Re: Remove RMS from the GCC Steering Committee

[kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner)]

> I think I will leave this discussion up to those who have more 
> familiarity with the guy than I do. There's no doubt that some of the 
> stuff Stallman has written creeps me the hell out, and I think it was 
> more the tone of the OP I objected to.

I mostly want to stay out of this and will leave much of this discussion to
others (though I have met RMS personally on a number of occaisions), but I
want to mostly say that I agree with Jeff that it's important that this
discussion stay civil.

I believe that to a large extent, the discussion here is reflective of a
much larger discussion in society of to what extent, if at all, an entity
associated with an person must or should take action based on things that
that person does while not associated with that entity.

I think all of us understand that, on the one extreme, there are some
things so eggregious that entities must take action and on the other, we
don't want companies taking actions against employees that express
unpopular political positions or are members of marginalized minorities.
There's the famous Supreme Court Justice who said "I can't define
pornography, but I know it when I see it", but I think it's worse here: I
suspect that many more of us would agree on whether a particular piece of
media is pornography or not than would agree on whether a particular
behavior does or doesn't cross the line in terms of the obligations of an
entity associated with that person.