to my past duty on acting in FFF best interest.
In other words, my affiliation with the FFF has come to an end for many good, and useful reasons.
The end to this affiliation allows me to speak directly about the core issue at the heart of
the community's current crisis. Firstly, all these events, from our MS public comments on the
MIT mailing list, to our MS resignation from the FFF to our MS discussion about the next steps
for the GNU project, seem to many to have happened ridiculously quickly, but it wasn't actually
fast at all. In fact, these events were culmination of issues that were slowly growing in concern
to many people, including me. For the last two years, I've had been allowed internal voice in
the FFF leadership regarding RMS free software-unrelated public statements. I felt strongly that it
was in the most interest on the FFF to actively seek to limit such statements, and that it was
my duty to FFF to speak out about this within the organization. Those who only learned of this
story in the last month understandably believed that MS Medium post-rainsed an entirely new issue.
In fact, RMS news and statements posted on Storm and not org about sexual morality escalated
for the worse over the last few years. When the escalation started, I still consider RMS
both a friend and colleague, and I attempted to argue with him at length to convince him
that some of his positions were harmful to sexual assault survivors, and those who are
sex trafficked, and to the people who devote their lives in service to such individuals.
More importantly to the FFF, I attempted to persuade RMS at launching a controversial
campaign on sexual behavior, and morality was counter to his, and FFF mission to advance
software freedom, and told RMS that my duty as an FFF director was to assure the best outcome
for the FFF, which I am-o-didn't include having a leader, who made such statements.
Not only is human sexual behavior not a topic on, which RMS and addict were academic expertise,
but also his positions appear to ignore significant research, and widely available information
on the subject. Many of his comments, while occasionally politically intriguing,
lack empathy for people, who experienced trauma. IMO, this is not, and there's never
being a free speech issue. I do believe freedom on speech links directly to software freedom,
indeed, I see the freedom to publish software under free licenses and almost a corroborate
of the freedom on speech. However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose views
we fundamentally disagree. Moreover, organizations need not, and should not elevate
spokespeople, and leaders who speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find
do not advance their mission, and slash on at alienate important constituents. I,
like many other software freedom leaders, could tell my public comments on issues not related
to FFFs. Indeed, I would not even be commenting on this issue, if it had not become a central
issue on concern to the software freedom community. Leaders have power, and they must exercise
the power of their words with restraint, not with impunity. RMS personnel consistently
argued that there was a campaign on, prudish intimidation, seeking to keep him quiet about his
new conceptuality. After years of conversing with RMS about how his non-software freedom
knew where a distraction, an indulgence, and outright problematic, his general response
was to make even more public comments on this nature. The issue is not about RMS right to say
what he believes, nor is it even about whether, or not you agree, or disagree with,
RMS statements. The question is whether an organization should have
a designated leader, who is on a sustained, public campaign advocating about a unrelated
issue that many consider controversial. It really doesn't matter what you're
new about the controversial issue is, a leader, who refuses to stop talking loudly about
unrelated issues eventually creates an untenable distraction from the radical activism
you're actively trying to advance. The message on universal software freedom is a radical cause,
it's basically impossible for one individual to effectively push forward to unrelated
controversial agendas at once. In short, the radical message on software freedom became
overshadowed by RMS radical news about sexual morality. And here is where I say the thing that
may infuriate many, but it's what I believe, I think RMS talk a useful step by reminding
some of his leadership roles at the FSF. I thank RMS for taking that step, and I wish
the FSF directors well in their efforts to assure that the FSF becomes a welcoming
organization to all, who care about universal software freedom. The FSF mission is essential
to our technological future, and we should all support that mission. I care deeply about
that mission myself, and have worked, and we'll continue to work in our community in the best
interest of the mission. I'm admittedly struggling to find a way to work again with RMS,
given his new sexual morality and his behaviors stemming from those news. I explicitly do not
agree with this, redefinition, on sexual assault. Furthermore, I believe uninformed
statements about sexual assault are responsible, and cause harm to victims. Hashmi too is not a
frenzy, it is a global movement by individuals, who have been harmed seeking to hold both
managers, and society at large accountable for ignoring systemic wrongs. Nevertheless,
I still am proud of the FSA that I co-wrote with RMS, and still find many of RMS
other essays compelling, important, and relevant. I want the FSF to succeed in its mission,
and enter a new era of accomplishments. I spent the last 22 years, without a break,
dedicating some substantial time, effort, care and loyalty to the various FSF roles that I've had,
including employee, volunteer, a large director, and voting member, even though my duties to
the FSF are done, and my relationship with the FSF is no longer formal, I still think the FSF
is a valuable institution worth helping, and saving, specifically because the FSF was founded
for a mission that I deeply support. And we should also realize that RMS, a human being,
who is flawed like the rest of us, invented at mission. As culture change becomes more rapid,
I hope we can find reasonable nuances, and moderation on our complex analysis about people,
and their disparate news, while we also hold individuals fully accountable for their actions.
