9 ms·

I wish RMS all the best for his health, a long and happy life. I also know that if he reads this, it will be from an Emacs mail client on his dusty ThinkPad in

by jll29 3y ago

I wish RMS all the best for his health, a long and happy life. I also know that if he reads this, it will be from an Emacs mail client on his dusty ThinkPad in text mode (no X11 or Wayland) by sending a URL to a service he wrote that will email him the Web page back - a clean process without any using any tainted proprietary software. He only ever exchanged one sentence with me when we had dinner together with other computer scientists two decades ago in Edinburgh: "I don't do smalltalk." - and he didn't mean the programming language. :)

kaptainscarlet 3y ago
well written. sounds like an accurate description of him
kristofferg 3y ago
Thats hilarious. :) What traumatizing nicety did you subject him to in order to prompt that response?
- jll29 3y ago
  I asked him if besides fighting for free (open source) software, we should also discuss freeing our data from corporate control; that in 2004 (I can now say exactly because he also gave an interview then [1]), so that topic was not much of a thing back then. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html
Biganon 3y ago
The only thing he told me is "this t-shirt implies a political affiliation that isn't mine; I won't sign it." I had asked him to sign my t-shirt, that depicted him with a beret with a Gnu on it, in the style of Che Guevara
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  I think that's a valid and reasonable position of him to take, though. If I ever became a celebrity or public figure I'd be sure to take a course on public-relations and media-training - it's easy to (intentionally or otherwise) turn something innocuous into something worse - Che Guevara is currently a popular figure and a positive inspiration for many, but for many other people he represents a depostic regime that routinely violates human rights - world opinion could very quickly turn against the Che T-shirt meme and I wouldn't want any stories of how I signed something I'd later regret. (Yes, I know about RMS' history too (yes, that history) and I'm not defending that at all - but so far, of what I've seen, he seems to be wanting to avoid being misinterpreted by others, which is something I deeply empathise with, such is life-on-the-spectrum)
  - dudeinjapan 3y ago
    Try wearing that shirt around Miami…
    - MadSudaca 3y ago
      What would happen?
      - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
        The rabid anti-communism of Cuban diaspora in FL is so extreme it's driven them right into the GOP's arms for their votes; the amazing thing is how they've done it despite the racism just-below-the-surface there.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        Agreed. People fleeing Communism are the last people you want to listen to regarding Communism. Dismiss them as rabid and move on.
        calderknight 3y ago
- jraph 3y ago
  A game of trying to make him say something (implying something) he doesn't fully approves of has to be impossible to win. He is way too careful for this.
- drt5b7j 3y ago
  I mean I would've been a lot more rude. It's hard to not take that as an intentional provocation.
  - Biganon 3y ago
    I fail to see how that could be taken as an intentional provocation...?
    - drt5b7j 3y ago
      A) A picture of che Guevara is always an association with communism B) RMS is very well known as someone who is, amongst other things, not a communist. Frankly I fail to see how this could be taken as anything other than a provocation. Why would you have a picture of RMS as Che and then ask him to sign it? The only other explanation I can think of is you're too stupid to not see A or B.
      - jraph 3y ago
        If the person with the t-shirt is both sympathetic to communism or the Che, and RMS, I can see how it can not be a provocation. RMS was probably right not to sign it though. I also believe producing a t-shirt with RMS depicted as the Che is not quite right.
        drt5b7j 3y ago
        Of course the person with T-shirt is sympathetic to communism and RMS, but their sympathy to RMS is very superficial. Otherwise they would know that RMS wouldn't approve. So it's option 2 I guess.
        jraph 3y ago
