Sarah MeiVerified account

In the 90s, Richard Stallman's attitude towards women alienated me (& many others) from any interest in or support for "free software."

The GNU organization, and the concepts it promotes, are arrogant and blind to their own privilege - just like the person.

They had 1 interesting point to make in the 80s. By the late 90s, it was showing its age. It's laughable to assert it's still relevant now.

Viewing software through the Richard Stallman/GNU/"free as in freedom" lens would have run our industry into the ground.

But it was the only alternative to proprietary software for ~20 years. So lots of folks worked on it despite finding Stallman problematic.

This was the period when women largely declined to be part of computing, despite having pretty reasonable representation through the 80s.

The main faces of software at this point: - terminally-uncool Bill Gates - the dude who keeps saying women aren't interesting colleagues

The "pipeline," as it were, dried up from the middle outwards, as Stallman's attitude normalized those prejudices & attracted more like him.