As the difficulty we face in the post-post-modern culture on the early 21st century,
most importantly, I believe we must find a way to stand firm for software freedom,
while also making a safe environment for victims on sexual assault, sexual abuse,
casiting, and other deplorable actions. Posted on Tuesday 15 October 2019 at I-11 by Bradley M. Coon.
Submit comments on this post or becune at m.org.
The following posts are authored by Richard M. Stolman and not taken from his personal site
Stolman.org. They were linked to the piece you have just heard.
Stolman.org 31 October 2016, Downs Syndrome, a new non-invasive test for Downs Syndrome will
eliminate the small risk of the current test. This might lead more women to get tested,
and abort features that have Downs Syndrome. Let's hope so.
If you'd like to learn, and care for a pet that doesn't have normal human mental capacity,
don't create a handicapped human being to be your pet. Get a dog or a parrot.
It will appreciate your love, and it will never feel bad for being less capable than normal humans.
Stolman.org 14 December 2016, Campaign on Bullheaded Brewery, a national campaign seeks to make all
U.S. States prohibit sex between humans and non-human animals. This campaign seems to be
sheable-headed Brewery using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal
hurts the animal. That's true for some ways of having sex, and false for others.
For instance, I've heard that some women get dogs to lick them off.
That doesn't hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?
When male dolphins have sex with people, that doesn't hurt the dolphins.
Quite the contrary, I like it very much. Why should it be prohibited?
I also rent at female gorillas some time next press in Iophore sex with men.
If they both like it, who is harmed? Why should this be prohibited?
A proponent on this law claim that any kind on sex between humans and other species implies
that a human is a predator, that we need to lock up.
That clearly falls, for the case is listed above.
Making a prohibition based on prejudice, writing it in an overbroad way,
is what the government tends to do, where sex is concerned.
The next step is to interpret it too strongly with zero tolerance.
Will people convicted on having dogs lick them off be required to live at least
1000 feet from any dogs? This law should be changed to prohibit only acts,
in which the animal is physically forced to have sex, or physically injured.
Stormen.org 23 February 2017, a violent sex offender, a teenager,
who will have to register on a violent sex offender,
for the sexual meeting with a younger teenager.
Why do people think there is something wrong with a sexual relationship between people of
ages 13 and 18? The principal activity on human adolescence is sex.
Stormen.org 26 May 2017, prudish ignorantism, a British woman is on trial for going to a park,
and inviting teenage boys to have sex with her hair.
Her husband acted as a lookout in case someone else passed by.
One teenager allegedly visited her at the house repeatedly to have sex with her.
None of the acts would be wrong in any sense, provided they took precautions against
spreading infections. The idea that adolescent, on whatever sex,
need to be protected from sexual experience they wish to have is prudish ignorantism,
and making that experience a crime is perverse.
Stormen.org 13 June 2017, sex offender registry,
sex offender registry treats any sexual crime as far worse than murder.
Stormen.org 10 October 2017, lawn against having sex with an animal,
European countries are passing lawn against having sex with an animal.
We are talking about sex practices that don't physically hurt the animal.
These lawns have no rational basis.
We know that some animals enjoy sex with humans.
Others don't.
But really, if you fear something on your genitals that tastes good to dogs,
and have a dog lick you off, it harms no one.
Why should this be illegal except mindless religion?
Stormen.org 27 November 2017, Roy Moore's relationships
set at Candidate Roy Moore tried to start dating slash sexual relationships with
teenager some decades ago. He tried to leave MS Kaufman's step-by-step into sex,
but he always respected, no, from her, and his other dates.
But, murder does not deserve the exaggerated condemnation that he is receiving for this.
An example of an adoration, one mailing referred to his teenager as children,
even the one at one 18 years old.
Many teenagers are minors, but are not M.R. children.
The condemnation is surely sparked by the political motive of wanting to defeat
Moore in the coming election, but it draws fuel from ageism and the fashion for overprotectiveness
on children. I completely agree with the wish to defeat Moore.
Political Christianists, such as Moore's old news at conflict essentially with human rights,
just as political as artists do.
If Moore, within extremist policies, gains public office again, he will harm millions of American women,
and secondarily society as a whole.
