This is the unofficial name that was given to the controversy that involved a blatant violation of the GitHub terms of service, and instigated a personal attack on the founder of Free Software Foundation, Richard Matthew Stallamann.
I am not here to either defend or explain my choice to not participate in the “sign or be unhirable in Open Source” open letter, and my decision to side with the countervailing party. I will merely mention that it was a decision to choose the lesser of two evils, and that this is what has transpired as a result.
Richard’s opinions are a far lesser threat to the free software, than the fascist rule that was first imposed by the people claiming the moral high ground. Everyone who was in the FSF/Free and Open Source Software sphere had been told in no uncertain terms that their future career would depend signing the open letter, as well standing against oppression. The latter is what I chose. Having signed the support letter, having found friends and landing a job working for the Linux foundation briefly after this debacle, that the threats had little backing. The open letter was outnumbered 2/1, despite the fact that people could retract signatures from the support letter, were not compelled by anyone in any position of power, and there was no moral dichotomy. It was OK from the perspective of Gabriel, the person who initiated the support letter, if people chose not to sign either letter or changed their mind in view of persecution, to which we had no real counterbalance. By contrast, as of writing, Mr McGovern is “Open to Work”.
The white Brittish Neil McGovern, the white American Molly DeBlanc and white American Drew DeVault are routinely making far more problematic statements of nationalistic, ableist, ageist and racist fashion. Mr DeVault for example labelled every country in which exchange of cryptocurrency is more efficient than the western banking, a “failed state”. Mr McGovern, has no problem with coercion by labelling me, someone whom he has met at Cambridge, while I was a student there a “random Russian”. To be fair to him, this was a blanket statement, which also labelled a Polish Jew who has had to evacuate from Russia a random Russian too. Maybe in today’s climate, the nationalist undertone is somewhat less biting, but the fact that we are both nationalities who have suffered at the hands of Russians, doesn’t make what he said less insensitive.
To the people who are behind the open letter: we do not hate you, in fact we could break bread with you and continue living. What we do object to, is inconsistent application of standards.
When people brought up that some of what you claim cannot be corroborated, and in some instances, minorities have brought up the fact that they consider the problematic statements to be benign, you did the sensible thing: you said “free speech is for countries”. You see, unlike Mr Stallmann you are not on the spectrum, you realised what you did, and immediately removed any evidence of any dissent. Unfortunately during the original Stallmanngate, there have been judicious backups of exchanges, that would make for a nice report, with the added benefit of you denying its existence, and trying to cover up. This is not a threat by the way. I do not believe that coercion is a good strategy, and that it is ethical to compel ethical behaviour by fear. I’m sure that your systematic insensitivity and complete lack of moral compass is not an issue for people that view a 70 year old with cancer as not beyond reproach for things that have happened as much as 40 years ago. I’m sure that the extent of these documents is precisely what I have presented here, and otherwise your track record is immaculate. Ms DeBlanc, Mr DeVault, McGovern and Cantril, you have nothing to lose, I hope.
The Stallmann report Link to heading
This is a rather nothing burger. These are the same points in the open letter regurgitated for the reader’s convenience. The fact that it cropped up is nothing amazing. People are free to do investigative journalism. Similarly people are free to disagree publicly about certain laws. This does not protect them from responsibility for breaking said laws. If you have evidence of misconduct that is tantamount to breaking e.g. the laws on sexual conduct, I believe you would have sued Mr Stallmann.
I do not mean to dismiss the sheer amount of material. Mr Stallmann is on the spectrum, believes in radical honesty, and has no sense of self-preservation. Most of the information that you have found, you have only done so, because he himself has made no effort to hide it. A more neurotypical person, e.g. Brian Catnrill, when they have written something problematic (e.g. “have you ever kissed a girl”), will immediately remove any public record and deny the thing even happening. Mr Cantrill, unlike Mr Stallmann, knows how thought crime is being processed, and that the world has no mercy for people that have slipped up even once. Unlike Mr Stallmann, Mr Cantrill has built up zero good will, by participating and strongly accusing someone of misconduct, you open yourself up to scrutiny.
