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.
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: phone your senators and call on the to vote against the magats' Big Bad Bill.
Robert Reich summarizes facts about the Big Bad Bill. Cutting Medicaid and food stamps are just the start of the suffering.
One thing not mentioned there is that the bill would
automatically cause a large cut in Medicaid because
it would increase the federal deficit.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to block Trump's $400 million flying bribe.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call on Congress
to have the FBI investigate real
criminals, especially abusive corporations, not immigrants who have
done no wrong to anyone.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Hope for
Homeownership Act, which would prevent hedge funds form buying
up large numbers of houses and making them unavailable for people
to buy as residences.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
Insist
that Protesting Tesla is not domestic terrorism. Denounce any attempt
to arrest and imprison nonviolent activists.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and urge per not to let RFK
jr. decide which kinds of government medical programs to keep
and which to cancel.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Everyone:
call on
Worcester City Council to stop city cops from brutalizing the city
for the deportation thugs.
US citizens:
call
on NIH and NSF to stop cutting critical health research.
US citizens:
phone your congresscritter and senators
to urge them to put a stop to Attorney General Bondi's
campaign to force reporters to rat on their sources.
For information about that campaign, see
here.
US citizens: call on congresscritter to increase taxes on rich
The bullshitter has lately been talking about increasing
taxes on the non-billionaire rich. Phone your congresscritter
(especially if perse is Republican) and call on per to do this,
instead of cutting Medicaid and other things that help the non-rich.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support two bills
introduced by Representative Don Beyer to correct and prevent
slasher attacks against federal agencies:
* The REHIRE Act would give hiring preference to the career
professionals wrongfully removed by Trump. This would go a long way
toward restoring the knowledge, continuity, and skill that our
institutions need.
* The PREP Act would protect future public servants from being fired
for political reasons — so that no president can again purge
government employees simply for doing their jobs.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Sign the Grassroots Amicus Brief: "DOGE" is Unconstitutional.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the right of habeas corpus.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
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.
A judge ordered the government not to deport anyone to South Sudan without the court hearing that every deportee is entitled to, but they did it anyway. He has ruled that they violated the court order.
South Sudan is on the edge of civil war, and is not a safe place to deport anyone to.
The judge will proceed to consider punishment for the officials responsible. I fear that the wrecker will stage an autogolpe by defying this. On the other hand, if the judge backs down, that would give the wrecker the same victory.
Perhaps the judge will impose a small but symbolic penalty, which would seem absurd to defy.
*Israeli troops fire ‘warning shots’ at 25 diplomats [representing 31 countries] visiting [Jenin in the] occupied West Bank.*
The Israeli government says they were "warning shots". What sort of government considers it appropriate to use "warning shots" to ask a group of diplomats to go down the other street? And what did Israel not want the diplomats to see?
The visit was arranged with the Palestinian Authority. Perhaps the intended warning was, "Don't talk with the PA."
How the bullshitter's welcome to "refugee" Afrikaners is perceived in South Africa — mostly as a butt of ridicule.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that practice it. But I make exceptions for some articles because I consider them important — and I label them like this.
If you're concerned about the US national debt, or about effects of others' concern about the national debt, tax the rich!
Most Britons want a legal requirement for businesses and services to accept cash payments. If you live in the UK — or anywhere else — please support the cause of cash. You can do it through organizing for such a law. And you can do it through direct action by paying cash.
You can also turn around and walk out of a business if it won't let you pay cash. That is what I do.
Another good way to respond to refusal to accept cash is to ask other customers, those who don't see the reason to pay cash, to accept your money in cash, then pay it to the business using a card.
The head of the Committee for Public Safety, aka Department of Homeland Security, did not know what Habeas Corpus means.
I suppose that she never was interested in learning about systems to protect people from arbitrary arrest and punishment.
RFK Jr's distorted report on the health of US children by disregarding the main causes of children's death: guns and car crashes.
Brazil's congress has passed a law to "dismantle regulations in farming, mining and energy, increasing risk of widespread destruction."
*Children and elderly are dying from starvation in Gaza, says health minister.*
Meanwhile, the insufficient supplies of food aid are somehow snagged and not reaching the starving Palestinians. I have no information on the cause of the snag, but I have to suspect it is no accident.
*[Microsoft] Employees on Wednesday began noticing that email messages sent from their company account containing a handful of keywords related to [the war in Gaza] [arrived late or not at all].
The bullshitter's "evidence" for accusing South Africa for practicing bigotry against whites is, as usual, full of bullshit.
Hong Kong's "random" income tax audits seem to fall strangely often on independent journalism.
Kenneth Roth: shooting embassy workers to make a point about Gaza is inexcusable. It is also self-defeating, since Netanyahu is citing that killing to try to discredit all the others who condemn the bombardment and siege of Gaza. Irrational as that argument is, it will have an effect.
*At least six organizations that claim to champion patient rights have deep financial and operational ties to Big Pharma and work to advance corporate profits.*
*If aid doesn’t enter Gaza now, 14,000 babies may die. UN peacekeepers must step in.*
The UN General Assembly has the power to do this as a last resort. I think the time for a last resort came a year ago.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on the to vote against the magats' Big Bad Bill.
Robert Reich summarizes facts about the Big Bad Bill. Cutting Medicaid and food stamps are just the start of the suffering.
One thing not mentioned there is that the bill would automatically cause a large cut in Medicaid because it would increase the federal deficit.
The bill would also block federal courts from enforcing court orders by declaring the officials who ignore them in contempt of court.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Massive disapproval within the Labour Party, inside and outside if Parliament, compelled Starmer to cancel some of the plans to reduce support for poor people.
While the decision affects just one issue, aid for home heating, he may have to reprioritize more broadly and serve the non-rich.
*U.S. Spy Agencies Are Getting a One-Stop Shop to Buy Your Most Sensitive Personal Data.*
Your data will probably be available to them, because you use systems that collect the data about your movements and your actions. That data collection creates an Orwellian system, whose results we see here.
I reject nearly all such systems because I am against the Orwellian society that they create. The database of mobile phone location data can't have any information in it about me, since I have never had one.
Please join me in rejecting these systems and demanding that they not collect data about who people talk with, where people go, and what they do there.
*China accused of using mental health law to lock up critics.*
Various dictatorial countries have used this approach to jail people who criticize the government.
US citizens: call on Congress to block Trump's $400 million flying bribe.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
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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