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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
The photo comes from
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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
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For the sake of separation, this site has always been
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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
![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
US citizens: call on Congress to get billionaire money out of politics.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say not to privatize the US Postal Service.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to stand up against the wrecker's tariffs.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress, federal courts, and the U.S. Marshals Service to defend the right of due process of law against the bully.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the FEC to investigate Elon Musk's election bribery in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per fight against any budget that cuts critical human needs programs to fund more tax breaks for billionaires.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
If you have a way to communicate with a person in the organization Our Revolution, and are willing to help me make contact, please write to me, rms, at the GNU domain (gnu.org).
I would like to donate to Our Revolution, but I can't find a morally acceptable way to send the donation. The only way they publish is through the web, and their payment system (as is usual on the web) works by sending nonfree software to the user's browser. Running such software is unjust and insecure, so I refuse absolutely — no exceptions, not even for an organization that follows Bernie Sanders.
If I can reach anyone there, I will try to work out a way to donate by check.
US citizens: call on Senate Republicans to denounce the anti-American "Third Term" Talk.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call for freeing Rumeysa Ozturk: No one who writes a political article should be arrested or deported for that expression of per views.
Side issue:
"Per" here is a third-person gender-neutral singular pronoun. Please join me in using gender-neutral singular pronouns rather than plural pronouns such as "they" when referring to a singular antecedent without specifying gender.
US citizens: tell Senate Democrats that we need a minority leader who will not cave to the bully.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to protect Social Security from the muskrat's cuts and propaganda.
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.
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.
It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as "children"; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)
However, I suggest taking a step beyond just choosing to use or not use the platform's addiction system. Recommendation algorithms should be completely separated from platforms!
If you want to use a nontrivial recommendation algorithm, you should be able to choose it yourself and use it anonymously. You could send it the URLs you want it to base its choices on. These might be some of the pages you had visited, and perhaps pages you had not visited.
Then it should send you its recommendations. You could pass all, or just some, or none of those recommendations to the platform to look at them.
AB 1949 is admirable because it gives a small boost to privacy for users of all ages, not only for children. It isn't enough, though — users should also be guaranteed the right and possibility to access through the Tor network and to use aliases. And collection of a user's data by the state should require a warrant against the user.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
The saboteur-in-chief has canceled funds for various research projects studying ways to curb right-wing extremist terrorism in the US.
I find that natural. He is a right-wing extremist, and they are among his supporters. Some of their acts of terror helped build his support. Howsoever an effort to prevent such terrorism might operate, its success would work against him. He has already told the FBI to stop focusing on right-wing terrorism. Ending the research too is the sort of long-term completeness that his cunning Project 2025 advisors would think of.
The persecutor's repression of protesters is more rigid than McCarthyism's persecution of suspected Communists in the 1950s.
More comparison between the two.
*[US government] cuts $4m to Princeton’s climate research funding. White House claims university’s work exposed students to "climate anxiety" and "exaggerated climate threats."*
No one deserves to be blamed for showing students the danger that human practices are causing.
(satire) *[The bully] Boasts About Strong-Arming [the saboteur in chief] Into Pausing Tariffs.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement JavaScript and CSS.
In the preparation for Mahmoud Khalil's deportation hearing, the government did not try to accuse Khalil of breaking any law. It only said he was inconvenient for the bully's plans and claimed that is enough grounds.
Specifically, the plans in question are to use weaponized accusations of "antisemitism" -- a stretched concept of "antisemitism" -- to bully and punish those who criticizes Israel for its war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The wrecker's deportation squads defy the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution by imprisoning and deporting people without due process of law.
The wrecker's last-minute change of tariff plans avoided big problems (until he changes the plan again), but the uncertainty he has already caused will continue causing economic damage.
The announcement about "resurrected dire wolves" was more hype than reality. They made genetically modified wolves with around 20 pieces of their DNA copied from fossil dire wolves.
At least, that is what they say they have done. There is no report of independent verification of what they have actually done.
The Supreme Court unanimously ordered the bully to help Kilmar Abrego Garcia get back to the US from El Salvador, where he was illegally deported without due process.
Since the bully has no reluctance to lie, I would not put it past him to pretend to be trying to help, this while quietly urging El Salvadors's cruel president to refuse obdurately. Then the bully will say, "I tried, but it's impossible." He can lie with a smile that means, "You know I'm lying but you can't make me stop."
The application of political retaliation was part of Clearview AI's initial sales pitch.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say not to privatize the US Postal Service.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Public pressure made the saboteur in chief climb down from the plan to close the Social Security Administration's service-by-phone system.
That doesn't mean the problem is gone for good. When it comes to hurting people that the saboteur despises, which includes "useless" non-rich aged or disabled people, he is very persistent. He might decide to try it again some months from now, perhaps in a slightly different way. He might simply hire so few operators that one must wait a week for actual service -- or have a bullshit generator respond.
The saboteur in chief has cancelled funds for various research projects about preventing *gun violence, sexual violence, domestic terrorist attacks and violent hate crimes.*
This must be to please the gun fanatics among the magats.
The cheater canceled the permission to stay in the US and work while waiting for an asylum hearing, which they were granted by the government through the CBP One app.
The CBP One app was unjust because it was nonfree software and ran on a phone with a nonfree operating system. But that doesn't excuse what the cheater has done. Canceling anyone's parole on no grounds is a promise broken by the United State government to a person who has asked for the chance to demonstrate that perse is fleeing oppression.
Israel's military is well trained in using defense in depth, when it comes to denying culpability for war crimes. They consider that no alternative explanation is too implausible to be offered.
The saboteur in chief loves cryptocurrencies so much that he discourages investigation of possible frauds.
*Last year 72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups and government entities; with just 16% of ban attempts made by parents.*
In other words, the right-wing censorship activists are using the parents as a smokescreen.
Magats now condemn Justice Barrett for defending the rule of law. They demand she serve the bully without question.
(satire) *Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday that Raymond Pratt, a 54-year-old resident of Chula Vista, CA who bumped a Tesla while parallel parking, had been sentenced to death. “Let me be clear: This man, who attempted to park on the street and damaged the rear bumper of a Model 3, is a domestic terrorist who deserves to die,” said Bondi…'*
Dr Oz, newly confirmed as head of Medicare and Medicaid, wants to replace our doctors with bullshit generators.
Occasionally there is a misunderstanding between me and a doctor, but we can usually clear them up and get on the same page. An LLM can't understand anything, so they can never be cleared up.
I think this represents billionaires' idea that there doesn't need to be good medical care for us non-billionaires. They would have us live for as long as keeping us alive is cheap, and push us off to the crematorium.
Reopening coal-fired electric generators would help power the bullshit generators when the pollution kills us.
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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