
How I do my computing - fs111
https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
======
AdamN
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." \- George Bernard Shaw

We should all be thankful to rms for his unreasonableness. It has literally
been the underpinning of so much of what we take for granted vis-a-vis free
software.

~~~
rocky1138
I often worry about what the world will look like after he dies. There doesn't
seem to be a RMSjr in the wings anywhere.

~~~
Istof
I would be really surprised if he followed his advices 100% of the time, but
they sure are a good start for getting you to think.

~~~
Sir_Substance
You're seriously asking yourself if a man who doesn't own a mobile phone or
credit card is sneaking some CS:GO on the sly?

I doubt it.

------
userbinator
_I want stallman.org to remain simple: not a "user experience" but rather a
place where I present certain information, views and action opportunities to
you._

...and as a result, I think it gives a very good "user experience" \- I wish
more webpages were like this, plain and informative without distractions.

~~~
wenderen
I wish more sites were like this.

1\. It loads lightning fast on my 512 kbps connection.

2\. The font is preinstalled on my system, no separate request needs to be
made.

3\. It's easy to tell what is a link and what isn't.

4\. Scrolling works like I'd expect it to, and doesn't involve any clever
"transition" effects. More generally, there are next to no distracting
animations or effects on the entire page.

~~~
pi-squared
[http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

~~~
Void_
I don't understand why these need to use swear words and aggressive tone?
Wouldn't it work just as well without them?

~~~
archimedespi
I agree. It's offensive to the very people who these sites _(apparently)_ want
to change, thus they're less likely to change.

~~~
ajkjk
Very much disagree. It's written for developers, and I've never met any
developer who finds profanity offensive.

And, more importantly, it makes the whole thing much more eye-catching. It's a
fun way to a deliver a message - as a vitriolic, spit-flying rant. It would be
ineffective if it was friendly and delicate.

~~~
Void_
I'm a developer and I dislike work environment where swear words are uttered
every 10 seconds. Dunno about US, but here in Slovakia swear words are used
mostly by teenagers and uneducated people with lousy jobs.

~~~
ajkjk
Well, you wouldn't see a rant like this in an actual work environment in the
US; that would be wildly inappropriate. But I think most developers are
completely okay with this in reading material, once in a while. They certainly
wouldn't be _offended_ by it, in the sense of it having a strong emotional
effect.

Depending on the company, swearing might not be tolerated at all. At my
company it's fairly common, but I only do it when in meetings with people I'm
fairly comfortable around (my team, my manager, people I commonly work with).

~~~
brianwawok
Clearly you have never worked in the trading industry ;)

------
suprgeek
We are - all of us - the slowly boiling frogs of the story.

Google, Netflix, Amazon, Uber & AirBnb - What you search for & e-mail about,
What you watch, What you buy, Where you travel to & from & Where you stay -
perfect tracking of everything. Add NSA & others on top & 1984 seems like a
poor cousin of the world we live in.

We need some one like Richard to show us what the COLD water looks like. Not
the slightly boiled one, not the warm one, the COLD water. Zero tracking of
anything as much as possible.

He has lived his life trying to be as true to his philosophy as he can - at
great personal cost & a LOT of sacrifice. I have personally seen some of the
medical issues & his assets as such if any are shockingly meager for someone
so well thought of (not something he will admit). Not like most of us (me
included) - who will give up any data if it means a little bit of convenience.

Please consider donating:
[https://my.fsf.org/donate/](https://my.fsf.org/donate/)

------
mark_l_watson
I always enjoy Richard's writing. I would like to take more of his advice but
some practicalities interfere, mostly about social media. I tend to not post
much personal stuff on social media but posting links to my recent blog
articles, new books I have written, and when I release open source software is
very valuable to me because it increases the number of people I get connected
with. He is absolutely correct about the dangers of losing privacy on social
media.

I have considered the all free laptop route and technically this would not
hurt my writing and work efforts, but I like to experiment with new stuff, and
I really enjoy having a Windows 8.1 and a Mac laptop to experiment with, in
addition to my Linux laptop. I have the bizarre work habit of rotating between
Linux, Windows, and OS X every four or five hours. My work flow is the same,
and I enjoy the variety so much that the slight change-over effort is
worthwhile. This is a stupid habit that I should probably change.

Stallman is really important for our tech community and I personally like his
political stands. +1000 for Richard Stallman.

------
jaimebuelta
There is an extremely interesting post describing what a few days living with
RMS look like. It describes a trip of RMS to Spain, to give a talk in Majorca
University.

It get to great length to describe how uncompromising and coherent with his
views RMS is, to the point of showing how tough it is for him and everyone
around.

Unfortunately, the post is only available in Spanish:

[https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-
richard...](https://gallir.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/un-viaje-con-richard-
stallman-esa-persona/)

Google translate version is relatively good:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fgallir.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F10%2F29%2Fun-
viaje-con-richard-stallman-esa-persona%2F&edit-text=&act=url)

I think is fascinating insight...

------
lmorris84
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I give so little thought
to many of these things.

I have a Spotify subscription, I'm watching the Football on Sky Go which uses
Silverlight, I'm using a browser rather than emailing myself web pages.

A lot of this is just bizarre and I just don't see non-free software as
inherently evil.

