Richard Stallman's Personal Site


The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019"
by Ruben Rodriguez

I continue to be the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project.
This is my long-term commitment and I plan to continue.
You may have heard or read critical statements about me; please make up your own mind.
I am making a second visit to Europe this year after February. If you are interested in inviting me to speak there, and you have a venue to use and a public to invite, please email me in March with "speaking invitation" in the Subject field, using the name rms and the host gnu dot org. One advantage of this period for you is that the intercontinental flights are already covered, so you won't need to pay for that.

Political Articles | Political Notes | Talks | Airlines | Anti-Glossary | Archive | Ban face recognition | Books | Comics | Empire of the Megacorporations | Fiction | Glossary | GPG Key | Humor | Humorous Bio | Links | Media/Press/Bio | Non-Political Articles | The Four Factors of the Apocalypse | There Ought to Be a Law | Travel Experiences | Travel Photos | How I Do My Computing | RMS personal FAQ | Sayings | Scientific Links | Stallman on Love | Thanks |

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RSS site feed for the most recent political notes and new material.

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.

FSF Giving Guide

Canadians: I suggest you seek election advice at a local chapter of a group that pushes to curb global heating and has the courage to say, "Canada should stop exporting fossil fuel." It will at least use the right goals to suggest who to vote for in your area.

Join a Friday climate strike.
That page is made by scraping Fridays for Future so you can get the information without running any Javascript code. I would be very glad if they made the information on their own site accessible from the Free World; then we could simply refer people to their site and do without the scraping etc.

I am limiting the number of new political notes per day so as not to overload the volunteers who install new notes. If you'd like to help, please write to rms at gnu period org.

Is your bank pressuring you to use biometric ID? If so, please write to rms at gnu dot org. It could be useful if you document what is happening.

Please join the Free Software Foundation to support its work for your freedom.

"They" is plural — for singular antecedents, use singular gender-neutral pronouns.

Link Policy

The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.

I'm looking for people to If you would like to help me in any of these ways, please write to rms at gnu dot o r g.

Civil Liberties Minute

[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting 
             Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]
graphic by Susan Henson
Americans, you may wish to copy this icon to your own page, as a way of showing what patriotism means to you.

Upcoming talks

Urgent action items

Recording of Guantanamero

Listen to the recording of Guantanamero, a protest song written in Spanish. The recording is in Ogg Vorbis format. To install an Ogg Vorbis player, see the FSF's Ogg Players page.

There Ought to Be a Law

More items where there ought to be a law.

Quotes

Here are some quotations that I particularly like.

Most recent Political Notes and News Items

(RSS Feed)

You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.

US-deported Venezuelans now pawns, SLV
21 April 2025

The persecutor has sent hundreds of Venezuelan refugees to El Salvador which engaged to hold them in prison without trial. Now El Salvador is offering to release many of them to Venezuela in exchange for Venezuela's political prisoners.

Such an exchange might be good, if we could assume that (1) the Venezuelans now in El Salvador want to go to Venezuelans and would be safe there, and (2) the prisoners now in Venezuela want to go to El Salvador and would be safe there.

I can't tell from the article whether any of that would be so.

Feeding the exploiter more wins
21 April 2025

Ariel Dorfman imagines new kinds of honors that might be bestowed on the bullshitter.

Mass rallies condemn regime, US
21 April 2025

Robert Reich: mass rallies to condemn the bully are a display of courage, which inspires courage in those who felt helpless to resist.

Tesla odometer as warranty cheater
21 April 2025

*Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs.*

RMS will give a talk in London
20 April 2025

I will speak about free software and computing freedom, and about related issues that affect whether your computing respects your freedom.

This talk will be at King's College, on Tuesday, April 22 in London, England.

There are many threats to freedom in the digital society. They include nonfree software, massive surveillance, and censorship. Nonfree programs are often designed to restrict users, control users or manipulate users. The War on Sharing aims to stop users from sharing copies of published works. Computers for voting make election results untrustworthy.

