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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 lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.
Boston Area Assange Defense will gather together as press-freedom and human-rights defenders continue to protest the US-unconstitutional prosecutorial pursuit of journalist Julian Assange. Assange is imprisoned in a London supermax prison, awaiting extradition to the US for publishing the truth about US war crimes. Our fight continues with these recent events:
The trial date for Assange’s last UK court hearing is due any day now – we hope that Assange’s defense will be able to fight this extradition through the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), but this case is unprecedented and we cannot depend on justice being served. It’s up to all of us, not just journalists, to continue fighting against this pursuit of a journalist!
Please join us at Porter Sq, Monday, Sept 25th, 4-5:30 pm!
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.
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)
The event is organized by The Faculty of Educational Studies (Pedagogická fakulta), Free Digital Society members. It ends at 16:30.
Also phone your representative to convey the same message. The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you phone, please spread the word!
I am not forgetting about the injustice of the occupation of Palestine, but the fight to prevent Israel from being taken by fascism is in a crucial stage now.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121
If you phone, please spread the word!
My name is NAME, I am your constituent. Please reject any budget that slashes Medicaid, and publicly oppose any plan to create a closed-door commission to cut Social Security and Medicare.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*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 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.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
Supposed "advanced recycling" for plastics seems to use more energy and release more toxic waste than making new plastic.
The Tories' approval of a giant new oilfield, which will be paid for 90% by state funds, totally trashes the idea of decarbonization. And Starmer-Labour supports it too.
*Swiss glaciers lose 10% of their volume in two years.*
This effect is not in itself a disaster, but it is a sign that disasters will be coming rapidly from now on.
An experiment found that when homeless people received more aid money, they spent that money mainly on important things that they needed.
Covid vaccine disinformation, believed by many members of the public, has dissuaded many Americans from using those vaccines to protect themselves. The distrust has spread to dog vaccines, so many Americans leave their dogs vulnerable to disease by not vaccinating them either.
The breakup of the super-continent Pangaea 55 million years ago released large amounts of methane that caused 5C of global heating. Many species went extinct.
The old and damaged Line 5 pipeline crosses the Great Lakes, and if it breaks it could pollute the drinking water for a substantial part of North America's population.
The danger of pollution from any rupture of the Line 5 pipeline is very important, and may be a reason to shut down that pipeline and remove it. By contrast, what a religion says about the lake is of anthropological interest.
Robert Reich describes Republicans' government shutdowns decades ago that happened while he was working for the US government.
We have imagined "contextual advertising" as a simple system that sited advertisements based on the subject matter of what users are looking at. In fact, these systems make sophisticated use of whatever other data it can get about a user.
The conclusion I reach is that we should require systems not to be able to get any other data about individuals and not to require people to non nonfree software.
The Uber example is telling. Uber places ads based on where someone is traveling to. It can do that because it runs nonfree software (a cr&helip;app) in the customer's computer. It also uses whatever it knows about that particular customer (whom it has identified on each trip).
We should not allow companies to require (or pressure) customers to use systems that make them vulnerable to tracking. Privacy is a human right, and businesses are not entitled to human rights. So it is justified to regulate business practices simply to prevent businesses from deducing too much about humans.
We often see, in reality, efforts to limit all sorts of aid to those who are "truly needy".
A Republican-dominated school district in North Carolina tried to ban schools from participating in the American Library Association's annual Banned Books Week, but backed down in response to press coverage.
Lionfish, with toxic barbs, are taking over the reefs of the Caribbean and nearby marine areas, and wiping out most other species.
Some fishermen now mainly catch lionfish, but it is hard to do that without getting stung.
Is it possible to design a trap that would open a door to a large chamber, then squeeze the water out leaving only the lionfish in the trap?
Are there any ideas for biological control? It is hard to make sure that those systems don't get out of hand.
Lionfish, with toxic barbs, are taking over the reefs of the Caribbean and nearby marine areas, and wiping out most other species.
Some fishermen now mainly catch lionfish, but it is hard to do that without getting stung.
Is it possible to design a trap that would open a door to a large chamber, then squeeze the water out leaving only the lionfish in the trap?
Are there any ideas for biological control? It is hard to mske sure that those systems don't get out of hand.
*Antarctic sea ice shrinks to lowest annual maximum level on record.*
Global heating has eliminated most of the salmon population in northern Japan this year, and that has eliminated most bear cubs born there this year.
*Investigation [of four Louisiana thugs] triggered by lawsuits alleging abuse and sexual humiliation of people taken to unmarked torture warehouse.*
A UK thinktank published a report overestimating the cost of achieving "net zero" which was "full of errors that even a schoolboy would be embarrassed about." This should have been no surprise given that the thinktank — or should we call it a "drunktank" — hired a global heating denialist to prepare the report.
The article refers to him as a "climate skeptic", but that PR term is used to excuse climate denialism. A real skeptic applies rationality to check claimed conclusions. Clearly that denialist did not aim to qualify as a real skeptic.
Biden has authorized sale of three fossil fuel leases over five years.
These would add to future US oil production — when what survival requires is a massive reduction.
AI programs (real or pretend) often implement racial bias. California is considering a law that attempts to stop this — by identity politics!
Identity politics is not a real solution to any problem. What's more, the problem of bias in algorithms is subtle. It is a mistake to assume that people know how to avoid it or even detect it as a consequence of their demographic background.
What California (and all polities) ought to do is require all software used to make decisions about individual people to be free software and its source code published, That way the public will be able to study whether its behavior is biased.
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 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."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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