MS Kaufman said she won third afterward, and attributes list of feelings of guilt based on the belief
that she could done something wrong, which, on course, she could not.
Is this another sign on Christianity at work?
I sent a check to Doug Jones US a few weeks ago.
Please support his campaign too. You can mail a check here.
Address available at original link.
Stormen.org 20 October 2017, pestering women, a famous theatre director at a habit of pestering women,
asking M.4x. As far as I can tell from this article, he didn't try to force women into sex.
When women persistently said no, he does not seem to have tried to punish them.
The most he did was ask. He was a pest, but nothing worse than that.
Stormen.org 30 April 2018, UNB's keeper in South Sudan, it sounds horrible.
UNB's keeper's accused of child rape in South Sudan.
But the article makes it pretty clear that the children involved were not children.
A were teenagers. What about rape?
Was this really rape?
Or did a sex willingly, and proves one to call it, rape, to make it sound like an injustice?
We can't tell from the article, which one it is.
Rape means coercing someone to have sex.
Precisely because that is a rape, and clear on, using the same name for something much less
brave in a distortion. Stormen.org 17 July 2018, the Bullshit
and Thirting, we are now invited to disguise the Bullshit for telling a 17-year-old woman
at a party that he found her attractive.
We can hardly assume that the Bullshit and Ghosts were true.
Even men, who are usually honest on other topics have been known to lie about their sexual
achievements. However, I wouldn't assume they were false, or that he didn't injustice
to anyone at these parties. In a group of 50 models, they could well be some
that would eagerly go to bed with a rich man, either to boost their careers, or for a lack.
If you condemn men for finding teenage female models attractive, you might as well condemn
men for being heterosexual. The Bull may be predatory, but it appears he didn't display this
overtly at those parties. There are indications that he arbitrarily chose the winners of
the Miss USA beauty contest while he owned it. That would be a real wrong, since it would
have made the contest dishonest. I understand the desire to condemn the Bullshit
on every aspect of his life, but it is no excuse for ageism.
If you can understand that we shouldn't dictate people's gender preferences,
you should understand that we shouldn't dictate their age preferences either.
There are plenty of tremendously important reasons to condemn the Bullshit.
He is attacking workers rights, abortion rights, non-rich people's pensions,
and medical care, the environment, human rights, and democracy, even the idea of truth.
Let's focus on the real reasons.
Stormin.org 21 August 2018, age and attraction, research found that men generally find
females of age 18 the most attractive. This occurred with a new attendful reported in France
in the 1800s, at a woman's most beautiful years were from 16 to 20, although this attitude
on men's parties normal, the author still wanted to prevent it as wrong or perverted,
and implicitly demands men somehow control their attraction to direct details where
which is unobserved and as potentially oppressive as claiming that homosexuals should control
their attraction and direct it towards the other sex. Will men be pressured to undergo age
conversion therapy intended to brainwash them to feel attracted mainly to women of their own age?
Stormin.org anti-glossary sexual assault, this term is so broad that using it is misleading.
The term includes rape, broating, sexual harassment, and other acts.
The acts are not merely different in degree, they are different in kind, rape is a grave crime,
being broaked in unpleasant, but not as grave as robbery.
Sexual harassment is a not an action at all, but rather a pattern of action that constitutes
economic unfairness. How can it make sense to group these behaviors things together?
It never makes sense. New articles, studies, and laws should avoid that term.
Stormin.org 23 September 2018, coded Wilson, coded Wilson, has been charged with hiring a
child sex worker. Her age does not be announced, but I think she must surely be a teenager,
not a child. Calling teenagers, children, in this context is a way of smearing people
with normal sexual proclivity as perverts. They have accused him of sexual assault,
a term so vague that it should never be used at all. With no details, we can't tell whether
an action's deserve that term. What we do know is that a term is often used for illegal life.
She may have had, I expect, did have, entirely willing sex with him, and I would still call it
assault. I do not like the idea of 3D printed guns, but that issue is entirely unrelated to this.
Stormin.org 6 November 2018, sex according to porn, the unrealistic picture of sex
presented in most porn harms may as well as women in sex lives, though in different ways.
Her sexual miseducation starts in adolescence, but many never learn better. Our society's taboo
cuts adolescent off from any way to learn about sexual relationships, and love making other than
from porn, and from other confused adolescents. Everyone learns the hard way, often slowly,
and in many cases learns adolescence. The more effective the taboo, the deeper ignorance.
In 18th century France, teenage girls of good family emerged totally sexually innocent from
education in a convent. Totally innocent, and totally exploitable, see dangerously asons.