        Intent matters. It's only a provocation if it's meant to be a provocation. Otherwise it's mere faux-pas, at worst. What's more, you don't necessarily know everything about a person. I would not know anything about RMS's political opinions if I had not read his website a bit, I would only know him for his stance on free software.
- laurent_du 3y ago
  This anecdote makes me respect RMS even more.
- mongol 3y ago
  Definitely good judgement on his part.
- znpy 3y ago
  He was right. Stallman had to fight people comparing free software to communism, and left wing people didn’t help at all in that sense.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> I also know that if he reads this, it will be from an Emacs mail client on his dusty ThinkPad in text mode This is the setup that RMS described using well over a decade ago. Is there any reason to believe he is still using it?
- touisteur 3y ago
  Is there a reason to think a trusty Thinkpad from the times before would ever break down? The man clearly had chosen a worflow for life, which... Good for him. The biggest currency of the 21st century thinkers seems to be attention...
- Clubber 3y ago
  I believe he didn't upgrade because the newer Intel chips had a backdoor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
op00to 3y ago
[flagged]
- yura 3y ago
  He's eccentric, and most people would say that his social skills are subpar. But if you spend more than a few minutes reading his emails or watching him talk you'll realize that he is most definitely /not/ an asshole.
  - op00to 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - vladislavv 3y ago
      I am wondering how many times you feel the need to make effectively slanderous comments about RMS throughout a comment section that is about his dealing with cancer?
    - yura 3y ago
      > I've spent more time with him than I ever neeeded to as his "escort" when he talked to my university's LUG. Dude wouldn't stop staring at women's chests and left my car smelling like a barnyard. We lost female members because of him. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai... If you're going to make an accusation against without any evidence, I figured I might link this website with a compilation of accusations that came up during the cruel smear campaign against him, and their debunkings. I'm not saying that you're lying, just offering both sides of the story to whoever else is reading. Most of the accusations against him have been shown to be misrepresented, greatly exaggerated, or straight-up false.
    - dahart 3y ago
      > "I don't do smalltalk" means "You are not worthy to communicate to me" Isn’t that pure assumption on your part? It could mean ‘I am unable to do small talk’, which is true for many people, especially people on the spectrum, it could have been situationally specific with details the top comment left out, it could be because he prefers to discuss computing, or because (like many people) he truly dislikes empty conversation and has a lot of people trying to talk to him. That little quote taken out of context does not imply or communicate anything about worthiness. Why is your assumption jumping to the most negative possible interpretation of the extremely short detail-free story, when there are simple, likely, and plausible alternatives?
toasteros 3y ago
He uses X11 sometimes! I couldn't quite tell what the DE was, but it might have been XFCE. He found it easier to show us comics in X11 than in textmode emacs, so he swapped to the desktop to do that. This was close to midnight in London when I was helping him get his stuff back to his accommodations (his bag is frikkin HEAVY). He needed to rest for a minute, and he whipped out his laptop to laugh at comics he'd written.
- Thoreandan 3y ago
  As far as I've seen X11 has always been considered Free without-strong-copyleft by rms/GNU. They were /not/ in favor of the proprietary Motif desktop environment, nor the (at the time, non-FLOSS Qt library dependent) KDE (C++) environment, hence the FSF creating the GNOME (C) environment. "...GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get ’em, gnomes!" https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-kde-and-gnome/ https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-... Related - the BSD License: > ...a quote directly from Bostic himself. I asked him about it, after reading this FSF page: "People sometimes ask whether BSD too is a version of GNU, like GNU/Linux. The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped persuade them..." http://techrights.org/o/2020/09/15/rmsf/ http://techrights.org/o/2020/09/15/rmsf/

