The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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"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.
I am thinking of making another trip to Europe during February - April. If you would like to invite me to speak during that trip, please write to me at rms-invitation@gnu.org with "feb-apr" as the subject.
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.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to
US citizens: call on CBS: Don't Let Bari Weiss Censor Debate.
Us citizens: call on Congress to stop funding DHS and ICE inhumane and lethal tactics amidst ongoing investigations into those practices.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block the voter-ID bill and protect poor citizens' right to vote against arbitrary interference.
Many poor people need to move often. Many can't afford to take a couple of hours off work to officially update ID cards. And these requirements are not satisfied by proof that you're a US citizen -- the demand is always for "up to date, currently valid" proof.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Democratic leaders in Congress to block funds for the deportation thugs.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose military action against Greenland.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel medical debt and student debt, and make medical treatment and public colleges gratis for all.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect officials of the Federal Reserve from harassment prosecutions meant to bully them on questions of policy.
This does not mean I agree with the de-facto "mainstream" consensus of the past two decades, that the Fed should be totally independent on basic political questions, Fed chairs must be Republicans to insure that their independent decisions will be right-wing, and investors "comfort" must take priority over employment.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your state's governor to protect kids from RFK jr's vaccine rollback.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Minnesota to arrest Renee Good's killer without waiting — there are enough grounds already.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, as suggested by Robert Reich:
Don't vote for the DHS spending bill unless it (1) disarms the deportation thugs (agents of "ICE") (2) prevents them from targeting people based on their race, language, or accent, and (3) stipulates that agents who harm civilians are liable under criminal and civil laws.
Even better in my view: abolish the deportation thug agency entirely with no replacement.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on GoFundMe to follow its own rules against raising money for people who committed violent acts.
I refuse to use GoFundMe for any purpose because it requires running nonfree JavaScript code. Nearly all web sites require nonfree JS to make a payment, the exception I know of being fsf.org.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the deportation thugs' use of deadly force.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to restore PBS and NPR funding.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on CBS to dismiss Bari Weiss as head of the news department.
US citizens: call on US mass media to Stop calling it a ceasefire. Report on what is really happening in Gaza and the West Bank.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
I'm looking for a cartoonist who would like to draw cartoons for me once in a while. If you're interested, please write to rms, which refers to me, at the location gnu period org.
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
* Abandoned coalmines and oil and gas wells are now one of the biggest sources of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, new data shows, and little effort is being made to clean them up.*
I expect that the fossil fuel companies to divest themselves from old mines and wells in ways that will avoid liability for them — just as they sometimes disconnect themselves from responsibility for supporting former workers.
So I suggest making it a felony to implement a restructuring of business or assets in a way that is likely to result predictably in strand assets that carry financial responsibilities with no one capable of shouldering the responsibilities.
A pitifully weak attempt to solve a real problem: asking for a federal law that would permit victims of domestic abuse and stalking to demand that data brokers delete information about them.
Data, once collected, will be abused. The way to prevent that abuse is to facilitate refusing to hand it over in the first place.
Here is my proposal for protecting the specific people known to be in particular danger, and everyone else who could be harmed if individuals, businesses or governments use their personal data against them without a search warrant: require services to be available anonymously.
The selfish interest of those who keep trade secrets is rational but antisocial. In many cases the only harm it does is to hold back the general advance of technology. But sometimes it does really nasty things. For digital hardware and software, it often gives companies a way to subjugate their users. Regarding use of toxic chemicals, it endangers public health.
Why would legislators pass laws to "protect" companies instead of protecting the people they harm? I suspect it is partly because these companies are influential and the legislators seek their support, and partly because the legislators ask them for campaign funds.
But it is also partly the result of the mindset of "trickle down", which assumes that the only way to get more funds for the state is to let increase the size of the economy by letting companies have what they want. Unfortunately, what they want is often to be allowed to harm the public.
Most Democrats in Congress got corrupted this way in the 80s and 90s. (The exceptions are the progressive Democrats.) Now in the UK Starmer is guiding Labour into that sort of corruption.
Clearly our laws should say that any public need to know about the presence of toxic substances in a business facility overrides the desire to keep them secret.
Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.
These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opporunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.
With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
US citizens: call on CBS: Don't Let Bari Weiss Censor Debate.
Us citizens: call on Congress to stop funding DHS and ICE inhumane and lethal tactics amidst ongoing investigations into those practices.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block the voter-ID bill and protect poor citizens' right to vote against arbitrary interference.
Many poor people need to move often. Many can't afford to take a couple of hours off work to officially update ID cards. And these requirements are not satisfied by proof that you're a US citizen -- the demand is always for "up to date, currently valid" proof.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
Dr Ahmed Muhanna was seized in Gaza where he was working in a hospital and jailed in Israel for almost two years without any charges. While jailed, he was tortured sadistically, even including beatings which broke a rib, and then denied medicine for that.
He saw other prisoners die of medical problems which could have been cured if they had received treatment, as prisoners are entitled to.
