Bonum Certa Men Certa

Pursuing Justice and Freedom

By Alexandre Oliva

A lie repeated a thousand times does not, by virtue of repetition, become the truth.

That thousands of people will sign an open letter that proclaims a human being guilty based on twisted pseudo-evidence says more about their respect for due process, fair trials, justice and science, than about the human being they seek to burn at the stake. Do they even know who Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno were?

Burning witches after a kangaroo court-styled mob trial does not signal virtue, but rather the lack thereof.

Richard Stallman may be hard to like and to work with. His extreme attention to detail and to language can be infuriating. His urges to get back to work for free software, picking up and directing his attention to a screen at a dinner table long before that became fashionable, has often been labeled disrespectful. His harshness and often tactless disregard for social conventions can be emotionally hard to swallow and forgive, even with a rational understanding of his condition.

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm XBut these are not horrifying allegations that would serve the purpose of misleading decent people into the moral panic that leads to witch burning. The allegations make such leaps as from evidence of untargeted harshness to conclusions of sexism; from cautioning against accusation inflation, and from misguided and corrected inquiries about teen sexuality to pedophilia and defense thereof; from proposing an alternative to a grammar quirk to transphobia; from passing on scientific advice about fetuses with life-impairing conditions to... what is the criticism in that, genocide, standing for informed choice, or insensitivity of science?

A couple of decades ago, he used to make women uncomfortable with staring, but after being advised by friends, he made the effort and managed to overcome the habit. It's not that this effort would be meritorious in itself (though specific circumstances may make it so), but the acknowledgment that he made the effort and succeeded ought to cast significant doubt on the allegations of misogyny.

Some of the people who support his cancellation dare claim they are in favor of free software ideas, and that this somehow justifies demanding the collective beheading of (i) the organization he founded to promote these very ideas; (ii) the GNU operating system, whose development he started and has led for over 36 years, a system that "has won" despite those who've long tried to write his legacy out of history; (iii) the stubborn, loyal, inflexible, uncorruptible and dehumanized human being who has consistently and correctly identified threats to software freedom before anyone else, who has consistently attracted enormous audiences to his speeches and readership to his writings about software freedom, and who invented copyleft and implemented it in the GNU GPL, the strongest vaccine we've had against attackers who label it a virus or a cancer to discourage developers from adopting it.

This is what these self-identified free software supporters are trying to deprive the free software movement of, by dragging it all to the fire over shocking but false allegations, and over some very real and painful discomfort and disagreement. Their false allegations have done far more to divide the movement, alienate people and empower our historical opponents than Stallman possibly could, even if he'd devoted his entire life to it. Our opponents must be thrilled.

Even if there was any truth to any of the outrageous allegations, it would be self-defeating for the movement to force him into non-existence. When irreconcilable differences impose themselves, all of us who support the movement would likely agree that having more collectives committed to the same principles and cooperating to promote the same ideas is preferable over weakening and dividing the movement with a schism, or with indefinite infighting. However, decapitating organizations and projects he founded and leads, on the grounds that he's there, even if the goal is not a hostile take-over, comes across as vindictive, petty and destructive. It's very hard to see good intentions behind it.

Anyone with a comparable track record to his in untiringly and uncompromisingly pursuing and advancing the cause of software freedom is very welcome to apply for any of his positions in the movement (other than founding father, of course), and he'll surely be glad to make room. Very thick skin is now a strict requirement. We are inclusive, and select primarily based on alignment with the core values of the movement, but, all else being equal, we would give preference to candidates who displayed these rare features in a completely flawless package.

So blong,




Copyright 2007-2021 Alexandre Oliva



Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this entire document worldwide without royalty, provided the copyright notice, the document's official URL, and this permission notice are preserved.



The following licensing terms also apply to all documents and postings in this blog that don't contain a copyright notice of their own, or that contain a notice equivalent to the one above, and whose copyright can be reasonably assumed to be held by Alexandre Oliva.



This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) 3.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Recent Techrights' Posts

GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
 
How Not to Build Software
code forges that need a Web browser perhaps fill some 'niche' demand
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms