Richard Stallman's Personal Site
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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.
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.
This 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 looking for a few more volunteers to help install new
political notes on the site. If you'd like to help me in this
way, 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.
- write
site-specific Firefox extensions
or local scripts to operate specific web sites.
- I'm looking for people to 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.
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to be addictive.
- 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.
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to cause programmed obsolescence of products.
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.
-
US citizens: Phone your senators at 1-888-751-2787 and call on them to
support the Make Polluters Pay act.
-
Everyone: call on climate negotiations to stop excluding military
pollution from climate agreements.
-
US citizens: call on the Pentagon to investigate civilian
casualties from the Pentagon's drone attacks in Afghanistan.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
Everyone: call on delegates to the Cop26 climate conference
to stop excluding military pollution from climate agreements.
-
US citizens: call on Congress to prohibit shutoffs of water, power,
and broadband utilities.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the Line 3 pipeline.
-
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to call for
elimination of three items in the Freedom to Vote Act that would
further disadvantage parties other than Democrat and Republican.
- Eliminating the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which Green presidential candidates have used for presidential primary matching funds
-
- Permitting party committees to contribute $10,000 (up from the current $5,000) to House candidates (including House candidates who qualify for matching funds)
- Qualifying for Congressional matching funds will require at least 1,000 contributors and $50,000 in contributions of $200 or less.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
Everyone: tell General Motors, UPS, American Airlines and other
companies to stop funding insurrectionist politicians.
-
Everyone: call on AT&T to stop donating to anti-abortion Texas
politicians.
-
US citizens: phone your senators to support the Freedom to Vote Act
(which is a modified version of the For the People Act),
and call for eliminating the filibuster to pass it over Republican opposition.
Common Cause said,
It will end gerrymandering along partisan or racial lines by requiring fair maps for
congressional districts. And, it will take important steps to curtail secret money in elections and encourage small-dollar donors to reduce the
influence of big money.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
Massachusetts residents: call on your Massachusetts state rep to
support H.135, which would regulate the use of face recognition to
track people.
Here's the personal message I sent.
Please support H.135 so as to prohibit using face recognition to identify
people and track people in Massachusetts. Whatever your skin color,
you deserve privacy in your movements.
China has already shown how face recognition serves the purposes of
regimentation and repression. People who want to be tracked should
move to China — please don't let them bring China here.
-
US citizens: call on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to
advance the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would forbid
governments from tracking people by buying data about them from companies
that track people.
Really we should stop companies from collecting data to track people
at all.
-
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to commit to voting No on
any bills that fund military spending at over 90% of the current level
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
US citizens: call for a new, progressive, social contract in
the U.S.
-
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at 1-202-559-1155 and say to
pass the full budget reconciliation spending bill, but replace any
parts that subsidize fossil fuels or the Pentagon.
Also call on them to close the "billionaire's loophole".
-
Everyone: sign the letter rebuking Apple's snooping plans.
If we convince Apple to back down, this time, we will have beaten off one threat of massive surveillance. But real protection from insertion of malicious functionalities into proprietary software will come only from rejecting proprietary software. We need to learn that no convenience is worth the price if the price is using proprietary software.
If you call, please spread the word!
-
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
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 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.
-
A hundred years ago, having your face photo circulated as a suspect
could direct persecution at you — for instance, making it impossble to get a job.
Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.
If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be
allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store
except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos
of people convicted of theft and fraud.
-
The corrupter has pardoned his former agent, Michael Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about what he did for the corrupter.
This is a corrupt practice. I think we need to limit the president's
power to pardon so that presidents cannot do this in the future.
More items where there
ought to be a law.
Quotes
Here are some
quotations that I particularly like.
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 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.
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
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