I do not oppose investigative journalism. I do not oppose the policy of forgive and forget. Which I apply in each particular case depends on your own belief system, and I believe that if you believe in investigative journalism, others learning the truth about you will set you free. If ironically that lands you in jail, this might give you some much needed perspective on “let ye who is without sin”.
Drew DeVault Link to heading
There is reasonable suspicion that the current poorly-managed attempt at political destruction was orchestrated with the help of Drew DeVault. Of course I base this off of the similarities between the previous hit pieces, and the current state of the Stallmann report.
Because of the blatant disregard for common decency by Mr. Devault, I will do something uncharacteristic, and actually say what I think about them.
Mr DeVault accuses Mr Stallmann of having a political agenda. Mr DeVault has posted a rebuttal to a belief held by a minority of supporters of Mr Stallmann, that he is in fact, significantly neurodivergent. Mr DeVault further criticises Mr Stallmann for tone-deaf argumentation in favour of certain groups, while himself posing as a white knight in defence of neurodivergent people, and ableism.
While I had refrained from commenting on Mr Stallmann’s peculiar comments on transgender issues, those of child abuse, as someone who is neurodivergent himself, I can kinda … shall we say … speak for myself as regards to Mr DeVault’s recent publication.
The argument that Mr DeVault proposes is that neurodivergence is not itself an excuse for what he considers appalling behaviour. That argument has some truth to it. Indeed, Richard himself has stated that while he is on the spectrum, his behaviour can mostly be attributed to his eccentricity, rather than any inherent difficulty learning non-verbal cues. In other words, while it may not have been more difficult for him to learn the complexities of human interaction, he like Mr DeVault, simply hasn’t learned them to an acceptable degree. Mr DeVault rightfully points out that Mr Stallmann has no grasp of power dynamics. Mr DeVault, conveniently leaves out that he himself abused power in many areas, including a discrimination against blockchain projects.
Stallman’s rhetoric and behavior are harmful, and we need to address that harm.
Writes Drew. Neglecting to note the harmful rhetoric that he himself posed.
A while ago I wrote an article attacking one of Mr DeVault’s attacks on the Rust programming language, and language elitism in general. Despite the fact that I have covered my arse by posting that article in the “rants” section of my blog, I do not regret removing all negativity towards Mr DeVault. I have little respect for him as a person; however I do have a problem with personal attacks and not attacking rhetoric itself. Not all of it is harmful: for example
These are the lessons I took away from speaking to dozens of neurodivergent people in researching this blog post. I encourage you to speak to, and listen to, people in your communities as well, particularly when dealing with an issue which cites their struggles or impacts them directly.
is itself a valid statement that if a bit on the obvious side, is something I’d encourage people to take away.
I would, however, prefer that it was not him that said this:
The refrain of “criticizing Stallman’s behavior is ableist and alienates neurodiverse individuals in our community” is itself ableist and isn’t doing any favors for our neurodiverse friends.
In context of the Stallmann report, this sounds less like Neurodivergence should not excuse bad behaviour, and more like an excuse to refuse to accommodate people’s lack of social skills, whatever the reason may be.
Specifically, the Stallmann report brings up an exchange between him, and a “credible accuser of sexual misconduct”. Neurodivergence should not excuse an attempt to coerce a person to procure sexual favours in a position of power. Neurodivergence, (and let’s face it the rhetoric on this is still boolean), however, should provide for an opportunity for the person in question to acquire those skills.
The way that the Stallmann report (and dovetailing into it, Mr DeVault’s blog post) poses the situation, one would assume that Mr Stallmann refused to change his behaviour, upon being rejected. Furthermore, his exclamation of what he himself qualified as despair, was considered to be an attempt at coercion. Mr DeVault is correct in that it is in poor taste and not appropriate to the situation. Mr DeVault is incorrect in stating that this is the kind of behaviour that should not be excused based on neurodivergence. There are people that have managed to avoid these kinds of situations despite neurodivergence, and there are people that have not. I myself have only managed to learn how to avoid these sorts of situations based on a large amount of failed interactions.
