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>Dr Richard Stallman why does he sign this way? he doesn't have a PhD. edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themsel

>Dr Richard Stallman why does he sign this way? he doesn't have a PhD. edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor.

deleted 7y ago
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dmm 7y ago
He has at least one honorary phd.
saagarjha 7y ago
He has a number of honorary doctorates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Honors_and_awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Honors_and_aw...
- TomBombadildoze 7y ago
  If you consider Wikipedia and its citations to be reliable sources, it would generally be considered bad form to expect others to address you as Doctor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree#Use_of_title_associated_with_honorary_doctorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree#Use_of_title_a...
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Of course, Stallman is on that list as one of the people who does so anyways.
    - TomBombadildoze 7y ago
      I must admit... I chuckled when I went looking for clarity and a wild Stallman appeared.
BlueGh0st 7y ago
He has a dozen or more honorary doctorates
deleted 7y ago
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dependenttypes 7y ago
> edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor. I don't know about you but I don't think that I have ever seen anyone other than stallman with an honorary doctorate, they tend to be pretty rare after all.
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  Harvard alone has given out 2300. They are not exactly rare.
- astura 7y ago
  They are common, Theodore Hesburgh had 150 of them, Bill Cosby had ~60 though most of his have been rescinded. Stephen Colbert made jokes about his on The Covert Report[1] They are usually (though not always) given to the speaker at a graduation ceremony. [1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/irk0rv/the-colbert-report-honorary-doctor http://www.cc.com/video-clips/irk0rv/the-colbert-report-hono...
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    By rare I mean people with honorary doctorates, not the honorary doctorates themselves. I would assume that there is a higher chance for someone to have more than two than exactly one.
    - astura 7y ago
      They are rare among the general population, but among celebrities they are common. They are given for speaking at the college's graduation ceremony so they are used to draw celebrities to speak at graduation. Sometimes they are even used to reward big donors.
Ensorceled 7y ago
It’s not appropriate to call yourself Dr. with an honorary degree so I’m not sure why you are being down voted.
- tptacek 7y ago
  This is a pretty silly debate. Plenty of people have done far less far-reaching CS work to obtain "actual" PhD's; it's not like computer science doctorates are medical degrees. Let him have his "Dr." title.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    To add to that, he was in the process of a physics PhD at the time he started his free software stuff. I'd say his work since then, in a spiritual sense, has "completed" his PhD.
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
    I really don’t care, but it’s yet another convention he ignores, in a terse resignation letter no less.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- legulere 7y ago
  In Germany it’s even illegal (Dr. h. c. is fine though).
- inopinatus 7y ago
  Conversely, those who earned their doctorate conventionally sometimes need reminding of it. This came up at my wedding. After the ceremony we had a bunch of silly "group of X" photos. All the musicians, all the writers, the lawyers, the grandparents, the athletes, the tech folk, the doctors, and so on. The programmers made jokes about type checking, of course. (I was, on the sly, also gently nudging strangers to connect. Our friends are pretty scattered and don't know each other.) However, several of the PhDs had forgotten they had one, particularly those that had not subsequently remained in the ivory tower. When the Call for Doctors went around, we had to remind them them individually.
astura 7y ago
Maya Angelou did, her Twitter handle was DrMayaAngelou. Most obviously don't, otherwise we'd be talking about Dr. Kylie Minogue, Dr. Kanye West, Dr. Bill Gates, Dr. Oprah, etc., etc. It would be insane.
seamyb88 7y ago
An English University gave Roy Hodgson an honorary doctorate [1]. You know, the guy who managed their football (soccer) team for a while. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35382864 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35382864
geofft 7y ago
It is particularly infuriating to me that he signed every email he sent to MIT's CSAIL mailing list that way. MIT doesn't issue honorary doctorates, on principle. (And of course the result was everyone called him "famed MIT computer scientist" and was asking about him being a professor when he had no paid affiliation with MIT for decades.)
- justforyou 7y ago
  That's an incredibly minor thing to find infuriating. You might want to seriously examine the mechanisms which inform that emotion.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Well, I went to MIT, I worked hard to get a degree (and not even a doctorate) there, I was on the mailing list because it was the mailing list for my own department, and I watched this guy email the list basically every other day with some inane comment signed "Dr. Richard Stallman," often with a lot of genuinely smart people patiently explaining to him why he was wrong, none of whom he would pay any attention to. Is that enough examination for you, or would you like more?
    - justforyou 7y ago
      That makes a lot more sense to be infuriated by and is very different from getting worked up over the appropriation of two sylables.
_Nat_ 7y ago
> i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor. You're right that this is abnormal in American academic culture [1]. Apparently German culture would afford him the title "Dr. h.c.", where the "h.c." qualifier clarifies that it's an honorary degree. To be fair, [his Wikipedia page][2] seems to suggest that he's done enough work to have potentially earned a real PhD, had he been enrolled in a PhD program. Plus we're often loose with the "Dr." title anyway. For example, we'll often call a college-level instructor "Dr." even if they don't actually have a doctorate. All that said, it's still a tad less-than-dignified. I mean, it does have a hint of puffery behind it for someone whose work would seem to otherwise stand on its own. Plus a PhD is an early honor; for example, we don't bother saying Dr. Albert Einstein because Einstein's later accomplishments were so much greater than merely earning a PhD that the title seems more like an understatement than an honor. So, it's a bit weird for an older guy who doesn't have an earned PhD to use the "Dr." title, given that it's a bit of a stretch and almost feels like he's leaning on it whereas other famous names don't. Not really a big deal, just kinda neat to examine. [1]: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72504/ https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72504/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Selected_publications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Selected_publ...
- jcranmer 7y ago
  > To be fair, [his Wikipedia page][2] seems to suggest that he's done enough work to have potentially earned a real PhD, had he been enrolled in a PhD program. I see nothing to suggest that. A PhD is fundamentally about doing research to push the boundaries of knowledge. He may be responsible for an impressive amount of software, but replicating what already exists (most of the GNU tools were about rewriting the UNIX utilities from scratch) doesn't qualify a whit towards a PhD.
  - _Nat_ 7y ago
    Looking at his biography on Wikipedia, it seems that he: 1. Earned a BS in Physics from Harvard with a near-perfect GPA. 2. Got into a PhD in Physics program. 3. Dropped out of the Physics program to pursue a non-degree-track research program in AI. 4. Published stuff and gave talks. His work around that time sounds like what a typical grad student would be doing, i.e. performing research as a research assistant to a principal investigator: > While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under Gerry Sussman,[13] Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking.[17] This paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems. As of 2009, the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking.[18] The technique of constraint recording, wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.[18] Without looking into precisely what he did, that sounds like the sorta thing someone could type up as a dissertation and defend to earn a PhD.
bitL 7y ago
Technically he doesn't have; but the whole GNU work would be worth of 10 PhDs and I bet many people did their own PhDs on top of work he did. If he was awared 1 or more honorary doctorates (implying the person is a doctor honoris causa), it might be acceptable to call himself a doctor, but not a PhD, which he didn't.