Contrast this with markless and society, where adolescent are not kept ignorant at a taboo on sex.
They have various relationships with lovers on their choice, so they have many opportunities
to see what pleases, and what doesn't. And it one lover can please them more, or please
them less, but can't mislead them. They have hundreds for comparison. In that society,
even adolescent understand love making better, and a lot of American adults. Inevitably,
everyone starts out ignorant. The question is, how can society offer people a path,
which leads them to learn to do things well, rather than learning painfully to do them badly?
Stahlman.org 14th February 2019, respecting people's right to say no, right to yarn,
why said that he cannot be attracted to women in their fifties, and people are condemning him,
claiming he can unobligation to be attracted to them. You might as well demand that a homosexual
be attracted to people not on the same sex, or that a heterosexual be attracted to people that
are on the same sex. There is no arguing about tastes. If we respect people's right to say no,
we should not rebuke them when they do. Of course, many people, especially men, but not only
despise those they find unattractive. That is a mean way to treat people who haven't done anything wrong,
but being unattracted by someone is not the same as despising, but yarn understands this.
Stahlman.org 12 June 2019, declining sex rates, many demographic categories report having sex
less out than in the past. It might be due to the general stress and anxiety of life in the
advanced countries. I suspect it is also due to the lack of any generally accepted way for
men to express romantic or sexual interest in women. I, generally accepted, I mean that he can count
on a woman, who declines his interest not to reveal him for expressing it that way.
Stahlman.org 13 June 2019, Alfrankan. Alfrankan. Our redress reminding from the Senate.
Some senators that pushed him to remind our redress at two. The first, main article does not
state clearly whether frankan touched Sweden in the process of making the photo, but it seems
he did not. If that is correct, it was not a sexual act at all. It was self-locking humor.
The photograph depicted a fictional sexual act without a fictional consent, but making the photo
wasn't a sexual act. If it is true that he persistently pressured the Turkish team on stage and
off, if he stuck his tongue into the mouth despite the objections, that could well be sexual harassment.
He should have accepted no further answer the first time she said it.
However, calling a kiss sexual assault is an exaggeration and attempt to equate it to much
raver acts at our crimes. A term sexual assault encourages that injustice, and I believe it has been
popularized specifically with that intention. That is why I reject that term. Meanwhile,
frankan says he did not do those things, and the other actors he previously did the same
USO's kit when said it was not harassment, just acting. Sweden's story clearly falls in many details.
Should we assume Sweden won't honest? When so many demonstrated falsehoods in the
Accumations, and given that she planned them with a right-wing activist, and at all of them
follow a leader who I am attacked every day, I have to suspect that she decided to falsify
Accumations through exaggeration so as to kick a strong Democrat out of the Senate. I have no proof
on that suspicion. It is possible that she made the Accumations honestly. Also, in a hypothetical
world, someone might really have done them. Supposing for the moment that no Accumations were true,
should frankan have resigned over him. I don't think so. A misjudgment, not crimes.
Frankan deserved the chance to learn from the criticism that surprised him.
Zero tolerance is a very bad way to judge people. However, the most important point is to
reject the position that, if he feels hurt at what I said or did, an automatically is wrong.
People judged frankan that way, and he judged himself that way, but that way
the brains are concept of wrong, into a mere expression of subjective disapproval.
What can legitimately be asserted subjectively can legitimately be ignored subjectively too?
To judge a that way is to set me up as a tyrant. If these feelings were hurt, that's unfortunate,
but is at a default. If so, was it culpable or just a mistake? That is what we have to judge,
and if we want others to think our judgements worth following,
they must be based on objective facts and objective standards,
including objective standards for what words and gestures objectively mean.
Tracer is wrestling with a solvable problem. She says,
when you change rules, you end up penalizing people who were caught behaving according to the old rules.
Maybe people do, but that is a sin of carelessness. It isn't really hard to change the rules,
and end up old actions by the old rules. We just have to remember to do so.
Stormen.org 27 August 2019, me too friendsy, in me too friendsy,
crossed signals about sex can easily be inflated into rape.
If people rush to judgment, in an informal way, that can destroy a man's career without any trial,
in which to clear his name. Stormen.org 21 September 2019, sex workers,
today's sex workers, like a Victorian sisters, don't want saving.
Feminism today is drifting off the track into a campaign of prudery at harm everyone,
except those who are a sexual. Stormen.org 11 June 2019,
stretching meaning of terms, should we accept stretching the terms, sexual abuse,
and molestation to include looking without touching, I do not accept it.
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