Other threats come from use of web services, implemented by companies that can impose any conditions whatsoever. Finally, most internet activities (aside from those which existed before 2000) are precarious, dependent on permission from one company. All of these threats originate more or less in the use of nonfree software. That is why free software is the first battle in the liberation of the digital society.

RMS will give a talk in Oxford
20 April 2025

I will give a talk at the Lecture Theatre, on Thursday, April 24 in Oxford, England.

The topic is free/libre software and freedom in the digital society.

We understand that the uses of computing can be unjust. Most do not realize that the mechanisms of computing can be unjust in other ways.

If a program that the users do not control does your computing, it controls your computing.

When servers that the users do not control do your computing, those servers control it.

So don't entrust your own computing to a program that isn't libre or a server whose operator isn't a loyal friend. For your own computing, instead of a server that might mistreat you, use free software on your own computer.

Foreign disinformation welcomed in US
20 April 2025

The wrecker has eliminated an agency whose mission is to detect and counter disinformation campaigns, especially Russian.

I suspect this is one little part in the establishment of the axis of dictators, to start with the wrecker and Putin. But it may be more than that. The wrecker depends on disinformation too, and some of that originates in Russia.

Forever chemicals
19 April 2025

*Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic "forever chemicals" into drinking water.*

Trump’s coal expansion
19 April 2025

The saboteur in chief wants to expand coal mines, and is cutting programs that try to protect the workers from getting sick from working in a coal mine.

Musk & Social Security
19 April 2025

*Musk Is Lying About Waste and Fraud in Social Security to Have an Excuse to Kill It.*

Berkeley Fire Safety
19 April 2025

Berkeley, California, is about to vote on new fire safety rules designed to slow the spread of wildfires.

The rules include having no plants (and other flammable material) within 5ft of a residence.

I wonder why this does not include other kinds of buildings, in the areas that are most vulnerable.

Legal saga of Ábrego Kilmar
19 April 2025

Detailed history of the case of Kilmar Ábrego García.

President Bukele justifies holding him in prison on the supposed grounds that he is a "terrorist", but has not tried to prove that that is true. He has not had a trial to justify that claim.

Under Bukele's "war on drugs", it is normal to imprison people for years and trials are considered unimportant.

The greatest outrage of this case for the United States is that the bully and Bukele are blatantly conspiring to respond to the Supreme Court by coordinated deceptions.

The bully's deception is the claim that he has no influence over Bukele.

Bukele's deception is the claim that

  • (1) Ábrego is a terrorist though he was never tried for this,
  • (2) this somehow forbids Bukele to let him go to the US at the US request, and
  • (3) allowing him to go to the US with US permission would be "smuggling".

    The two deceptions are designed so that there is no way to prove that either of them is false, even though by common sense we can be completely sure they are false. The message to the Supreme Court is, "We can use these deceptions to thumb our noses at your rulings."

    A US senator went to El Salvador and asked to speak with Ábrego. The vice president told him that was somehow impossible, as some law of nature.

    Homan, the Tsar's "border tsar" called Ábrego a "terrorist". Since Ábrego has not sought publicity, can he win a lawsuit for libel against Homan?

  • Kilmar Garcia
    19 April 2025

    The bully admits that deporting Kilmar Ábrego Garcia was a "mistake", but he shows no contrition about the harm that it did to Ábrego and to his family. He joins Bully Bukele in laughing at their suffering.

    Note the curious contrast between the bully's ready admission that he has no authority to order Bukele to release Ábrego to the US, when it is an excuse to allow Bukele to do what the bully really wants Bukele to do. Contrast this with what the bully does when he wants to impose his will by force in the US in situations where legally he has no such right.

    Doge agency
    19 April 2025

    The DOPE agency demanded to mess with an NGO because it received some government funds.

    The agency personnel were embarrassed to discover that the wrecker had cancelled the government support a few weeks before.

    Lyft convo transcription
    19 April 2025

    Canadian friends riding in a Lyft car found that their conversation had been recorded and sent in the form of text to the phone of one of them.

    This is supposed to be illegal, but Lyft says it shouldn't have been possible and it doesn't understand what happened.