>Dr Richard Stallman why does he sign this way? he doesn't have a PhD. edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dmm 7y ago

He has at least one honorary phd.

saagarjha 7y ago

He has a number of honorary doctorates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Honors_and_awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Honors_and_aw...

TomBombadildoze 7y ago
If you consider Wikipedia and its citations to be reliable sources, it would generally be considered bad form to expect others to address you as Doctor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree#Use_of_title_associated_with_honorary_doctorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree#Use_of_title_a...
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Of course, Stallman is on that list as one of the people who does so anyways.
  - TomBombadildoze 7y ago
    I must admit... I chuckled when I went looking for clarity and a wild Stallman appeared.

BlueGh0st 7y ago

He has a dozen or more honorary doctorates

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dependenttypes 7y ago

> edit: i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor. I don't know about you but I don't think that I have ever seen anyone other than stallman with an honorary doctorate, they tend to be pretty rare after all.

Ensorceled 7y ago
Harvard alone has given out 2300. They are not exactly rare.
astura 7y ago
They are common, Theodore Hesburgh had 150 of them, Bill Cosby had ~60 though most of his have been rescinded. Stephen Colbert made jokes about his on The Covert Report[1] They are usually (though not always) given to the speaker at a graduation ceremony. [1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/irk0rv/the-colbert-report-honorary-doctor http://www.cc.com/video-clips/irk0rv/the-colbert-report-hono...
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  By rare I mean people with honorary doctorates, not the honorary doctorates themselves. I would assume that there is a higher chance for someone to have more than two than exactly one.
  - astura 7y ago
    They are rare among the general population, but among celebrities they are common. They are given for speaking at the college's graduation ceremony so they are used to draw celebrities to speak at graduation. Sometimes they are even used to reward big donors.