Using neurodivergence as a cover for sexism and problematic behavior in our communities is a toxic, ableist, and, of course, sexist attitude that serves to provide problematic men with space to be problematic.
While I tend to agree with parts of this statement, I fail to find how the following statement
First of all, a recognition of individuals as being autonomous, independent people with agency and independent needs has to come first, with neurodiversity and with everything else.
is not itself a reflection of latent able-ism. The text is that people like Richard (and by extension Drew) should treat people like myself, as autonomous independent people with agency. The rest of the article is very much a word that I hate to use, and is not in my vocabulary otherwise, is white knight posing as a false conduit between the needs of the people like me, and people like himself and Richard.
To very briefly explain why this is problematic, allow me to assert my story of having attention deficit. I have only had it diagnosed recently, a year ago to be more precise. I do not take medication, because despite having all of the classic symptoms it is “well-managed”, in other words I’m a high-functioning neurodivergent person. I do not normally like to talk about it. But this particular situation calls for a detour.
As a person with ADD, (a term which is itself rather problematic, but we’ll get into that), I have all of the DSM-5 symptoms of inattention, excluding perhaps only of late, inability to organise tasks, as well as all of the hyperactivity symptoms. They were acute when I was younger, but I had not been diagnosed with it, because in the country in which I was born, things like “accommodations for ADHD” are unheard of. Probably because these accommodations if introduced, due to the pervasive corruption, would result in “paid diagnosis”, and used as commodities. Despite not knowing any Armenian by the age of seven, I was allocated to an Armenian-speaking school, because a school for Russian-speakers had criteria that I could not meet. For the record, in an honest society, I would have been allocated into a school where I at least knew the language, but due to the aforementioned corruption, there had to be an economic exchange, one that my family couldn’t afford.
I had struggled with subjects that required concentration. I had ascertained for myself very early on that unless I found a way around those difficulties, nobody would help. This taught me self-reliance, and taught me many of the tricks that I would have been taught had I done Cognitive-behavioural therapy. I knew that I had trouble with things other people didn’t struggle with, but I thought that that was within margin of error for human beings, that I had some weaknesses that I had to cover for, not that I had a debilitating disease that made everything, but especially languages and mathematics an uphill struggle.
I did not, as Mr DeVault puts it, have a trump card of “he can’t help it”. Everything I got, the school I went to, the grades I got, the scholarships I was provided, the Olympiad medals I won; all were done under the assumption that I was normal, just more prone to inattention errors. If I fell short, and believe me, for every one success I had around 10 major failures, it was my fault. If I looked like I drifted off, that was because I was disrespectful; if I had forgotten to carry the 1, it was because I was rushing. No joke, I once said that light was a longitudinal wave, and proceeded to talk about how it had features such as polarisation, accurately describing why it could not have been a longitudinal wave. That was never attributed to me being neurodivergent, and I was never given the benefit of compassion. It was always that I hadn’t prepared well-enough, that I didn’t plan well-enough or indeed, that I was “scatterbrain”.
Unfortunately, having to do extra work academically, meant that I had no social life. Indeed, most of my “friends” were people that I saw only occasionally. While I did not have any symptoms similar to other kinds of neurodivergence, (the kind attributed to RMS), I had not had enough practice in social settings to have picked up these skills. This resulted in many instances of me “coming on too strong” and in some cases even people that I was genuinely simply trying to be polite towards, viewing it as an attempt to build a relationship. Should I have been “included” out of pity? Don’t think so. That would be ableist. I’ll be honest, I would sabotage that relationship even if it weren’t.
