Richard Stallman's Personal Site
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.
Send comments/questions about the search engine to: rms at gnu dot org
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.
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
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to be addictive.
- check a few sites for me regularly
and show me any new articles that I would like to see or link to.
If you would like to help me
in this way, please write to rms at gnu dot o r g.
- help me in maintaining stallman.org by
occasionally looking for articles on a given point in the news.
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to cause programmed obsolescence of products.
- write
site-specific Firefox extensions
or local scripts to operate specific web sites.
- help
maintain and operate savannah.gnu.org.
- experiment to find good ways to attach
fruits to a Grav-mass tree.
- help web sites put free licenses
on their Javascript code.
Civil Liberties Minute:
![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
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.
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.
-
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.
-
*UK mental health charities handed sensitive data to Facebook
[with a
tracking pixel].*
Let's start the attack on massive surveillance by making it illegal
for a server to include a tracking pixel.
-
There should be a law requiring online services, if they close a
user's account, to permit the user to continue to download whatever
information perse had left in the account.
To be sure, it is foolish to rely on an online service to hold any
data for you; you should store it locally, and use online services
only as backups (encrypted). Preferably more than one online service
in parallel, for redundancy. But we should not allow online services
to cite this as an excuse for arbitrarily causing people great
avoidable harm.
-
It should be a crime to knowingly approach a person while maskless inside
a building or vehicle.
-
*The pandemic has taken surveillance of workers to the next level.*
The extreme of this is represented by the Amazon warehouse,
where a worker's every move is controlled by the computer system.
This is one of many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.
Unfortunately, surveillance of workers is not limited to Amazon. I
think states should pass laws to limit surveillance of workers. It
should cover independent contractors as well as employees.
The law should completely forbid demanding that workers run any
specific software on their own computers (keep in mind that portable
phones are computers); the employer who wants that must furnish
the computer at no charge.
More items where there
ought to be a law.
Quotes
Here are some
quotations that I particularly like.
(
RSS Feed)
You can now read the political notes on
Mastodon.
-
US citizens: tell Congress that a vote for a "fiscal commission" is a
vote to cut Social Security and Medicare.
-
*Hong Kong to restructure primary education to make it more "patriotic."*
(satire) Since Florida governor DeMentis can't run for governor again
thus year and probably won't be a candidate for president, maybe he
will seek a post in Hong Kong's education redesign, which (aside from
superficial details) has a lot in common with his philosophy of
education.
-
*Israeli public figures accuse judiciary of ignoring incitement to
[atrocities, or even genocide,] in Gaza.*
Some instances of such incitement go so far as to call for genocide.
Other instances call for atrocities and killing that might or might
not reach the scale of genocide -- but would clearly be criminal
in the absence of specific justification.
The complainants point out that Israel's government hyperactively
prosecutes anything it can construe as support for HAMAS's violence,
while going to the opposite extreme in tolerating advocacy of
anti-Palestinian violence.
-
US citizens: call on global leaders at the World Economic Forum to tax extreme wealth.
-
US citizens: call on Congress to stop Wall Street and big tech from
exploiting the housing crisis.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
-
US citizens: call on Facebook/Instagram, Ex-Twitter and YouTube to
protect their users and our democracy in 2024.
-
US citizens: call on Justice Thomas to Recuse himself from the case
about whether to disqualify the insurrectionist for his insurrection.
-
US citizens: call on the CFPB to apply the same rules to payment apps
that banks and credit cards are already subject to.
-
* In this imagined [Tory] reality, sharp-elbowed parents [of children
with disabilities] are handed ‘golden tickets’ for endless support.
Meanwhile, we battle for the bare minimum.*
-
*The Billionaire Next Door Driving Up Housing Costs for Everyone.*
-
Almost 3/4 of fishing ships turn off their tracking beacons while fishing.
Some of them are hiding the fact that they are fishing in protected waters.
-
Due to a fuel leak, the Peregrine moon lander won't be able to land.
I wonder if they could put it into an orbit from which a future
spacecraft could recover it and land it.
-
Three French thugs are on trial for beating and maiming a young black man
who was part of a group that they decided to stop and search.
-
2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, and came very close to 1.5°C of heating compared with before the mass use of fossil fuels.
As predicted, this level of heating has caused extreme weather
disasters around the world.
Bad as 2023 was, 2024 will be worse.
-
Israel fired rockets at a car, killing two al-Jazeera journalists in
it. Al-Jazeera accuses Israel of intentionally targeting them.
I wonder, how many people were in that car, and what were they doing?
-
The war in Gaza is killing civilians (Palestinian civilians, nowadays)
much faster than other recent wars. It has wrecked most of the
buildings and most of the hospitals. The schools that have not been wrecked
are sheltering people driven out of their homes.
The World Food Programme says that around 700,000 people are facing
catastrophic hunger, and that 577,000 of them are in Gaza. Evidently
food aid agencies are doing a great job of providing food to people
who otherwise would be starving — except in Gaza where Israel is
making it too hard.
-
Environmental harm affects bees, and it has reduced the production of honey.
-
The residents of Berchtesgaden, once Hitler's secondary home,
have decided to actively discourage visits by Nazis who use
it as a kind of shrine.
-
Emissions from the motor sector could have fallen by more than 30%
between 2010 and 2022 if vehicles had stayed the same size,*
if people had not switched to buying SUVs instead of regular size
cars.
-
*The reason for these cynical [Tory] power grabs: the weaker the
Tories become, the stronger they need to appear.*
The four factors of the apocalypse:
global heating, global hating,
global eating, global mating.
[More Cartoons]
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.
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.
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 order copies of my
book, Free
Software, Free Society, 3rd edition', signed or not signed.
"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.
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".
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
Earth
under attack from planet Koch.
On doxing, and how to spell it.
Futon Physics
A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta
Española. 
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.
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.)
--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
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
My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom,
is available from the
GNU Press.
Love and Dance
My Childhood Sweetheart
Made for You
My Former Personal Ad
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
I would like to thank:
- Positive Internet for hosting this web site.
- Graziano Sorbaioli for improving the layout of the main
page.
- Casifish for the main image from openclipart.org under the title.
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
