Bonum Certa Men Certa

Richard Stallman (FSF) Was Right, Simon Phipps (OSI) Was Wrong

Richard Stallman at the European Parliament Simon Phipps' photo of Richard Stallman at the European Parliament; This image was originally posted to Flickr | Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)



Summary: The misuse of labels with clinically-charged insinuations is strongly being discouraged not only by those trying to control language but also clinicians (it's considered unfair and professionally unethical to give a medical assessment of people whom you never actually assessed, especially if the goal is to slander them with words like "dyslexia", "dementia" and "autism")

"He'd rather not use a microwave if it uses code he doesn't have (seriously)." — Simon Phipps (@webmink) October 25, 2009



He responded to Brian Aker (MySQL) regarding Richard Stallman (rms), based on adjacent tweets (many about rms that day and see the video at the bottom). Twitter lacked proper threading at the time, so finding context takes some work (but is still remotely feasible).

The above statement may seem fair. But that's just half the tweet. Then it became nasty.

"Twitter lacked proper threading at the time, so finding context takes some work (but is still remotely feasible).""And no, Aspergers prevents one empathizing," Phipps continued (we took screenshots; it wasn't the only time he used "Aspergers" as an insult). The historical significance of this may require familiarising oneself with Aspergers and Nazi eugenics/euthanasia programs (there's a strong connection between them; Nature published "The truth about Hans Asperger’s Nazi collusion"), estimated to have eliminated about 300,000 humans for being regarded as mentally weak (even before the Holocaust).

A ward in the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, in the 1940s.Courtesy of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance.
Nature explains this photograph as follows: "A ward in the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, in the 1940s. Courtesy of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance."



Based on leaks, Phipps was also working behind the scenes with FSFE to undermine/undercut the FSF and as figosdev put it: "In 2009 that was probably meant to make rms look unreasonable, but in 2020 with Internet-enabled refrigerators and people hacking cameras in baby monitors, he was "unreasonable" by virtue of being ahead of his time (again).

The truth about Hans Asperger’s Nazi collusion"I used to be a happy amazon customer, who said (thinking of "the right to read") that the ultimate evil for DRM would be to put it in books. I'm still boycotting amazon, more than 10 years later."

That's figosdev.

He then said that "perhaps someone from OSI [alluding to Phipps] would like to call Kaitlyn Tiffany "autistic" for writing this 2018 article. Oh, nope -- because she gets the title on the money, and then writes an article that ignores her own warning."

"Aker's disdain of rms might be the subject of a later (and separate) post."The first article is "Amazon’s smart microwave is how it’ll get Alexa into every home" and the latter "Amazon’s Alexa-enabled microwave".

"That would be a good thing to have a the source code to," figosdev said, "though really the whole concept is flawed, and hardware switches (along with not enabling Internet on your microware) would be better. but that's an example of Roy being right."

Aker's disdain of rms might be the subject of a later (and separate) post. Here's what happened at the time Aker wrote a lot of malicious tweets, poking fun at rms (yes, this is him in the audience trying to trick rms). Same day as above...



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
 
Gemini Links 11/06/2025: Grain and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Links 11/06/2025: "Quantum" Hype From IBM, US Closer to Martial Law, and “The Nation” Celebrates Milestone
Links for the day
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025