Re: removing toxic emailers

["Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>]

David Malcolm <dmalcolm@redhat.com>:
> > I will, however, point out that it is a very *different* point from
> > "RMS has iupset some people and should therefore be canceled".
> 
> Eric: I don't know if you're just being glib, or you're deliberately
> trying to caricature those of us who are upset by RMS's behavior.

My intent was not caricature.  I was being dismissive and snarky
because I genuinely consider the personality complaints against RMS to
be pretty trivial.  Not the managerial ones Joseph Myers listed; those
are serious.  But they're not the cause of the current ruckus.

To make the "triviality" point in the most forceful possible way, I
will take the bull by the horns and directly address RMS's behavior towards
women.  And I will reveal a few things that I haven't talked about in
public for 40 years.

I've known RMS since 1979; I'm fully aware of how obnoxious he can be
towards both men and women. There have been occasions on which I have
thought the state of the universe would have been improved if he'd
gotten a swift slap in the face.

In fact, the first or second time I met him face to face it was
because he was rather determinedly pursuing my then-girlfriend.
A hostile witness might have said he was creeping on her, though
that slang for it wouldn't be invented until much later.

I think an explanation of how how I reasoned about that situation has
some value in light of the current attempt to ostracize RMS.

I paid very careful attention to whether my girlfriend appeared to
need any help dealing with him. I regarded her as an adult fully
capable of making her own decisions.  One of those decisions could
have been to slap his face.  If a more severe sanction had been
required, and she had yelled for help, I would cheerfully have
punched his lights out.

No fisticuffs were required.  She gently discouraged him, and we both
established friendly relations with him.  In later years RMS and I
remained fairly close long after I broke up with that girlfriend.  He
made passes at at least two of my later girlfriends that I know of,
including the woman I am still married to.  In all cases, I trusted
these ladies to handle the situation like adults, and they did.  It
really would not have occurred to me to do otherwise.

I hear a lot of talk about RMS's behavior towards women being some sort
of vast horrible transgression that will drive all women everywhere to
flee from ever being contributors to FSF projects.  To me this seems
just silly, and very infantilizing of women in general.  My
girlfriends were emtirely able to

(1) short-stop his advances when they became unwelcome

(2) understand that some men have poor social skills and
    trouble recognizing boundaries,

(3) and *stay on friendly terms with him anyway*.

I mean I saw this not just more than once, but every single time it
came up.

I don't assume that any adult female is incapable of these things; I
respect women as fully capable of asserting and defending their
interests, I *expect* women to do that, and I thus consider a lot of the
white-knighting on their behalf to be at best empty virtue signaling
and at worst a cover for much more discreditable motives.

Of course, he offends men too.  When I deal with RMS, I know that I'm
going to have to cope with a certain amount of unpleasantness because
he has autism-like deficits amplified by some unfortunate personal
history.  Yes.  So what?  He's one of my oldest friends anyway.  He
has many admirable qualities; I respect and value him even when I have
to argue with him.  And I can work with him when I need to.

Why in the *hell* should I assume anyone with female genitalia is
incapable of doing the same?  More to the point, why is anybody else
making such a silly, reductive assumption and then turning it into a
galloping moral panic that somehow justifies stoning RMS and driving
him out of the village?

*grumble* Get *over* yourselves.  You want to be "welcoming" to
women?  Don't patronize or infantilize them - respect their ability to
tell off RMS for themselves *and then keep working with him*!
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>