Now he has been released and is back in Gaza, but the shortages of medical supplies and destroyed equipment, what doctors can do is limited.
Labour plans to restrict the right to protest even more, by banning frequent protests in the same "area".
To allow protest only as long as it never inconveniences anyone is to make protest so weak that it hardly counts for anything. The policies that large crowds protest repeatedly do much worse than inconvenience people. They usually amount to cruelty and injustice, usually toward the disprivileged.
*Children aged two with highest screen use can say significantly fewer words, UK government research finds.*
This is adding to the evidence that using computers tends to be bad for young children.
Google Search has stopped presenting pseudo-intelligence overviews for some questions because they gave incorrect medical advice that was endangering people's health.
But since this pseudo-intelligence doesn't really understand the meaning of thing, the criteria had to be written at a superficial level — somewhat like trying to identify spam with regexps. Some paraphrased questions still do elicit the "overview".
A federal judge rejected the saboteur in chief's executive order that purported to make states demand ID from voters, and other restrictions.
A lawyer explains why Minnesota can prosecute Iceman Ross, though keeping the evidence away from the state might make it difficult in practice.
The bully ordered an criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, nominally for alleged misuse of government money. I suppose they hope to find something they could dress up as misuse, but the real motive for the investigation is to punish him for lack of subservience to the bully in setting interest rates.
There are real clashes of interests that affect the setting of interest rates. For instance, which is more important: the comfort of the wealthy, or more employment? In the past, some Democratic presidents convinced the Federal Reserve to help workers, but Obama and Biden appointed Republicans to head the Federal Reserve to assure the wealthy nothing like that would happen.
When courts rule that congresscritters have the right to inspect deportation prisons, the gnome publishes another cockamamie excuse to forbid it. She probably expects that each one will be overturned, but each order will delay the visits for a while until the courts reject that one too.
*US judge lets Danish firm resume Rhode Island offshore wind project halted by [the saboteur in chief].*
The US government demanded that the University of Pennsylvania hand over a list of Jews in the university, including faculty, staff and students.
This is a peculiar reversal. So far, magats have mostly tried to persecute Muslims and those who condemn Israel's atrocities towards Palestinians — often in the name of "fighting antisemitism". This demand seems more like preparation for committing antisemitism.
Given how many Nazis and Christian bigots there are among the magats, it doesn't surprise me that they want to persecute Jews in addition to Hispanics and Africans.
*US carbon pollution rose in 2025 in reversal of previous years' reductions.* It was clear from the polluter in chief's policy decisions that this would be the result.
*An ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital, as overwhelmed medical staff struggle to cope with the toll of an increasingly violent crackdown on nationwide protests by Iranian authorities.*
Doctors treat injured protesters out in the street as the hospitals are full.
I wonder at the support of some Iranians for the son of the former shah to reestablish a monarchy. The shah was a bloody tyrant too, and aroused big street protests that forced him out. Of course the Iranians want to get out of the fire, but why choose a possible frying pan as refuge?
I wish the US were capable of inspiring Iranians to fight for democracy, but I expect that the bullshitter/bully has made his contempt for democracy clear even as far as Iran. The past US aggressions, including putting the shah back in power, won't help either.
Hegseth says that Grok will be integrated into "Pentagon networks" including secret ones.
That can now be a security hole as well as an asshole. Imagine the leaks: "I sometimes ask Grok to make a picture of me as a soldier in a war zone. Two weeks ago it showed me in Caracas, but now it shows me in Tehran!"
But the bullshitter's Nazi supporters will rejoice.
The gnome declared that Somalia has become a safe country and ordered Somalis with temporary protected status to start arranging to leave the US.
I don't know whether Somalia is now safe — its civil war/terrorism has not been in the news much lately — but we cannot expect her to tell the truth about such questions.
Reports say the US attacked a supposed "drug boat" using an armed plane disguised as civilian.
The article explains that this, in war, would constitute the crime of "perfidy" — but since the US and Venezuela were not engaged in war, it was simple murder regardless of whether weapons were visible.
The saboteur's henchmen have removed or excluded the specially trained lawyer-soldiers who are supposed to advise officers about such issues, thus learning officers to commit war crimes unawares.
I wonder who would be held responsible for those war crimes? The officer who ordered the action? The civilians responsible for denying advice to per?
*[One] quarter of developing countries poorer than in 2019, World Bank finds.*
*[At least four] DoJ attorneys resign over decision not to investigate agent [accused of shooting Renee Good].* This is the work of Harmeet Dhillon, an election-denying Republican made an official by the bully. Her assiduous service to him has been to demolish parts of the Justice Department.
The next goal is to establish that the bully's henchmen can order the killing of anyone and protect the killer from prosecution, while fishing for excuses to call the victim a criminal.
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".
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.
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
The text to a filk song, Johnny v. N., by Paul Rubin.
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:
Please send comments on these web pages to rms at gnu period org.
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Richard Stallman
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