However, if years later, Ms Eleonor Popplewell, or Ms. Leila Hagmann or Ms. Blandine Jacquet, or Ms Victoria Vanderstichele, or Ms Katriona King, came out with anecdotes of me behaving inappropriately, I would simply have you know that it was my best approximation at masking and appearing human. And if either of them are reading this passage, I apologise, both for including you by name, and for the reason why I have included you here. The list of names is far longer than I’d like, and non exhaustive, and many of these situations still haunt me to this day. For the record, I have made peace with the fact that these relationships were doomed from the start. I have, in various capacities made apologies to the respective persons, though the efficacy of such an act is questionable. So why then do they still haunt me? Because of people like Mr DeVault.
You see, while codes of conduct and policies are all well and good, the sheer knowledge of the fact that mistakes of 40 or 50 years of age could be brought up to perform character assassination even if I had a cancer diagnosis, and was 7X years old, that every awkward exchange, could be used as “credible evidence of sexual misconduct” by someone who has never had to experience even one of the symptoms that I have had to put up with my entire life, is a scary proposition. And I can’t exactly defend myself on the basis of having the same form of neurodivergence as Mr Stallmann supposedly could have, because when I was tested for Asperger syndrome, the result came back negative for that particular divergence.
Drew, if you are reading this, I have made every effort to remain on-track with this particular article. I have made every effort to refrain from personal attacks, and I have attempted to explain problems with your statements avoiding the apparent hypocrisy where I can. I have argued in good faith, that you are incorrect. As a consequence, I believe I have earned one spot where I can speak to you freely.
Dear Drew.
You are an entitled dumbfuck, that has yet to produce a piece of software that did not have a strong faecal aftertaste. You have a keen propensity to point out flaws in others, while having those same flaws yourself (implications left as an exercise for the reader). You are the tyrannical ruler of Source hut, combining the eloquence, morality and integrity of the 45-th president of the United States (that latter one is sarcasm, because Mr Trump had the common decency. The second best thing that you can do right now, is to stop speaking on behalf of other people. You speak on behalf of systems programmers denigrating Rust; you speak on behalf of neurodivergent people calling for “accountability”; you speak on behalf of privacy advocates, yet you yourself are happy to make use of moral panics. We are able to advocate for ourselves and we do not need an outsider to advocate for us (you can plausibly pass for a systems programmer, until people start reading your “code”… or your blog). The world would be a better place if more balding angry Americans with a history of purveying unsavoury videos (see implications exercise), had the courage of doing the first best thing (exercise for reader). Of course, knowing your courageousness, I would invite you to do a little bit of investigative journalism and dig up as much dirt on me as you can (hint, I’ve already given you excellent leads). Good luck!
Having gotten this off my chest, I would invite people to engage with the subject matter of what is being done by Mr Stallmann. I do not believe for one second that he is right in defending Mr Minsky. I also believe that he has lost his job at MIT, and therefore has been punished appropriately (tenured professorship is one of the best jobs in the world, so it is indeed, a hefty price). I do not believe that it is becoming of Mr Stallmann to comment on sex with animals. I also believe that systematic regurgitation of these points is politically motivated.
I would happily accept people taking over for Mr Stallmann, particularly if matching his dedication to free software, whilst also being free of the multiple episodes of dis-inhibition. Organising a personal attack on an old man with cancer, citing incidents of at least 40 years of age, and threatening repercussions to anyone who disagrees disqualifies one from participating. If Mr DeVault is credibly within the top 100 candidates for being on the board of directors of the FSF, I would immediately withdraw from that organisation. One cannot fight one kind of problematic behaviour, with a different kind.
I understand that it is too late to expect Richard to change, and that there are genuine concerns with allowing someone with blatant disregard for social norms, or as was put in Drew’s blog, repugnant behaviours, to be the face and embodiment of a foundation. The question of succession is a rather important one, which must be taken seriously. I do not have a good answer to this question. I do not know if Mr Stallman’s resignation is preferable. I do, however, know that a person who threatened to fire me for not supporting his petty attempt at a power grab, has not the requisite integrity to be a worthy successor.