by jll29 3y ago

kaptainscarlet 3y ago

well written. sounds like an accurate description of him

kristofferg 3y ago

Thats hilarious. :) What traumatizing nicety did you subject him to in order to prompt that response?

jll29 3y ago
I asked him if besides fighting for free (open source) software, we should also discuss freeing our data from corporate control; that in 2004 (I can now say exactly because he also gave an interview then [1]), so that topic was not much of a thing back then. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html

Biganon 3y ago

The only thing he told me is "this t-shirt implies a political affiliation that isn't mine; I won't sign it." I had asked him to sign my t-shirt, that depicted him with a beret with a Gnu on it, in the style of Che Guevara

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
I think that's a valid and reasonable position of him to take, though. If I ever became a celebrity or public figure I'd be sure to take a course on public-relations and media-training - it's easy to (intentionally or otherwise) turn something innocuous into something worse - Che Guevara is currently a popular figure and a positive inspiration for many, but for many other people he represents a depostic regime that routinely violates human rights - world opinion could very quickly turn against the Che T-shirt meme and I wouldn't want any stories of how I signed something I'd later regret. (Yes, I know about RMS' history too (yes, that history) and I'm not defending that at all - but so far, of what I've seen, he seems to be wanting to avoid being misinterpreted by others, which is something I deeply empathise with, such is life-on-the-spectrum)
- dudeinjapan 3y ago
  Try wearing that shirt around Miami…
  - MadSudaca 3y ago
    What would happen?
    - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
      The rabid anti-communism of Cuban diaspora in FL is so extreme it's driven them right into the GOP's arms for their votes; the amazing thing is how they've done it despite the racism just-below-the-surface there.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Agreed. People fleeing Communism are the last people you want to listen to regarding Communism. Dismiss them as rabid and move on.
        calderknight 3y ago
jraph 3y ago
A game of trying to make him say something (implying something) he doesn't fully approves of has to be impossible to win. He is way too careful for this.
drt5b7j 3y ago
I mean I would've been a lot more rude. It's hard to not take that as an intentional provocation.
- Biganon 3y ago
  I fail to see how that could be taken as an intentional provocation...?
  - drt5b7j 3y ago
    A) A picture of che Guevara is always an association with communism B) RMS is very well known as someone who is, amongst other things, not a communist. Frankly I fail to see how this could be taken as anything other than a provocation. Why would you have a picture of RMS as Che and then ask him to sign it? The only other explanation I can think of is you're too stupid to not see A or B.
    - jraph 3y ago
      If the person with the t-shirt is both sympathetic to communism or the Che, and RMS, I can see how it can not be a provocation. RMS was probably right not to sign it though. I also believe producing a t-shirt with RMS depicted as the Che is not quite right.
      - drt5b7j 3y ago
        Of course the person with T-shirt is sympathetic to communism and RMS, but their sympathy to RMS is very superficial. Otherwise they would know that RMS wouldn't approve. So it's option 2 I guess.
        jraph 3y ago
        Intent matters. It's only a provocation if it's meant to be a provocation. Otherwise it's mere faux-pas, at worst. What's more, you don't necessarily know everything about a person. I would not know anything about RMS's political opinions if I had not read his website a bit, I would only know him for his stance on free software.
laurent_du 3y ago
This anecdote makes me respect RMS even more.
mongol 3y ago
Definitely good judgement on his part.
znpy 3y ago
He was right. Stallman had to fight people comparing free software to communism, and left wing people didn’t help at all in that sense.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> I also know that if he reads this, it will be from an Emacs mail client on his dusty ThinkPad in text mode This is the setup that RMS described using well over a decade ago. Is there any reason to believe he is still using it?

touisteur 3y ago
Is there a reason to think a trusty Thinkpad from the times before would ever break down? The man clearly had chosen a worflow for life, which... Good for him. The biggest currency of the 21st century thinkers seems to be attention...
Clubber 3y ago
I believe he didn't upgrade because the newer Intel chips had a backdoor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

op00to 3y ago

[flagged]

yura 3y ago
He's eccentric, and most people would say that his social skills are subpar. But if you spend more than a few minutes reading his emails or watching him talk you'll realize that he is most definitely /not/ an asshole.
- op00to 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - vladislavv 3y ago
    I am wondering how many times you feel the need to make effectively slanderous comments about RMS throughout a comment section that is about his dealing with cancer?
  - yura 3y ago
    > I've spent more time with him than I ever neeeded to as his "escort" when he talked to my university's LUG. Dude wouldn't stop staring at women's chests and left my car smelling like a barnyard. We lost female members because of him. https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai... If you're going to make an accusation against without any evidence, I figured I might link this website with a compilation of accusations that came up during the cruel smear campaign against him, and their debunkings. I'm not saying that you're lying, just offering both sides of the story to whoever else is reading. Most of the accusations against him have been shown to be misrepresented, greatly exaggerated, or straight-up false.
  - dahart 3y ago
    > "I don't do smalltalk" means "You are not worthy to communicate to me" Isn’t that pure assumption on your part? It could mean ‘I am unable to do small talk’, which is true for many people, especially people on the spectrum, it could have been situationally specific with details the top comment left out, it could be because he prefers to discuss computing, or because (like many people) he truly dislikes empty conversation and has a lot of people trying to talk to him. That little quote taken out of context does not imply or communicate anything about worthiness. Why is your assumption jumping to the most negative possible interpretation of the extremely short detail-free story, when there are simple, likely, and plausible alternatives?

toasteros 3y ago

He uses X11 sometimes! I couldn't quite tell what the DE was, but it might have been XFCE. He found it easier to show us comics in X11 than in textmode emacs, so he swapped to the desktop to do that. This was close to midnight in London when I was helping him get his stuff back to his accommodations (his bag is frikkin HEAVY). He needed to rest for a minute, and he whipped out his laptop to laugh at comics he'd written.

Thoreandan 3y ago
As far as I've seen X11 has always been considered Free without-strong-copyleft by rms/GNU. They were /not/ in favor of the proprietary Motif desktop environment, nor the (at the time, non-FLOSS Qt library dependent) KDE (C++) environment, hence the FSF creating the GNOME (C) environment. "...GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get ’em, gnomes!" https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-kde-and-gnome/ https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/stallman-on-qt-the-gpl-... Related - the BSD License: > ...a quote directly from Bostic himself. I asked him about it, after reading this FSF page: "People sometimes ask whether BSD too is a version of GNU, like GNU/Linux. The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped persuade them..." http://techrights.org/o/2020/09/15/rmsf/ http://techrights.org/o/2020/09/15/rmsf/