The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"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
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
Everyone: call on Google and YouTube to stop showing recruitment ads for the deportation thugs.
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 your congresscritter to sign the discharge petition for preserving temporary immigration permission for Haitian refugees.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call for firing the gnome (Kristi Noem).
US citizens: call on your rep and senators to have Congress stop funding DHS’ and ICE’s inhumane and lethal tactics.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
In the US: call on your state attorney general to stop deportation thugs from invading people's homes without a warrant.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
In the US: call on Verizon to terminate its contracts with the Department of Hatred and Sadism and with I Can't Empathize.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: urge your representative and senators to support continuing the New START nuclear arms limitation treaty and the moratorium on testing nuclear weapons.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call for removing the name "Trump" from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the wrecker from abandoning prosecution of fraud so as to persecute immigrants instead.
If you sign, please spread the word!
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 your local and state leaders to block Big Tech data centers in your community.
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 governments to start taking notes about when a person dies while in jail or prison, or otherwise in the power of cops.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the VISIBLE Act, which would prohibit deportation thugs from concealing their identities.
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 attorney general to keep deportation thugs out of public schools.
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 Apple and Google to stop censoring apps — and let users freely release and install free/libre apps.
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 your elected officials to oppose all funding for the deportation thugs in the absence of systemic reforms.
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.
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.
Everyone: call on Google and YouTube to stop showing recruitment ads for the deportation thugs.
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 your congresscritter to sign the discharge petition for preserving temporary immigration permission for Haitian refugees.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call for firing the gnome (Kristi Noem).
What's happening with Section 702 of the PAT RIOT Act, which allows massive collection of Americans' communication because they get lumped in with the communications of foreigners.
Separatists in Alberta are accused of treason because they met secretly with US officials seeking assistance in launching a referendum to break up Canada.
There is little chance the referendum would win, but the corrupter might fabricate the claim that it was defeated by supposed "fraud".
Civil society organizations called on the EU to phase out purchases of fossil fuels from the US.
The fossil fuels carry a threat of global disaster, and buying them from the US carries a threat of global fascism.
*Australia spends more on tax breaks for landlords than social housing, homelessness and rent assistance combined.*
This demonstrates which people the politicians listen to. Australia needs a Spread the Wealth party that will prioritize the non-rich.
Australia outsources deportation prisons. For an additional shock, it outsources them to a multinational company accused of "gross negligence" in its deportation prisons in the US.
Outsourcing any government service to specific companies invites them to skimp on the work and gouge the state. The practice should be abolished.
11 days before deportation thugs killed Alex Pretti, he was at or near a protest and made an angry but harmless gesture against deportation thugs' car, whereupon some came out and violently attacked him.
On that occasion, the thugs didn't shoot him, but they committed violence against various people present at the protest.
I'm gratified to see that others have joined me in calling cops that commit wanton and gratuitous violence "thugs". Whether cops act like thugs depends on their training. The persecutor's >haste to hire tens of thousands more deportation thugs, with little qualifications and little training, surely encourages their gratuitous violence.
* Doctors are being arrested in Iran for helping save the lives of some of the tens of thousands injured during Iran's [murderous] crackdown on anti-regime protests.*
The magat administration plans to use Pretend Intelligence to write federal transportation regulations.
It may do no harm as long as the numskull is in charge, since he often tells his officials to ignore what regulations actually say and impose unrelated requirements or no requirements.
* Australia's law that is supposed to protect the environment and cultural heritage doesn’t work.* Analysis of one major recent case demonstrates this.
Chicago is preparing to investigate deportation thugs for crimes they commit.
If the US government succeeds in forcing the University of Pennsylvania to hand over a list of students and employees who are Jews, it could make any school or any employer give a list of Jews, a list of Muslims, and maybe even a list of Atheists.
The irony of starting the persecution of a group by pretending to be working to protect it would be a fillip of delight for the cunning persecutors of Project 2025.
*We Venezuelans must choose our own path. We need fair elections, not bombs or contracts with the US oil industry.*
A lawsuit claims that WhatsApp "can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly 'private' communications."
I don't know any facts about what WhatsApp can decrypt at present. What I do know is that the app is nonfree software. As a matter of fundamental principle, you can't trust a non-free program to deal with you honestly. Meta certainly could rig the WhatsApp app to save the cleartext of messages, and send it to the server (encrypted in a way the server can decrypt, just so users can't tell what it is doing). I know of nothing that would prevent or deter it from doing so.
As for whether it has actually done so, I have no knowledge about that. Maybe the lawsuit will give us information. But if we learn that Meta has not done this, that won't prove it can't do so next year.
Identifying many diagnostic aspects of fascism in the wrecker's misrule.
*The Farcical Case Against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for Protest Reporting.*
The arrest of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in Minnesota was ordered by Persecutor General Bondi, after two courts had ruled there was nothing to arrest them for. It is an example the bully's attempt to eliminate freedom of the press.
Israel's army has accepted HAMAS's figures for casualties in Gaza. This is after two years of claiming they were lies.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds before midnight.
*The scientists cited risks of nuclear war, the climate crisis, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of [pretend intelligence and] artificial intelligence without adequate controls.*
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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