~~~
tokai
Its a bad thing. While you may not agree with Stallman's analysis of the
morality of software, should everyone think about the tools they use - not
just their apparent functionality, but also the broader ramifications of
characteristics of said tools.

The world would be a better place if fewer people just went on autopilot and
short-term gratification.

~~~
rimantas
There is also an option that you can think long and hard about the tools you
use and come to conclusion, that Stallman is wrong. And there is nothing wrong
with that.

~~~
mariojv
Yes, this is a good option. I view Stallman's writings the way I view most
polemics. While they're useful in understanding the roots of an idea and
challenging the way things are, they often aren't practical. If everybody had
to use a computer the way Stallman does, they probably wouldn't use computers.

The benefit accessibility, which unfortunately often relies on non-free
software, provides is of great value to many people.

Stallman has the privilege of an education from MIT where he learned the ins-
and-outs of computing and is able to function efficiently with this knowledge.
I have friends who have to work for subsistence wages who simply wouldn't have
the time nor the energy to learn everything about how to use fully free
software, and they get huge benefits from using the Internet.

My mute brother often uses proprietary voice assistance software to speak that
locks him into Apple's platform. He doesn't care. The benefits of him being
able to communicate efficiently _far_ outweigh the cost in terms of both the
cost of the software and the "dangers" of using proprietary software.
Admittedly, I'd like it if I could modify the source code, but it's better
than starting from scratch.

Even his stance on cell phones ignores the concerns of many people. I don't
know where Stallman lives, but I'm betting it's a pretty safe area for him. He
can live without a cell phone because the likelihood that he will need to call
911 when he's out and about is low. Constant tracking is bad, but being
assaulted is worse.

All that being said, I wish more software was free. It'd lead to more eyes on
the software everyone is using which would probably improve it a lot in terms
of functionality, security, and performance. It's hard for one person or a
small group of people to have expertise in every area that a good piece of
modern software requires.

~~~
icebraining
I think this is an uncharitable reading of the page. rms' stance doesn't
ignore the concerns of people, because it isn't a proclamation telling how
people should live; it's just a description of how _he_ lives.

The only parts that proscribe are the sections about DRM, and even those are
not "you should sacrifice yourself to oppose DRM" but "only buy DRMed content
if you can break it", which is more a personal advice than a moral
commandment.

In general, rms doesn't tell software users they are bad people for using
proprietary software or for allowing tracking; he's just alerting people about
the dangers of doing so. His criticisms are usually solely directed at
software _producers_ and at the organizations that track people.

~~~
studentrob
There are plenty of places rms suggests other people follow his ways,

"let's reject any social networking site which insists on connecting an
account to a person's real identity"

Or just search the page for the word "should" or "you"

I agree with him but let's not pretend he isn't proselytizing

------
JosephRedfern
What is meant by: "I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C
and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)"?

~~~
stingraycharles
I think it's supposed to be a joke, referencing Java (the island) in
Indonesia.

~~~
smitherfield
I assumed he meant he wrote Java that looked like (i.e. was idiomatically
similar to) C or Lisp.

------
Yawnoc2
_I think it is important for free software to provide free graphical user
interface software, which is why the GNU Project arranged to launch three
projects to develop that. The third, GNOME, was successful, so we never needed
a fourth one._

Does anybody know what the first two GNU windowing systems were? Is he talking
about GNUstep?