    I can't draw any specific moral conclusions about Lyft from these fragments of understanding, but it is clear that microphones in cars are dangerous and taxi passengers should be able to switch them off.

    Endangered species
    19 April 2025

    The wrecker plans to change endangered species protection to enable reckless habitat destruction.

    ISR ready to starve all in Gaza
    19 April 2025

    Israel says that, to get the hostages released from Gaza it is ready to starve everyone Gaza to death (which includes the hostages).

    I can imagine the government claiming that, "We had to destroy our people to save them."

    Were Gaza paramedics murdered?
    19 April 2025

    Autopsies of [the Gaza paramedics] killed in Gaza show ‘gunshots to head and torso’.

    This is additional evidence that they were murdered.

    Urgent: GOP weak in all voting districts
    19 April 2025

    US citizens: call on the Democratic Party to run candidates all across the country in 2026, to take advantage of the hostility and resentment generated by the Republicans that hate our freedoms.

    J. Stiglitz on Columbia U. capitulation
    19 April 2025

    *Nobel Winner Joseph Stiglitz Denounces Columbia’s Apparent Capitulation to [the wrecker].*


    The four factors of the apocalypse:
       global heating, global hating,
       global eating, global mating.


    [More Cartoons]


    Not f'd. You won't find us on Facebook

    Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth) to express your rejection of Facebook.


    E-books

    Non-oppressive Commercial E-books


    Don't use Facebook

    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.


    Boycott Harry Potter Books, Movies, etc.



    Internet Music EULAS



    Business Supremacy Treaties



    Countries to Stay Away From



    No national identity cards

    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.


    Borders

    Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.


    Flight connections

    Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.


    The Lifelong Activist

    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.


    Bob Chassell

    Writing (mostly science fiction) by my friend Bob Chassell who recently died.


    Solidarity Economy and Free Software

    Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.


    Falkvinge articles

    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.


    Long-term action items


    Political Articles

    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.

    Political notes

    "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."

    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.

    Media/Press/Bios

    Richard Stallman's bio and publicity photos, and other things of interest to the press, have been moved to a separate page.

    Travel experiences

    Photos about my travels

    Scientific Links


    Some humor

    The berry torture.

    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.

    Futon Physics

    A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta Española. thumbnail

    The Night before M-x-mas

    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 Cartoons

    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 Portuguese

    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.)

    I am a
     Saint In the Church Of Emacs --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.

    Pre-Zen Studies.

    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.

    Un malentendido gracioso.

    ESR's favorite programming language: Objectivist C.

    American Extremists

    My Small Mouth

    The huns and the writs.

    No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)

    Hammer into Anvil

    Fiction

    Made for You (December 2012) (local copy) Esperanto translation

    A science fiction story: Jinnetic Engineering (in Portuguese, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, French, and Italian).

    The Right to Read

    Books

    My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom, is available from the GNU Press.

    Stallman on Love

    Love and Dance

    My Childhood Sweetheart

    Made for You

    My Former Personal Ad

    Non-Political Articles

    Am I Doctor Stallman?

    Avec des chapeaux French song parody.

    My radio program of Music from Georgia, originally broadcast on WUOG in Athens, Georgia on Oct 13, 2014.

    Resolving the trolley problem

    Quantum Theory and Abortion Rights

    A proposal for gender neutrality in Spanish, suitable for both speech and writing.

    Origin of the POSIX name.

    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".

    My Childhood Sweetheart

    Love and Dance

    Predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor

    Certificate of confusion

    Links

    Thanks

    I would like to thank:


    Please send comments on these web pages to rms at gnu period org.

    Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 Richard Stallman
    Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved.
    Verbatim copying and redistribution of any of the photos in the photos subdirectory is permitted under the Creative Commons Noderivs license version 3.0 or later. You can copy and redistribute the photo of me playing music to the butterfly under the Creative Commons Noderivs Nocommercial license version 3.0 or later. Any other photos of me in this (the toplevel) directory may be copied and redistributed under the Creative Commons Noderivs license version 3.0