Ensorceled 7y ago

It’s not appropriate to call yourself Dr. with an honorary degree so I’m not sure why you are being down voted.

tptacek 7y ago
This is a pretty silly debate. Plenty of people have done far less far-reaching CS work to obtain "actual" PhD's; it's not like computer science doctorates are medical degrees. Let him have his "Dr." title.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  To add to that, he was in the process of a physics PhD at the time he started his free software stuff. I'd say his work since then, in a spiritual sense, has "completed" his PhD.
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  I really don’t care, but it’s yet another convention he ignores, in a terse resignation letter no less.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
legulere 7y ago
In Germany it’s even illegal (Dr. h. c. is fine though).
inopinatus 7y ago
Conversely, those who earned their doctorate conventionally sometimes need reminding of it. This came up at my wedding. After the ceremony we had a bunch of silly "group of X" photos. All the musicians, all the writers, the lawyers, the grandparents, the athletes, the tech folk, the doctors, and so on. The programmers made jokes about type checking, of course. (I was, on the sly, also gently nudging strangers to connect. Our friends are pretty scattered and don't know each other.) However, several of the PhDs had forgotten they had one, particularly those that had not subsequently remained in the ivory tower. When the Call for Doctors went around, we had to remind them them individually.

astura 7y ago

Maya Angelou did, her Twitter handle was DrMayaAngelou. Most obviously don't, otherwise we'd be talking about Dr. Kylie Minogue, Dr. Kanye West, Dr. Bill Gates, Dr. Oprah, etc., etc. It would be insane.

seamyb88 7y ago

An English University gave Roy Hodgson an honorary doctorate [1]. You know, the guy who managed their football (soccer) team for a while. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35382864 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35382864

geofft 7y ago

It is particularly infuriating to me that he signed every email he sent to MIT's CSAIL mailing list that way. MIT doesn't issue honorary doctorates, on principle. (And of course the result was everyone called him "famed MIT computer scientist" and was asking about him being a professor when he had no paid affiliation with MIT for decades.)

justforyou 7y ago
That's an incredibly minor thing to find infuriating. You might want to seriously examine the mechanisms which inform that emotion.
- geofft 7y ago
  Well, I went to MIT, I worked hard to get a degree (and not even a doctorate) there, I was on the mailing list because it was the mailing list for my own department, and I watched this guy email the list basically every other day with some inane comment signed "Dr. Richard Stallman," often with a lot of genuinely smart people patiently explaining to him why he was wrong, none of whom he would pay any attention to. Is that enough examination for you, or would you like more?
  - justforyou 7y ago
    That makes a lot more sense to be infuriated by and is very different from getting worked up over the appropriation of two sylables.

_Nat_ 7y ago

> i have never (ever) seen someone with an honorary doctorate actually call themselves doctor. You're right that this is abnormal in American academic culture [1]. Apparently German culture would afford him the title "Dr. h.c.", where the "h.c." qualifier clarifies that it's an honorary degree. To be fair, [his Wikipedia page][2] seems to suggest that he's done enough work to have potentially earned a real PhD, had he been enrolled in a PhD program. Plus we're often loose with the "Dr." title anyway. For example, we'll often call a college-level instructor "Dr." even if they don't actually have a doctorate. All that said, it's still a tad less-than-dignified. I mean, it does have a hint of puffery behind it for someone whose work would seem to otherwise stand on its own. Plus a PhD is an early honor; for example, we don't bother saying Dr. Albert Einstein because Einstein's later accomplishments were so much greater than merely earning a PhD that the title seems more like an understatement than an honor. So, it's a bit weird for an older guy who doesn't have an earned PhD to use the "Dr." title, given that it's a bit of a stretch and almost feels like he's leaning on it whereas other famous names don't. Not really a big deal, just kinda neat to examine. [1]: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72504/ https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72504/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Selected_publications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Selected_publ...

jcranmer 7y ago
> To be fair, [his Wikipedia page][2] seems to suggest that he's done enough work to have potentially earned a real PhD, had he been enrolled in a PhD program. I see nothing to suggest that. A PhD is fundamentally about doing research to push the boundaries of knowledge. He may be responsible for an impressive amount of software, but replicating what already exists (most of the GNU tools were about rewriting the UNIX utilities from scratch) doesn't qualify a whit towards a PhD.
- _Nat_ 7y ago
  Looking at his biography on Wikipedia, it seems that he: 1. Earned a BS in Physics from Harvard with a near-perfect GPA. 2. Got into a PhD in Physics program. 3. Dropped out of the Physics program to pursue a non-degree-track research program in AI. 4. Published stuff and gave talks. His work around that time sounds like what a typical grad student would be doing, i.e. performing research as a research assistant to a principal investigator: > While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under Gerry Sussman,[13] Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking.[17] This paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems. As of 2009, the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking.[18] The technique of constraint recording, wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.[18] Without looking into precisely what he did, that sounds like the sorta thing someone could type up as a dissertation and defend to earn a PhD.

bitL 7y ago

Technically he doesn't have; but the whole GNU work would be worth of 10 PhDs and I bet many people did their own PhDs on top of work he did. If he was awared 1 or more honorary doctorates (implying the person is a doctor honoris causa), it might be acceptable to call himself a doctor, but not a PhD, which he didn't.