 _A friend once asked me to watch a video with her that she was going to
display on her computer using Netflix. I declined, saying that Netflix was
such an affront to freedom that I could not be party to its use under any
circumstances whatsoever. These streaming dis-services are malicious
technology designed to make people antisocial._

Right, Richard, it's the _Netflix_ users who are antisocial, not the people
who get irate when their "friend" tries to load a website.

~~~
mjrbrennan
This really irked me too. Sounds like he would be great fun to be friends
with. I guess if I made it my full time job to avoid every modern product or
service possible I wouldn't have much time to be social or have fun either.

------
chestervonwinch
This may not be a direct comment rms's computing habits, but it's related and
as good a place as any bring it up. I've been trying to reconcile two views on
free software. I like to think about it in terms of car ownership because its
more tangible to me:

As a car owner, I should have the freedom to open my car, inspect its inner
workings, change/fix things as desired, and share my knowledge others. The
ability to openly inspect the inner workings also allows me to assure that the
car is only performing operations I purchased it to perform.

However, as a car developer, I cannot possibly hope to make money by giving
the car away for free. There have been significant hours invested into the
design of the car. Sure, there's money to made in maintenance, but
realistically most people don't care about routine maintenance. They'd rather
buy the car and ride it 'til the wheels fall off - maybe an oil change here
and there.

Are these two views fundamentally incompatible? Does anyone pay an upfront
cost for free software in recognition of the time spent building/designing the
product as they might with proprietary?

~~~
bane
One of the arguments of the movement is that by participating in it, by giving
away your labor to all mankind, others can benefit and this works vis-a-versa,
others give away their labor so you can benefit as well.

The problem of course is that this also says that labor is worthless and
nobody gets to eat and find shelter unless they have some significant
patronage. So sure I can build my _Sprocket-Cog Software_ more easily because
many of the software components that go into it are available to me for free
(beer) so long as I free the entire thing at the end (freedom).

The follow-on argument is that you can always try to build a services model
around _Sprocket-Cog Software_ and live from that. But there's a subtle
implication there that building turnkey software is not an option if you want
to live, but making broken, user-hostile, hard-to-use software is the only
morally "good" option.

(there's another argument that can be dismissed that you aren't prohibited
from selling your software commercially under the right license, but that's a
stupid argument, nobody will buy software from you if you just make it
available for free (beer) anyways, so your only valid option (and the only one
that has so far sorta "worked" in the marketplace is to provide services)

RMS of course dismisses all of this with a bunch of handwaivyness, like he
does issues with hardware, food, etc. because he simply doesn't have to worry
about them (because he has money) or because he can't find a path he can
personally follow. It's hard to take claims about morality seriously when they
only apply to software and not anything else that's far more embedded in life.

~~~
vinceguidry
It is not because he has money that he can find a personal path to follow, he
really doesn't. His speaking fee is modest, his position at MIT is unpaid. He
lives like a student, if you've ever read that long document he asks others to
read if they book him for a speaking gig, can't find a link to it at the
moment, it's mostly about avoiding unnecessary expense and distraction.

~~~
bane
You do realize that he is actually in possession of a reasonably large amount
of money and can live independently (if frugally) without payment for the rest
of his life.

~~~
c22
But he wasn't in possession of it when he initially developed his views, was
he?

~~~
vinceguidry
And it's not like his lifestyle changed after he won those prizes, either.

------
Mahn
I don't know, I appreciate his convictions and what he does, but I don't
believe software in general would be where it is today if it weren't for
commercial and closed source software. Google and Apple have done a lot to
shape the world we live in today despite being "unethical" in terms of
openness.

~~~
nfoz
Software would not be "where it is today"; it would be a fundamentally
different place. Many of us see that place as being far better than what we
have.

It's strange to me that you mention Google and Apple, because in both cases
they built their empires largely on using open-source software that was
available to them, and keeping some software closed isn't obviously relevant
to their business model or success.

~~~
mcmillion
Out of curiosity, what would make that place better?

------
sudioStudio64
People should be really thankful that RMS is out there making all of these
issues visible. People might not even know that these issues could effect them
in the future if it weren't for a vanguard standing up and taking notice now.

~~~
ams6110
I would bet that the _vast_ majority of people who use computers and the
internet have never heard of Richard Stallman and never think about these
issues at all.

------
ikeboy
So he thinks emails can't be spied on. He doesn't mention which computer runs
the email wget-like program, but if it's traceable to him, then it's
trackable, or if the email isn't encrypted at any step. He doesn't mention
using PGP for that, and without that it's likely that the emails are in plain-
text.

About DRM: he seems to say that if you can break it, it's ok to use it, even
if it's unfree. Also, is Netflix breakable? I don't use it myself, but I was
once told you can rip the movies with some programs.

~~~
jordigh
> So he thinks emails can't be spied on

Quite the contrary. Since the Snowden revelations, all of his emails have the
following header:

    
    
        [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
        [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
        [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

~~~
ikeboy
>One consequence of this method is that most of the survellance [sic] methods
used on the Internet can't see me.

That's what I based my comment on.

Although he's changed, apparently, according to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9559834)

~~~
simoncion
Compare the _number_ of government-level full-take Internet surveillance
programs to the number of surveillance programs run by small "analytics" and
"customer engagement" companies.

