The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
The photo comes from
wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman.
The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of
the Free Software Foundation or
the GNU Project.
For the sake of separation, this site has always been
hosted elsewhere and managed separately.
It is more likely I can actually go if you have funds to cover the additional cost, and a speaker's fee would be nice.
If you want to send me GPG-encrypted mail, do not trust key servers! Some of them have phony keys under my name and email address, made by someone else as a trick. See gpg.html for my real key.
Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphoma. Treatment put it into remission, and he can expect to live many more years. However, he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to
I will have a trip to Europe in the second week of October and I am looking for invitations for additional talks in the same trip. If you would like to invite me to speak in that trip, please write to me at rms-invitation@gnu.org with "october" as the subject.
It is more likely I can actually go if you have funds to cover the additional cost, and a speaker's fee would be nice.
US citizens: tell Costco’s Board of Directors and CEO Ron Vachris: Don’t cave to extremists. Allow your pharmacies to carry mifepristone nationwide now.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to protect access to abortion care for all veterans.
US citizens: call on politicians to stop taking AIPAC money: demand your representatives reject AIPAC's right-wing billionaire brand of politics.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to sign the discharge petition for the Protect America’s Workforce Act.
That bill would undo the poison DOSE that the muskrat gave to the staff of the Social Security Administration, the VA, the EPA, and national parks.
This bill has support from a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives. If it comes to the floor, it will pass. But Speaker Mike Johnson is blocking that vote to protect the wrecker from embarrassment.
If the supporters sign the discharge petition, he will not be able to block them from voting on it and passing it.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on your state attorney general to keep the military off America's streets.
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject the bully's nominee to take charge of wrecking the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
US citizens: Stand with scientists against the new denialist US climate report.
I'm looking for a cartoonist who would like to draw cartoons for me once in a while. If you're interested, please write to rms, which refers to me, at the location gnu period org.
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
* Abandoned coalmines and oil and gas wells are now one of the biggest sources of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, new data shows, and little effort is being made to clean them up.*
I expect that the fossil fuel companies to divest themselves from old mines and wells in ways that will avoid liability for them — just as they sometimes disconnect themselves from responsibility for supporting former workers.
So I suggest making it a felony to implement a restructuring of business or assets in a way that is likely to result predictably in strand assets that carry financial responsibilities with no one capable of shouldering the responsibilities.
A pitifully weak attempt to solve a real problem: asking for a federal law that would permit victims of domestic abuse and stalking to demand that data brokers delete information about them.
Data, once collected, will be abused. The way to prevent that abuse is to facilitate refusing to hand it over in the first place.
Here is my proposal for protecting the specific people known to be in particular danger, and everyone else who could be harmed if individuals, businesses or governments use their personal data against them without a search warrant: require services to be available anonymously.
The selfish interest of those who keep trade secrets is rational but antisocial. In many cases the only harm it does is to hold back the general advance of technology. But sometimes it does really nasty things. For digital hardware and software, it often gives companies a way to subjugate their users. Regarding use of toxic chemicals, it endangers public health.
Why would legislators pass laws to "protect" companies instead of protecting the people they harm? I suspect it is partly because these companies are influential and the legislators seek their support, and partly because the legislators ask them for campaign funds.
But it is also partly the result of the mindset of "trickle down", which assumes that the only way to get more funds for the state is to let increase the size of the economy by letting companies have what they want. Unfortunately, what they want is often to be allowed to harm the public.
Most Democrats in Congress got corrupted this way in the 80s and 90s. (The exceptions are the progressive Democrats.) Now in the UK Starmer is guiding Labour into that sort of corruption.
Clearly our laws should say that any public need to know about the presence of toxic substances in a business facility overrides the desire to keep them secret.
Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.
These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opporunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.
With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
The wrecker may be planning to send soldiers into US cities on election day in 2026, to ensure that his urban supporters find it hard to vote.
This would go with his order for states to eliminate voting by mail. Eliminating that would make it harder for many marginailzed citizens to vote. Democratic states will cite the Constitution to reject the order, but I can imagine that Republican-controlled states wlll eagerly take up this opportunity for additional voter suppression.
National guard troops sent to Washington DC are being used for cruelty against US citizens (homeless ones) as well as non-citizens.
