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.
I am thinking of making another trip to Europe during February - April. If you would like to invite me to speak during that trip, please write to me at rms-invitation@gnu.org with "feb-apr" as the subject.
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
US citizens: call on your congressional officials to impeach RFK Jr and remove him from office , for supporting medical disinformation.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: write to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano saying to keep Social Security offices open.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support Medicare for All.
You can use 202-858-1717 to call your U.S. Representative, and 202-519-0494 to call your U.S. Senator. Here is a suggested script from National Nurses United:
Hi, my name is _______. I am a constituent and I'm a nurse/other health care worker/patient. I'm calling today in support of Medicare for All. Our health care system is failing patients and providers, and incremental fixes aren't enough. Support for Medicare for All is broad, and growing by the day. If you are not yet a cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act, I urge you to sign on. If you are already a cosponsor, thank you — and please continue championing Medicare for All as the real solution to this health care crisis.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: Urge New York State's pension funds to divest from Blackrock .
US citizens: call on Amazon to come to the table with Amazon Labor Union.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the companies that have donated for the "king"'s grand ballroom.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose high-deductible medical plans.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to block the takeover of Warner Bros by Netflix and/or Paramount.
US citizens: sign the petition to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Hegseth, the Secretary of Aggression.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: Tell SSA: Don't let social security data direct the deportation thugs.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: join this campaign.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on media to expose the bully's abuse of power as an offense against the Constitution and human rights.
US citizens: sign the petition to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect funding for Social Security to offer in-person visits for service and administrative issues.
US citizens: sign the petition to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
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.
Only a small fraction of the plastic containers for food are actualy recycled. We need to reduce the amount of plastic that we use. Many of these containers, as currently made, are not feasible to recycle, even if theoretically it is possible.
US citizens: call on your congressional officials to impeach RFK Jr and remove him from office , for supporting medical disinformation.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: write to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano saying to keep Social Security offices open.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support Medicare for All.
You can use 202-858-1717 to call your U.S. Representative, and 202-519-0494 to call your U.S. Senator. Here is a suggested script from National Nurses United:
Hi, my name is _______. I am a constituent and I'm a nurse/other health care worker/patient. I'm calling today in support of Medicare for All. Our health care system is failing patients and providers, and incremental fixes aren't enough. Support for Medicare for All is broad, and growing by the day. If you are not yet a cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act, I urge you to sign on. If you are already a cosponsor, thank you — and please continue championing Medicare for All as the real solution to this health care crisis.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: Urge New York State's pension funds to divest from Blackrock .
Billionaire Polluters has hired a new CEO who calls the policy of avoiding climate disaster "ideological".
To depend on companies to decide whether to save civilization or run it into the ground is foolish and weak. We must impose the choice to save it.
The wrecker's henchmen in the EPA decided to weaken the regulations on formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.
The linear danger assumption is a good assumption because just one cell that becomes cancerous is enough to give a person cancer. Becoming cancerous requires a set of mutations, and each carcinogen molecule has a certain low probability of causing one of those mutations. Half the dosage would mean half the probability of cancer in any given period of time.
The magats have canceled a plan to remove lead in Omaha. Lead poisoning damages children's intelligence permanently and can lead them to become criminals.
* District judge says policies deeming deportation thugs' field offices "off-limits for congressional oversight" violates federal law .*
Making a supporter of the muskrat head of NASA will give the muskrat too much power over NASA's decisions.
The writer says that Germans find it very difficult to confront the German equivalent of being asked, "How are you?"
I have always felt this way about it. There have always been problems in my life, which implied that "Fine" as an answer would have been false. To answer that way felt like lying.
Nowadays I can say that "My lymphoma is still in remission," which is pleasant and true.
A group of UN special rapporteurs rebuked Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgetown University. Minnesota State University and Tufts University for repression of students' freedom of political speech.
* [Increased] exposure to high temperatures [due to global heating] could result in long-lasting damage to health of billions of people, scientists warn.*
The wrecker's henchmen seek to wreck the National Center for Atmospheric Research, perhaps because it works on understanding and modeling global heating.
The magats deny global heating exists, so they see NCAR as an enemy for reporting that it does.
The bully has started out-and-out war with Venezuela, with a naval blockade.
Companies are using bullshit generators to post job offers, and using bullshit generators to judge applications, and it is not clear whether they really intend to hire anyone. For the poor humans who would like to find a job, it is a pointless waste of time. This article talks about Britain, but I've read that it is the same more generally.
Some US government agencies' antisocial media accounts now post propaganda for hatred. The fascist leader must have handed them over to the Ministry of Truth.
Australia's rather strict gun regulations have some gaps that can be closed.
The Catholic organization Opus Dei enslaved teenage women as domestic servants, after having promised to give them education.
See the enslaved workers page.
*It's the media's job to hold power to account . This year, too many got into bed with it instead.* "Power" in this article refers to state power. However, "power" includes the power of businesses as well as the power of governments. Over recent decades, the major US media have become subsidiaries of megacorporations which mainly do other kinds of business. That has resulted in increasing corruption of the news media, for decades.
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:
Please send comments on these web pages to rms at gnu period org.
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