this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by Tekkip20@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I've tried using my incredible (british) brain using Google to see if these open source titans ever engaged in a battle of "friendly conversation" with one another.

I was always interested what Stallman thought of the angry but smart finnish man who gave us the robust penguin kernel that breathes life into older machines and powers supercomputers for the weather.

The same with Torvalds thoughts on Stallmans GNU involvement and him as a person.

This is because you sometimes had different organisations in the FOSS and OSS community that take on different meanings so I wanted a better idea if these chaps ever spoke in an interview together.

TLDR : Does finnish man like bearded GNU jesus man and the same vice versa

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

And what's your point with posting this? My guess is that you don't even understand it.
He is saying there is no such thing as willing participation from a child in pedophilia. Are you saying there is?

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Stallman is absolutely a defender of having sex with children.

Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

"The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, 'prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia' also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness."

RMS on June 28th, 2003

"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)

RMS on 25th May, 2003

To be fair for that one, he doesn't specify whether 14 or under is fine for an adult to have sex with. It's certainly possible to interpret this as child-child relations only, but given his other comments where he says adult-child sex is fine, I decided to include this one.

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."

RMS on June 5th, 2006

"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children."

RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

I understand that Stallman has excellent views on liberty in software, and he's made enormous contributions to FOSS. But that does not necessarily mean he's a good person or that all of his views are good ones. People are flawed. IMO his views on the morality of having sex with children aren't good ones, but I recognise that I agree with him in other ways.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

“There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.”

But per the quote in the meme above, you can't have willing participation, it is always coerced.

And you still don't provide sources.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I'd say the quotes above show he absolutely believes children are capable of consent. Why else would he use phrases like

  • "it's fine so long as nobody is coerced" (as if there are any situations where an adult can have sex with a child without there being coercion)

  • "willing participation in pedophilia" (children can't consent to sex!)

  • "the arguments [against having sex with children] seem to be based on cases that aren't voluntary" (None of them are voluntary! CHILDREN CANNOT CONSENT!)

It doesn't mean he supports it.

He explicitly said it should be legal, and also alluded that parents are just prudish if they don't want their children to be having sex. It's very clear he supports it.

You'll be able to find this stuff in the articles that went around when he was pressured to resign from the FSF and from his role at MIT. It's primarily quotes from him on his own site, stallman.org.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 3 points 4 months ago

Pre-blowback: fucking children is fine if they consent to it

Post-blowback: friends explained to me that it hurts the children and that they can't consent

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think the phrasing isn't the best. I think he needs an "is what" before "hurts children" in the first paragraph.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I agree, the phrasing is bad, but that doesn't change that if you read it carefully, the meaning is clear.
There is absolutely no reasonable basis for claiming he is defending pedophiles, when what he does is the direct opposite, by logically proving that a common defense they use is invalid, because you can never claim to know participation is voluntary. It is per definition coerced.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

There's plenty of evidence that he's pro paedophilia, which I have posted elsewhere in this submission.

I think people need to stop this hero worship.

Richard Stallman thinks paedophilia is ok or even good. It should be fine to find that view reprehensible whilst at the same time acknowledging that he has some good ideals when it comes to software, and his role in GNU was huge.

People in the Linux world treat him as a deity figure and therefore treat any words against him as blasphemy. It makes them reject and dismiss the whole bestiality/paedophilia is good aspect of him, when they really shouldn't as that is a rejection of reality.

If you just view him as a flawed person, rather than some deity figure, then it's easy to accept that he's good in some areas and less good in others.