I hear it as a “tongue-in-cheek” fake surprise joke (as in, “there are no girls on the internet” or “what is that girl thing you talk about). Sexism is really about lower consideration of the women, while here it is just “playing dumb” and going with the general nerd stereotype and a long, long running joke.

I can understand that women may feel uneasy when the very fact that they are a rare sight in free software and software development is the object of a joke during a conference about free software. I have been to RMS conferences (and there were women in the room), and the Church of Emacs set-up is a tradition, and he did the Emacs virgins thingy (I don’t remember he spoke of women specifically). This is like going to see your favorite rock band and they play their #1 hit. Now I wasn’t here, and probably flagging women as Emacs virgins wasn’t the best joke, but it seems to me the reaction is disproportionate and puritan. The joke seems nothing close to the Ruby conference.

I agree that it seems that the current attack against Stallman is using this event as an excuse because he spoke against .NET on one side, and because there have been an anti-stallman feeling going for a while now and this event caused an eruption of hate.

Stallman is a marginal, theatrical “character” the likes of which we read in books. I don’t want to hang out with him (I have the feeling having a discussion with him is tricky, and that he isn’t someone easy to be around to). I don’t care if his hygiene is sub-par (even if I’d rather not seem him do disgusting things during a conference). I recognize him as the philosopher behind the free software movement, and so far I have agreed with his views and statements, independently.

The current movement is trying to “dethrone” him and distance him from any relevance regarding Free Software and more widely the Open Source movement. His detractor claim he lost relevance years ago, yet I find myself agreeing with his most recent statements. I think his evangelism is very important because he is a true thinker and not someone sold by a business model or a development method.

Should we excuse him because of who he is ? Yes. I personally believe Stallman is socially inept and will not apologize because he has more important things to do than to defend himself from accusations. Requiring apologies is short-sighted.

If the anti-Stallman movement succeeds in capturing a sufficient mindshare and lower the reach of his message, the free software movement will have lost a lot more than the recipients of a bad joke did. I will keep on supporting him as long as I agree with his ethical views regarding software, and so far I have not been disappointed.

There’s a transcript at http://mjg59.livejournal.com/113408.html .

I also don’t see any public discourse, but just publishing private emails without consent and a meme-banner campaign. And everybody knows what the banners refers to.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that what you posted is not related to mono, and if you read my post carefully, I didn’t ever affirm that. But I have deep concerns on the starter and the early takers of the meme.

Also I can’t think of any occasion where sexism is applauded. So if you live on such a planet, I’m sorry for you.

And yeah, I was *not* there, as probably many of the meme takers. So if you and rick were there, why don’t you make a good thing and inform us ?

It’s probably normal for you to mark everyone as uninformed when backslashing a personal attack (err… a generic bad behaviour protest) and not provide information yourselves.

Let the people know, which so creepy thing did happen ? Let’s see who should apologize to whom.

For my part, I *was* there. I thought his points about mono were interesting and valid. His “joke” about virgins was deeply creepy.

This blog post seems irrelevant and misinformed.

Cheers, Rick

Which part of the public discourse on this issue do you feel is a personal attack? What I see is people objecting to bad behavior, and insisting that it change, which is not the same thing. I think that Richard made a mistake, and should correct it. I’m not judging whether he is a good person or a bad person.

The fact that satire was involved is completely orthogonal to the issue. Satire does not require sexism in order to achieve its purpose. Richard was not criticized for being satirical. He was not criticized for using religion as the subject of his satire. He was criticized for a sexist remark.

As to the “deep implications” of naming sexism, I live on a “planet” where being called out on sexism generally has few, if any, consequences. Can you think of anyone whose sexist behavior has caused them great suffering? It’s usually applauded.

I repeat myself: this has nothing to do with Mono! I don’t care what RMS thinks about Mono. It doesn’t matter to me at all. In fact, you may have noticed the position statement we issued from the Ubuntu Technical Board affirming the use of Mono in Ubuntu. Mono is completely irrelevant to my comments on RMS’ behavior.

I did not “buy” anyone’s “argument” either. I was there, and I have a view about what I observed. I’ve also read the backlash, and commented on what I read. I’ve spoken with over a dozen women about it, some of whom were also present at the keynote. I am, at the least, much better informed about what is going on here than you seem to be.