[Ipg-smz] On Stallman

[Richi Jennings]

Miguel de Icaza tells this “never meet your heroes” story:

> I hosted rms many years ago in the 90’s, what was supposed to be hosting
> your hero for a ~3 day thing became a ~2 month nightmare.  I joined a small
> club “never host rms ever again.”
> …
> He met a woman on the first evening in town, and extended his stay.   One
> day, I came home from work and she had moved in.
> …
> I am too embarrassed to say how the whole thing unfolded.  I can share the
> stories in person.

https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1173981287037751297

// @RiCHi <http://twitter.com/RiCHi> | +44.7789.200701 | 1.408.256.0084 |
richi.uk



On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 8:44 PM Andy Patrizio via Ipg-smz <
ipg-smz at netpress.org> wrote:

> Sounds like the difference between him and Steve Jobs is 100 pounds and a
> shower. Ok 200 pounds.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of Tom Henderson
> via
> Ipg-smz
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 8:24 AM
> To: ipg-smz at netpress.org
> Cc: Tom Henderson <thenderson at extremelabs.com>
> Subject: [Ipg-smz] On Stallman
>
> Fellow Guilders,
>
> I go way back in Linux. Long ago, the Linux Business Expo was part of
> COMDEX, and I was one of many functionaries in the greater spheres of
> COMDEX
> program development. Lots of interesting characters evolved Linux for a
> variety of motivations.
>
> Stallman was the anti-Microsoft. The pillar of free. I'm not a licensed
> medical/health/psych practitioner in any jurisdiction, but Stallman had
> brains, perhaps some autisim, and thought things through. He cared not one
> whit about his personal appearance or scent. Clue #1.
>
> He had boundaries in the philosophy of Free. They were well-developed and
> thought through. Much of his hard work in finishing the utilities that make
> the operating system we know as Linux were at his hands, or one step-away.
>
> His lip flatulence was notorious, as is/was/were many in the early
> free/open
> source movement. Many of them had a gripe with the sheer mendacity of
> Microsoft and its minions. SJV-N believes Microsoft has changed. I'm not
> sure if I share that believe, but as an researcher, I continue to observe.
>
> Stallman is a member of a wider body of men that think within their own
> context. It's difficult to shift outside of that personal context for them.
> I'm not excusing their behavior, just observing it.
>
> Nor am I forgiving it, and history shouldn't, either. The object that we'll
> look backwards upon 100yrs from now, should have that stain mentioned, not
> just the bullet-point of: founder of "free" as a construction and
> architectural concept. He was also: a dick.
>
> Can he help being a dick? I'll leave that to others. Too many men follow
> their hormones rather than something evolved in the pre-frontal cortex.
> Is being a dick part of autism? Does it being autism make it forgivable?
> No, is my answer-- it's a quality that doesn't offset the fetid scent.
>
> Every day I deal with my autistic brother's shenanigans. He is built, how
> he's built.; in the 1960s it was rare to even get a diagnosis and few knew
> what to do with autistim diagnoses. He's trainable. Graduated high school.
> But moving outside of his own context is nigh impossible.
> Change comes after daunting repetition. Only then. Trust me: only then.
> My late mother had him queued in a very Pavlovian way, and was successful,
> but my brother doesn't live with me. I've developed a support network for
> him. At a family event, he will blurt the most insane stuff, not
> understanding how a poop joke might not go over well with his aging aunt.
> Clueless. There are many clueless in the world.
> Their population doesn't forgive the cluelessness, just makes us work
> harder
> at inculcating manners. Like most of us, he wants to be loved.
>
> And so, atop the object that we might describe about others, their
> incredible accomplishments but their amazing lip flatulence and even more
> morbid felonies: some were built to not recognize the emotive response of
> other humans. It's just the way things are.
>
> There are many "Aspie" and autistic people somehow in my immediate circle
> of
> people, or perhaps, one step away. Here in the university town where I
> live,
> it's like the aforementioned Mensa meeting, where people came to study, and
> unable to live in the real world, became academics, or failing that, became
> "townies" with IQs in excess of 145 joining their peers. They never succeed
> in any recognizable way, but they fit into a rag-tag bunch of intellectual
> misfits which in turn, becomes a subculture of snorters. Nothing inherently
> wrong with snorters. And a common denominator of humanity is: Misfit, if of
> differing cultures and acumen.
>
> To address therefore Dana's "everyone is eventually forgiven" comment, my
> answer is no, that's not quite correct. Like most things, it's more
> complicated than that. Some will want to understand the complexity, while
> others just want to ascribe to The Winning Team or soundbite.
>
> Tom
>
>
> --
> Tom Henderson
> ExtremeLabs, Inc.
> +1 317 250 4646
> Twitter: @extremelabs
> Skype: extremelabsinc
>
>
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