Right-wing movements in parts of Canada are imposing restrictions on schools and libraries to keep children ignorant about many aspects of sex. Among the books to be banned is 1984
Greg Palast writes about helping to rescue people from the wreckage caused by Hurricane Katrina. FEMA was debilitated at the time because Dubya and the Republicans did not treat it as a priority. FEMA employees recently published an open letter warning Americans that the sabteur in chief has weakened FEMA, and this could turn the next disaster into a super-disaster.
The bully demands states delete mention of trans people from their sex education curricula, or he will deny them the funds for sex education. Republican-ruled states will rush to obey, and I see no way of stopping them. But what about state governments that disagree? It is foolish to yield to such bullying, because the extortionist will still have the threat in hand and will demand more, more and more. A better response is a counter-threat. For instance, how about adding the case of E Jean Carroll and Trump to the sex education syllabus? That example could be used to clarify various aspects of the issue of varieties of forced sexual acts and how they might be prosecuted.
Breed beavers intelligent enough to understand why they should not mess with a dyke?
Australia is trying to abolish it's counterpart of the US concept of "due process of law", as regards deportation. Australia has a long history of flat-out cruelty to people who are looking for asylum.
The deportation thugs arrested firemen for deportation from the site where they were fighting the largest wildfire in Washington State.
The CDC is in chaos after being attacked by crazed, corrupt Republican officials. They tried to fire the newly confirmed head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, but she says they lack the authority to do so — that only the saboteur in chief can do it. Apparently she believes that the magat officials who fired her are at odds with the leader they serve. I can't see how to make sense of this situation. There is no one in it that I can presume to be loyal to Americans and to rationality.
*How Student Protesters and Immigrants Became Targets of Trump’s Surveillance Tech.*
* A new generation of Democrats is deeply unhappy with the entrenched political establishment. So they’re going to try to take it over.*
I support this movement. Instead of the DCCC, which supports plutocratist Democrats, I donate to the Progressive Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps progressive Democrats get elected to replace plutocratist Democrats.
* Research tracking about 200 women found those who had at least two miscarriages had higher levels of [PFAS] in their blood.*
I have mixed feelings about this effect. On the one hand, I don't wish a miscarriage on anyone. On the other, this is a bad time to be born and it is almost certainly going to get worse.
On the 19th century poor but capable English boy whose childhood memoir inspired Oliver Twist.
*Heatwave that fueled deadly wildfires was Spain's "most intense on record."*
The flunky that the bully put in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is using his power to threaten opposition officials with charges of crimes.
It is not absolutely impossible that the charges are valid. But when someone makes false accusations habitually, as the bully does, an accusation from him or his henchman is not worth taking seriously.
If he has a valid case to make, I suppose we will see it eventually. Unless and until proved, we should dismiss it.
*Egyptian Officials in New York Beat Two Gaza Protesters on Video. The NYPD Arrested the Protesters.*
I suppose the Egyptian thugs have diplomatic immunity, so the NYC thugs could not have arrested them. The way the system is supposed to work is that the US government would expel those thugs, or threaten to, and thus keep their violent tendency within bounds.
Alas, the bully won't permit that — he prefers the tyrannical government of Egypt in which thugs can beat or kill anyone who criticizes the state.
Nick Clegg, British former "centrist" politician, afterward worked for Facebook. He reports a general attitude of self-pity among the rich executives. "It is a cultural thing, through from Elon Musk's chainsaw-wielding stuff to any Silicon Valley podcast. If you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Global heating effects are starting to interfere with mass international tourism, which is a substantial contributor to global heating.
The bully had to backtrack from freezing billions in education funding to various states that responded by suing.
Some parents in Washington DC are scared to bring their children to school, scared that the deportation thugs will use it as an opportunity to seize them to deport them,
Teachers say the school department has given them no help or guidance.
I walked to school when I was 6 years old, in a much bigger city with a higher crime rate, and crime did not come near me. The schoolchildren of DC could walk to school on their own just as I did, if our society permitted parents to permit them to do so — if it had not started persecuting parents who let their children do anything without supervision.
The four factors of the apocalypse:
global heating, global hating,
global eating, global mating.
Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth) to express your rejection of Facebook.
Non-oppressive Commercial E-books
Facebook's face recognition demonstrates a threat to everyone's privacy. I therefore ask people not to put photos of me on Facebook; you can do likewise.
Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well.
I'd like to make a list of countries that do not require a national identity card, and have no plans to adopt one. If you live in or have confirmed knowledge of such a country, please send email to rms at gnu.org.
Here's my list of countries with no national ID cards and no plans for one: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.
India has mostly finished imposing a national biometric ID number in a grand act of oppression.
Switzerland has national ID cards which are optional, but they or some other government ID card are needed for some purposes.
Iceland doesn't have ID cards as such, but they have ID numbers that citizens are forced to use frequently. For example, the national ID number is often required to rent a video or use a gym.
Denmark issues non-photo ID cards with a "person number", and many services use this card to identify people.
Norway will impose a national biometric ID card.
Ireland - national ID card by stealth.
ACLU: the five dangers of national ID cards.
Wikipedia has a list of identity card policies by country.
Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.
Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.
People often ask how I manage to continue devoting myself to progressive activism (such as the free software movement) for years without burning out. The best way I can answer is by recommending a book, The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig.
I disagree with the book on one theoretical point in the last part of the book: we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics is something much more important than mere business. However, this doesn't diminish the value of the book's practical advice about borrowing techniques from marketing and sales.
Disclosure: I am friends with the author.
Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.
I have reposted some of Rick Falkvinge's articles. As posted on his site, you can't see them in a browser without running some nonfree Javascript code which is apparently non-free. These versions show the same text, without the obstacle.
These are my political articles that are not related to the GNU operating system or free software. For GNU-related articles, see the GNU philosophy directory. You can also download copies of my book, Free Software, Free Society, 3rd edition.
"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Letter to an associate, 1849
Here are notes about various issues I care about, usually with links to
more information. The current notes are
here. For all previous
notes, see this page.
See this page for information on efforts to maintain links in the political notes.
Political notes about the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy are being archived on their own page.
Richard Stallman's bio and publicity photos, and other things of interest to the press, have been moved to a separate page.
The Free Software Song, by Richard M. Stallman. You can listen to a performance of the song: Free Software Song performed by Thor Here is a variant of this song called "The Free Firmware Song".
Earth under attack from planet Koch.On doxing, and how to spell it.
A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta
Española. 
Here I am wearing my "power tie".
Wine snobs get their comeuppance.
Here I am struggling to open a bottle of water.
My application to an join Marian Henley's ex-boyfriends list.
My funny poetry and song parodies.
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
The text to a filk song, Johnny v. N., by Paul Rubin.
My Puns in English (Little Leaguer, August 2019).
My Puns in Spanish (New pun: Apostasía April 2019)
My Puns in French (New pun: Microsoft à l'école July 2019)
My Puns in Italian (New pun: Quale pesce fa starnutire? New 10/2018)
My Puns in German (New 02/2016)
Linguistic Swifties (Now with: Wintu, Penutian, Cochiti, Taos, and Towa.)
--Saint
IGNUcius-- The Church of Emacs will soon
be officially listed by at least one person as his religion for
census purposes.
There are no godfathers in the Church of Emacs, since there are no gods, but you can be someone's editorfather.
Stallman Does Dallas: "I have to warn you that Texans have been known to have an adverse reaction to my personality…"
The Dalai Lama today announced the official release of Yellow Hat GNU/Linux.
I found a funny song about the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act (officially the Sonny Bono Copyright Act) which extended copyright retroactively by 20 years on works made as early as the 1920s.
If you are a geek and read Spanish, you will love Raulito el Friki, who said "Hello, world!" immediately after he was born. Here's an archive of this now-defunct comic strip.
Sleeping with Stallman at MIT.
ESR's favorite programming language: Objectivist C.
No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)
Made for You (December 2012) (local copy) Esperanto translation
A science fiction story: Jinnetic Engineering (in Portuguese, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, French, and Italian).My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom, is available from the GNU Press.
Avec des chapeaux French song parody.
My radio program of Music from Georgia, originally broadcast on WUOG in Athens, Georgia on Oct 13, 2014.
Quantum Theory and Abortion Rights
A proposal for gender neutrality in Spanish, suitable for both speech and writing.
On Hacking: In June 2000, while visiting Korea, I did a fun hack that clearly illustrates the original and true meaning of the word "hacker".
Predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor
I would like to thank:
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