The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
The photo comes from
wikimedia.org
"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.
It is more likely I can actually go if you have funds to cover the additional cost, and a speaker's fee would be nice.
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
I will have a trip to Europe in the second week of October and I am looking for invitations for additional talks in the same trip. If you would like to invite me to speak in that trip, please write to me at rms-invitation@gnu.org with "october" as the subject.
It is more likely I can actually go if you have funds to cover the additional cost, and a speaker's fee would be nice.
US citizens: call on the Department of Veterans Affairs to pledge not to discriminate, for patients or for staff, based on political affiliation, marital status, or national origin.
Does anyone think the persecutor is so virtuous that we need not worry about this danger?
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and urge per to reject all the efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
The wrecker has clever advisors who can write modifications that seem minor but will indirectly make a big change for the worse.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Join a Good Trouble Lives On protest tomorrow, July 17th, to protest the ongoing, full-scale attacks on the civil and human rights of our country.
The protests are scheduled with the memorial of civil-rights champion John Lewis.
Millions of Americans are already protesting every weekend in virtually every city. This sends a strong message to our representatives. This is what democracy looks like.
US citizens: call on the bully and Bondi to stop threatening NYC's mayoral election.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop pervasive surveillance through Palantir.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Block the Bombs Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your senators and urge each one to protect the funding for public media.
Here's a suggested script that I am passing along with changes. Of course, you can say what you wish to say.
Hello! My name is [First Name]. I'm a constituent and am calling to
ask Sen. [Name] to oppose any action that cuts funding
to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Public media are among our nation’s most important media, with
overwhelming support among people from all 50 states and all political
leanings.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Everyone: write to Palantir's board of directors and call on them to explain what they are doing with personal data from the US government.
In my letter I called on Palentir never to process that data together with any personal data obtained in any other way. That would include, for example, location data.
I used the following Subject field:
You must tell us what Palantir is doing with personal data from the US
government and NEVER process it together with any other data you have.
I used the following message body:
Others are demanding that Palantir be transparent about what it does
with personal data from the US government. I join in that demand, but
that does not go far enough.
Palantir must never combine, or process together, any of that
government data with any other data it has or obtains about people.
To do so would establish a China-like system of total repression.
I want to be able to continue to love my country. I want it to remain
"the land of the free and the home of the brave." I hope you don't
want Palantir to be responsible for converting the US into a place
that people must flee for their freedom's sake.
Sincerely,
It is most effective if you write your message in your own words. If you are in a demographic that tends to support the bully, it is good to mention that.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on all Democratic candidates to pledge not to accept oligarch money.
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.
Calling on Europe to require antisocial media platforms to stop using recommendation algorithms.
*Democrats and climate groups "too polite" in fight against "malevolent" fossil fuel giants, says key senator [Sheldon Whitehouse].*
A judge ordered the deportation thugs not to arrest anyone without specific grounds about that person. Mere racial profiling is not enough grounds.
Here's how Angelenos have learned to respond to the daily raids.
Israeli Extremist "settlers" murdered a Palestinian-American who was visiting his family in the West Bank. After injuring him, they block medics from reaching him until he died.
They killed another Palestinian by shooting him.
The Australian government has jailed the Gazan grandmother of a family in Australia. The government says it did this because she is a security threat, but refuses to explain how that could be so. Two other people from Gaza were likewise jailed.
The government said it won't send them back to Gaza. Maybe that means it will send them to some remote prison island such as Manus Island.
*Gaza's healthcare system is being destroyed by targeted attacks.* Israel has killed 1400 medical personnel in Gaza, with persistent attacks against medical clinics and hospitals.
600 Israeli medical practitioners have signed a letter condemning Israel for the war crime of killing medical personnel in war.
The Australian government has named a "special envoy to combat antisemitism", choosing someone known for fervent support for Israel.
Usually a special envoy is appointed for Australia to influence other countries, but in this case it seems to be the reverse: a way for the Australian government to tell Australians to pay more attention to heed her repetition of Israeli policies that confound criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
[This plan] is the latest push to weaponize antisemitism in Australia, as a relentless campaign pays off.
*Labor Friends of Palestine concerned by [the "envoy"'s] recommendation government adopt IHRA’s contested [criterion for] antisemitism.*
The main author of that criterion said that it is not suitable for this purpose.
Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, says that the supposed "humanitarian city" on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp.
He also condemned Israel's government for supporting the organized campaign of pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank rejecting its denials of that support), and for committing war crimes in Gaza.
*US man arrested while filming Home Depot Ice raid sues government for $1m.*
Uniformed thugs have gone around brutalizing innocent people for decades, if not millennia. The US government used to impose rules on violent thug departments to keep their violence in check.
Now, by contrast, the bully encourages thugs to let their cruelest appetites run away with them.
(satire) WASHINGTON— *In a stunning security breach that reportedly left many top-ranking administration officials vulnerable to attack, the White House was evacuated Tuesday after the building’s trans alarm went off.*
*Family of US citizen beaten to death by Israeli ["settlers"] calls on [US government] to prosecute killers.*
I don't believe the persecutor would try to do that, or that he would care much about the murder of an American who wasn't his loyal supporter.
The DOPE's accusations of unemployment fraud are themselves a fraud. Many are records of claims that were denied years ago because they were found to be invalid.
Gazans who survived an attack while they were trying to collect food packages report that other nearly civilians were shot with targeted fire.
The deportation thugs told eight prisoners they were being transported to another deportation prison in Louisiana. This was a lie: they were being tricked into being deported to violent and dangerous South Sudan.
Such trickery should be punished as a crime. It is bad enough to be deported with some notice. Even people awaiting deportation have some rights, and deserve human decency. This lie denied them both.
US citizens: call on the Department of Veterans Affairs to pledge not to discriminate, for patients or for staff, based on political affiliation, marital status, or national origin.
Does anyone think the persecutor is so virtuous that we need not worry about this danger?
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and urge per to reject all the efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
The wrecker has clever advisors who can write modifications that seem minor but will indirectly make a big change for the worse.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*"Tremendous uncertainty" for cancer research as US officials target mRNA vaccines.*
A substantial fraction of people get cancer. You could be one of them. The research they are canceling could have saved your life.
The 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs branch of the Justice Department have the job of arguing the legality of what the wrecker wants to do. Almost 2/3 of them have quit, apparently because they believe their job is defending the indefensible.
Lula: *With the world in crisis, many say end globalization. I say that would be a mistake.*
I more or less agree. We need to reorganize global trade so that it doesn't put plutocrats in a dominant position, not abolish it.
Heavy rain in New York City flooded highways and subway lines.
We knew that global heating would eventually cause New York City to be inundated, but now it seems that the city may become unlivable long before that.
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:
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