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.
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.
Phone the White House at (202) 456-1111
(only Tues-Thur 11 to 3) to call for dropping the changes.
Write to Biden at
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Wash DC 20500
Please phone your congresscritter at (202) 224-3121 or write to Reps at US House of Representatives, Wash, DC 20515.
I urge you to vote in Democratic primaries for the progressive candidate, if there is one. And in the final election I urge you to vote for Democrats, unless a liberal independent had a good chance of winning.
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 ]](https://stallman.org/flag_set_vectorized.png)
Discurso in Córdoba, Spain, en español, El software libre, libertad, y sociedad en el Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora de la Asunción
In the US: join rallies for curbing global heating on April 19 and April 22.
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as "children"; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)
However, I suggest taking a step beyond just choosing to use or not use the platform's addiction system. Recommendation algorithms should be completely separated from platforms!
If you want to use a nontrivial recommendation algorithm, you should be able to choose it yourself and use it anonymously. You could send it the URLs you want it to base its choices on. These might be some of the pages you had visited, and perhaps pages you had not visited.
Then it should send you its recommendations. You could pass all, or just some, or none of those recommendations to the platform to look at them.
AB 1949 is admirable because it gives a small boost to privacy for users of all ages, not only for children. It isn't enough, though — users should also be guaranteed the right and possibility to access through the Tor network and to use aliases. And collection of a user's data by the state should require a warrant against the user.
The door plug that blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 airplane was missing four bolts meant to hold it in place. They were missing because Boeing maintenance removed them and did not put them back in again.
Some workers actually made the mistake, but they were working as part of a work system that Boeing management was responsible for setting up and running. That's where the real fault is.
I suggest passing a law to require aircraft manufacturing and repair companies to have a certain fraction of licensed commercial pilots on their boards. Perhaps 66%.
Private equity is gobbling up large parts of the US nursing home business. This puts patients in danger since private equity can amass lots of money, create an oligopoly, and get away with abuses.
The study suggests that "regulation may be needed." I will take a stronger stand and call for firm limits — perhaps even prohibiting private equity combinations from owning home nursing businesses.
I'v also proposed prohibiting private equity from buying up lots of rental housing.
It should be illegal for a store to charge different prices to customers depending on whether they identify themselves and/or hand over demanded personal data.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
Richard Stallman dará una conferencia, El software libre, libertad, y sociedad, en Córdoba, Spain, Viernes, el 26 de April, de 17:30 a 18:50 en la Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. La conferencia es en español.
As predicted, the US "assurances" about Julian Assange's US trial are designed to give the misleading impression that the First Amendment would apply to him.
*Leaked Cables Show White House Opposes Palestinian Statehood.*
*Lethal heatwave in Sahel worsened by fossil fuel burning, study finds*, perhaps by 1.5°C.
Leasing of federal land for oil and gas extraction will no longer be a near-giveaway.
*Belarus [political] prisoner smuggles out account of brutal jail written on toilet paper.*
Present-day bullshit generators' output may be recognizable by certain words they tend to use strangely often, including "delve".
*I Want My Taxes to Be Used for Our True National Security: Helping People in Need.*
Israel's fight with Iran has given Rafah a respite from an attack by Israeli ground troops (if indeed Israel still intends to attack Rafah).
When an enemy tries to attack you, but the attempt does essentially no damage, this is an opportunity to end the cycle of retaliation by doing nothing in response. If Israel had leaders who were statesmanlike and wanted peace, they would gratefully welcome the opportunity. Instead, it has war hawks who want to push the US into war with Iran, are galled by their lack of success at this, and are planning to try again.
On cloud seeding — what it can do, and its limits.
[This note was posted on Monday with a major editing error:Iran launched many missiles and drones against Israel.
the word "not" was mistakenly inserted after "simply."
That has now been corrected.]
Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate was not, in and of itself, a war crime. It was an attack on military personnel of a country which was already at war with Israel.
I don't know what specific targets Iran's missiles and drones were aimed at, but I don't see a reason why that attack would be a war crime. It seems that this is simply war.
Judged in terms of its effects in the current context, Israel's attack was a manipulative provocation. Netanyahu must have figured that Iran would retaliate, and that this would give Israel an opportunity to attack Iran in a much bigger way and justify it as "retaliation". He may have hoped that this would talk western countries into "standing by Israel" in war against Iran.
I am not the only one to suspect that.
I hope those countries' governments are wise enough to refuse to fall for Netanyahu's efforts to lure them into war, or lure them into disregarding the urgency of ending the siege of Gaza.
This could be an opportunity to squeeze Netanyahu out of the Israeli government. They could tell Israel, "We will support Israel against Iranian attack, provided it adopts a defensive posture and provided Netanyahu is not its prime minister."
Greece will ban bottom trawling in protected marine areas.
The UK is considering a law to forever ban sales of tobacco to anyone born after 2008.
Tobacco is deadly and addictive. I wish everyone would avoid ever using it, and I wish all smokers would quit. I personally urge people to quit. But I oppose prohibition of drugs that people want to use, because it tends to cause great harm to society in other ways.
University of Cologne retracted an offer of a visiting professorship to Nancy Fraser over opinions she stated about the war in Gaza.
I disagree firmly with Professor Fraser's views — legitimization of HAMAS's large terrorist action, and assertion that Israel's very existence is an injustice. But those are tangents to the issue at hand. People have a right to advocate those views, and should bot be blacklisted for them.
*USC draws backlash for canceling valedictorian’s speech due to support for Palestine.*
Whether she was actually going to talk about that in her canceled speech is unknown, but supposing she was, "support for Palestine" is a rather broad category. There are many different views that qualify, and most of them are not threatening anyone.
The concern for "security" that the university claimed was a bogus excuse — in effect, "We are gagging you for your own safety."
The New York Times stated rules of word usage that support Israel's point of view about Gaza and its inhabitants.
The UK has banned the destructive fishing method of bottom trawling. giving some real protection to several "protected" marine areas. The ban applies to all fishing boats, including French ones.
[irony]
France should retaliate by banning bottom trawling in some French
waters. Eventually the two countries could entirely eliminate
that practice near their coasts.
[/irony]
Iran is reportedly threatening to attack Jordan if it does not allow Iran's attack drones to cross Jordanian airspace to get at Israel.
Communications companies plan to launch a total of a million satellites by the 2040s. So many satellites could damage the ionosphere or Earth's magnetic fields.
This is in addition to the danger that some will be hit by space junk, creating a chain reaction that will block humanity off from space travel for millenia.
Investigating the Los Angeles thug deparment for a series of shootings in which thugs encountered people who were carrying various harmless objects and jumped to the conclusion that they had weapons.
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".
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
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.
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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