I am not the biggest Richard Stallman fan, and this was also my first thought. But in the interest of truth, it is very unfair to portray him this way.

What Stallman argued for was correctness. He is guilty of pedantry, not pedophilia. Did he do it badly. Yes. Was it a socially risky position to take? For sure. Is he a child predator? Not based on any evidence I have seen.

There are actual child predators out there. Let’s focus on them.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Honestly wouldn't be surprising...

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Stallman report is a bs that tries to undermine the concepts of free software and all. I think it was drew devault that did this trying to take over fsf or something(more details here). All the quoted stuff are majorly misleading, and stallman being autistic-programmer guy who is not in a position of talking much about sex, said and asked some controvertial stuff that a teen would make trying to think what is right and wrong. His lack of knowledge of anything other than software made him say some statements for which he apologised later on. And all this guy did with stallman report was bringing all old accusations and framing it in a way that would make him get control of FSF and (very likely)make free software serve corpo greeds(say by removing copyleft stuff from gplv4 which is applicable for all v3+ software)

Edit: Some people made devault report as a response to him. He was the real shitbag https://dmpwn.info/

Edit: some more historic info 1 2

[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Frankly, it sounds like neither of the two should lead the FSF

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why so? Stallman knows to keep up the values of FSF very well. And imo the comments he made was not pedophilic he only said he was skeptical of how it's bad or not, which just shows lack of knowledge in that matter and not knowing perespectives of victims

[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He has made a large number of questionable comments, including the argument that the solution to human trafficking includes legalizing child prostitution:

27 April 2015 (Human Trafficking Act)

The Senate's Victims of Human Trafficking Act is dangerous in several ways.

When it talks about having the customs agency do more to enforce "intellectual property", I am sure that refers to something bad. Whenever that term is used, something nasty is afoot.

The way to protect children from being forced into prostitution is to legalize prostitution by licensed prostitutes. Customers could be required to check the prostitute's license. If the customer fails to check, that concrete omission would be legitimate grounds for punishment.

Minors should not be denied prostitution licenses in a blanket way, but the state should ask them why they want one and probe their situation, then offer help so they can avoid prostitution.

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2015-mar-jun.html#27_April_2015_(Human_Traffickting_Act)

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Well yeah whenever he talks outside his scope it turns out terrible. And afaik he apologised for comments like this later on. But theese doesn't suggest me he is pedophilic of any kind. In all of theese i guess he is assuming minors can take mature decisions

[–] mbp 12 points 1 day ago

They either die a hero or live long enough to be the villain 😪