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
I'm looking for speaking invitations for a trip in January and February that will include some part of Europe, then India, then some other part of Europe.
The first visit to Europe will be roughly Jan 16 to 22. The visit to India will start Jan 22 and can continue into February. The second visit to Europe will be after that. Those dates are flexible.
One advantage of this period for you is that the intercontinental flights are already covered, so you won't need to pay for that.
If you are interested in inviting me, and you have a venue to use and a public to invite, please email me soon with "speaking invitation" in the Subject field, using the name rms and the host gnu dot org.
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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.
I urge you to vote in Democratic primaries for the progressive candidate, if there is one. And in the final election I urge you to vote for Democrats, unless a liberal independent had a good chance of winning.
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 Democrats in Congress to boycott the musket's slash & burn commission.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Starbucks's CEO to offer striking workers a decent contract.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to refuse to confirm anti-vaxers (including RFK jr) to any office related to medicine or public health.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to refuse to privatize the USPS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden not to pardon the corrupter.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the For the 99.5% Act and tax billionaire dynasties.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. Richie Neal.
US citizens: call on Congress to save PBS from Republican budget cuts.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Patients Before Monopolies Act.
The Patients Before Monopolies Act would force big medical conglomerates to sell off their pharmacies within three years. This would eliminate one of the mechanisms that UnitedHellth uses to gouge. But it would not affect the other mechanisms. So it would not fix the whole problem, but it would do some good.
More details about the Patients Before Monopolies Act.
US citizens: call on Congress to defeat the wrecker's plans to privatize the USPS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Vanguard CEO to meet with frontline climate campaigners affected by Vanguard's "investments" in fossil fuels.
US citizens: call on the Democratic National Committee to limit large campaign donations.
US citizens: call on Congress and state governments to regulate fracking more strictly, to protect Our Health and Environment
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Support Sanders and call for a national universal medical system.
US citizens: call on the USPS board of governors to fire DeJoy.
US citizens: call on Amazon to bargain with its striking workers and give them fair wages and working conditions.
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.)
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.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
Go to the place where it says `&redirect' and replace all the text from there to the end with `&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 Congress to cease supplying weapons and funds for Netanyahu's war in Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject RFK Jr. as Secretary for Health and Human Services.
I'm looking for speaking invitations for a trip in January and February that will include some part of Europe, then India, then some other part of Europe.
The first visit to Europe will be roughly Jan 16 to 22. The visit to India will start Jan 22 and can continue into February. The second visit to Europe will be after that. Those dates are flexible.
One advantage of this period for you is that the intercontinental flights are already covered, so you won't need to pay for that.
If you are interested in inviting me, and you have a venue to use and a public to invite, please email me soon with "speaking invitation" in the Subject field, using the name rms and the host gnu dot org.
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.
US citizens: call on Democrats in Congress to boycott the musket's slash & burn commission.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Starbucks's CEO to offer striking workers a decent contract.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to refuse to confirm anti-vaxers (including RFK jr) to any office related to medicine or public health.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
An illustration of the power-by-hook-or-by-crook attitude that the Republican Party encourages.
When a Republican from Florida leaves the House of Representatives, governor DeMentis sets an election for the replacement soon. When a Democrat left, DeMentis delayed the election of per replacement for most of a year so as to deny Democrats one vote for those months.
The article calls this "hypocritical"; if DeMentis claims to support free and fair elections, then it is that. But I say it is an example of Republicans' fundamental opposition to free and fair elections.
The bullshitter threatens to attack Panama and seize the Suez Canal, complaining about the high toll that Panama charges.
It is hypocritical to condemn gouging of shipping companies that pass these costs along to their customers, and not condemn companies that gouge ordinary Americans that can't do that — companies that provide food, medicine, and shelter.
Reporting on the 37 congresscritters or family members of congresscritters who traded stock in major military contractors in 2024 — while making decisions about how much to buy from them.
Rep. Tuberville has a good point, but we should use it in the other direction: let's discourage people from running for Congress in search of profitable conflicts of interest.
The bully's attempt to bully Panama, making use of accusations that China was taking over the Panama canal, provoked a firm rejection.
Is there any objective evidence to cite about whether there are Chinese managers or soldiers there? A priori I would expect that the bullshitter is bullshitting again. but it would be nice to cite facts.
Farmers and fishers in Brazil face a choice between facing the heat of the daytime, worse each year, and working at night for lower yields.
*Experts warn of mental health risks after rise in magic mushroom use.*
A few days ago an acquaintance of a friend offered me "a mushroom cookie" and it turned out to have psilocybin in it. I said no to it, as always. I have never tried any hallucinogenic drug, because I have always been afraid of damage from a "bad trip".
The repressionist is suing the newspaper that published a mistaken election poll and the pollster who carried it out. The poll reported that Harris was leading in Iowa by several points, because that's what the data indicated. Now we know that the election did not come out that way, but no one knows why the data misrepresented the situation. The pollster, Ann Selzer, can't figure out how the poll went wrong.
Robert Reich has adopted the term, "the muskrat", that I use to refer to Elon Musk.
I am glad to have promoted this term. However, it is a mistake to capitalize such mockery — that weakens the effect. Besides, the muskrat has far too much capital already. No one should be allowed to have that much power.
*WHO "appalled" by Israel attack on northern Gaza's last functioning major hospital.*
The attack did substantial damage. If it was not done specifically to endanger noncombatants, I expect the army could have found a way to achieve any valid military goal without much damage to the hospital.
US citizens: call on Congress to refuse to privatize the USPS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden not to pardon the corrupter.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the For the 99.5% Act and tax billionaire dynasties.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. Richie Neal.
*It’s not bigotry to worry about migration — the latest figures tell a complex story.*
The article describes pluses and minuses of the rate of immigration into Britain, but I'd expect the same factors would apply in the US, more or less.
The UK sentenced 8000 convicts to indefinite sentences, meaning they might receive parole sometimes for a while but their sentences would never end. 6000 of them are still serving such sentences (I presume the rest have died). This was meant for criminals who had committed heinous crimes, but many were sentenced for repeated petty offenses.
Christian fanatics in some US states are trying to prohibit giving information about abortion access to people in those states.
Robert Reich describes the century of history that made most Americans comfortable, then under right-wing power impoverished them for the benefit of the rich.
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".
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
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.
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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