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"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
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For the sake of separation, this site has always been
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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
![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Hope for Homeownership Act, which would prevent hedge funds form buying up large numbers of houses and making them unavailable for people to buy as residences.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Insist that Protesting Tesla is not domestic terrorism. Denounce any attempt to arrest and imprison nonviolent activists.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and urge per not to let RFK jr. decide which kinds of government medical programs to keep and which to cancel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Everyone: call on Worcester City Council to stop city cops from brutalizing the city for the deportation thugs.
US citizens: call on NIH and NSF to stop cutting critical health research.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to urge them to put a stop to Attorney General Bondi's campaign to force reporters to rat on their sources.
For information about that campaign, see here.
US citizens: call on congresscritter to increase taxes on rich The bullshitter has lately been talking about increasing taxes on the non-billionaire rich. Phone your congresscritter (especially if perse is Republican) and call on per to do this, instead of cutting Medicaid and other things that help the non-rich.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support two bills introduced by Representative Don Beyer to correct and prevent slasher attacks against federal agencies:
* The REHIRE Act would give hiring preference to the career professionals wrongfully removed by Trump. This would go a long way toward restoring the knowledge, continuity, and skill that our institutions need.
* The PREP Act would protect future public servants from being fired for political reasons — so that no president can again purge government employees simply for doing their jobs.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Sign the Grassroots Amicus Brief: "DOGE" is Unconstitutional.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the right of habeas corpus.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
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.
*UK suspends trade talks with Israel and attacks "repellent" extremism.* Finally this is starting to be te kind of pressure that could make Israel stop.
This accompanies moral condemnation of Israel's plan to conquer Gaza and forcibly expel the population.
The UK and France are negotiating about recognizing Palestine as a state.
*US oil firms pumping … chemicals into ground and not fully reporting [which ones].*
The muskrat fired 10% of the staff of the National Weather Service, and the staff shortage hampers it from protecting Americans from dangerous weather.
This has already done real damage.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Hope for Homeownership Act, which would prevent hedge funds form buying up large numbers of houses and making them unavailable for people to buy as residences.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The wrecker has eliminated a regulation requiring consulting a special group before investigating or indicting a public official.
This would facilitate bullying officials by threatening arbitrarily to prosecute them.
I will speak at 17:15 on May 26 in the Politecnico di Milano, in Milan, Italy at Piazza Leonardo Da Vinci 32, Room 9.1.2.
Topic: Computing freedom, software, and services
We understand that the uses of computing can be unjust. Most do not realize that the mechanisms of computing can be unjust at their own level in their own ways.
A nonfree program is one that that the users do not control. If that does your computing, its owners control your computing. This is the basic idea of the free software movement -- but what about using services?
When you use a service to do your own computing, the service's owner controls that computing. If that owner isn't you, this is unjust. By contrast, if your computer talks to a store's server on your behalf, to arrange a deal between you and the store, your side of that can be fully under your control. Society and powerful institutions lure and pressure people into a tangled web of online dis-services and nonfree software which may seem impossible to escape. But you can start by rejecting a few of them. Saying no even once is helping!
*Verbal attacks by [the bully] and allies are creating a hostile climate that endangers [safety of judge that ruled against him], experts say.*
Labour is reviewing "security" relations with other countries, but doing it by disregarding some countries' torture practices despite criticizing them while it was not in power. These countries include India, Pakistan, Libya, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Salafi Arabia and Sierra Leone.
Of course, Labour desires favorable treatment by those other countries, but should not purchase that by treating their torture as acceptable.
The wrecker has declared, arbitrarily, that accepting certain government grants for climate resilience was "fraud". And he is trying to use that as an excuse to shut them down immediately by freezing their bank accounts, before any court decisions about the bizarre accusations.
How the perverter Putin-ized a party of cold war hawks.
Almost half of Britons age 16 to 21 would rather live in a world with no internet.
Nonfree software which is designed to be malware plays a role in many of the things they find painful. By rejecting nonfree software and SaaSS, they could avoid the worst aspects of today's internet. Users would have more control about how programs treat them. With free software for client programs, they would have more control over how services treat them — users could fix dark patterns and defeat attempts to addict them.
Compiling a list of all the threats to the survival of bees.
*Britain, France and Canada attacked Israel’s expansion of its war as disproportionate, described conditions in Gaza as "intolerable" and threatened a "concrete" response if Israel’s campaign continues.*
This looks like the start of a gradual diplomatic effort. That might have made sense 2 months ago, but now that people in Gaza are on the edge of starving, it is too slow.
The attack on nonprofit organizations has been removed from the House dooH niboR bill, which still imposes large and deadly cuts on medical and food aid for the poor and grants large tax cuts to the rich.
*[Amnesty International] declared ‘undesirable organisation’ amid Kremlin crackdown on critics, journalists and activists.* It vows to continue its work anyway.
This is what the would-be dictator wants to do in the US.
The CEO of CBS News is resigning. One must suspect that the corporation that owns CBS wants to let the corrupter censor CBS News.
A list of environmentally damaging budget cuts in the Republicans' budget bill.
New Orleans Thugs are operating 200 real-time face recognition cameras, violating local laws.
Sweden has recognized that cash is crucial in emergencies, and now encourages everyone to keep a supply of cash for emergency use and to use some regularly.
This is a victory against the danger of mass surveillance.
The central bank now urges the government to require some businesses and public agencies to accept cash. But there is no guarantee that such a law will be passed, or that it will cover enough places that ask for payment.
You can help pressure businesses to accept cash. Go to a business ready to buy something carrying a copy (or at least URL) of the statement in favor using cash, and offer to pay cash. If the business refuses to accept it, give it the statement and then say, "I'll return some day and see if you will accept cash from me."
It would be a good thing to establish a national organization to promote cash payment, and present anonymity as one of its advantages.
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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