By this measure, browsing the web through an email proxy renders most
surveillance methods blind to your activities.

~~~
ikeboy
It would still depend on where the email proxy is running, though.

Anyway, a regular free vpn (from his description, I'm sure he'd never exceed
the limits) would achieve the same goals (and he could still use lynx et al
and browse offline). Hell, browsing with javascript and cookies turned off
shoud already defeat most surveillance, plus maybe change your IP every so
often.

~~~
simoncion
I agree with your comments in the second sentence of your second paragraph.

However, you're moving the goalposts. You said: "So [RMS] thinks emails can't
be spied on [because he said 'One consequence of <my internet browsing> method
is that most of the survellance methods used on the Internet can't see me.'".
My comment illuminated the reasoning behind RMS's use of the word "most" and
addressed your misunderstanding of the same.

~~~
ikeboy
That's fair. My reasoning was something like "this seems specifically designed
to obscure IP, the only attackers likely to be able to do something about IP
can also read email, therefore RMS doesn't know what he's talking about with
regard to a threat model here". This was mostly implicit, which lead to my
claim above that he thinks email is secure; it seemed like the only way to
justify his claims for any threat model.

~~~
simoncion
I hope that you now understand that your initial claim was mistaken. :)

------
acqq
Previously on HN (282 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3809836)

An idea: if somebody makes the diff between the page then and now we can talk
about what he changed since the previous discussion and also refer to the
previous discussion for the unchanged aspects.

~~~
fs111
Why is hn not redirecting me to me to the old submission? Should be trivial to
implement...

~~~
tokenizerrr
It would have done this had it been posted recently. Instead, you are allowed
to repost articles every few months.

------
magice
You know, my feeling for rms is quite bipolar. On one hand, I respect the
severity of his commitment. On the other hand, as time passes, he sounds more
and more like those extremist whackjobs. Seriously.

For example, what is wrong with paying for digital services on the web? I
mean, serious, what is wrong with it? Or, I found his opinion on Netflix quite
funny. Netflix never intends to sell its users anything. The whole premise is
to watch without buying. Like library (but you pay for the service). You can't
exactly complain that you can't, says, tear apart a library book, can you? So,
why DRM on Netfix a problem? The users don't own those video! Well o well.

~~~
vollmond
I don't think he finds paying for digital services unethical, but he chooses
not to since that payment is always personally identifiable (since you have to
have an account, use a credit card, etc). He has 2 major stances outlined here
-- an ethical opinion on free software, and a personal choice on privacy.

------
totony
> However, I can suggest that it may be wise to use an email service that is
> not connected with your search engine. That way you can be almost sure that
> your email contents don't influence your search results. You shouldn't
> identify yourself to your search engine in any case.

I don't understand this, if it makes your searches more relevant to you,
what's wrong?

I used duckduckgo for a while, but the results were very poor compared to
Google, since Google knows what i usually search (i.e. programing-related
stuff, not cooking or w/e) and what interests me.

If you fear about being prosecuted, then sure don't use the service, or you
could also fight to improve regulations.

~~~
vollmond
The search bubble may benefit you on occasion (such as your programming
example), but it will affect you on every search, showing you mostly results
with similar politics, etc, to the sources you already read.

[http://dontbubble.us/](http://dontbubble.us/)

------
runn1ng
First time I am reading about "Libreboot X200" (computer with pre-installed
Trisquel and, by their own words, 100% free software)

[http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/](http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/)

I thought RMS is still using his old Leemote. Evidently not.

~~~
runn1ng
Haha. From the requirements for the "free software certification"

[http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-
criteria](http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria)

Specifically, the seller must use the term "GNU/Linux" for any reference to an
entire operating system which includes GNU and Linux, not "Linux" or "Linux-
based system" or "a system with the Linux kernel" or any other term that
mentions "Linux" without "GNU". Likewise, the seller must talk about "free
software" more prominently than "open source."

....am I the only one, or does it seem petty to anyone else?

~~~
devcpp
The first part is rather pertinent. Android is precisely bad because it
contains very little of GNU, which allows Google to develop the OS on an
Apache license, and is the root of our closed-source Android problem. See
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-
freedom.htm...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html)

The second part is also problematic, first because it's inaccurate (MIT- and
BSD-licensed software is also open source but not free software i.e copyleft,
which is bad), and second because it misses the point of free software:
allowing others to use your work without contributing back is is very
comparable to the right to enslave. So free software says that software being
free is more important than people being free to do what they want with it.
Much like we generally think that people being free is more important than
others being free to do what they want to their neighbors.

So it's only petty if you're not accustomed to these ideas, which you are
supposed to be anyway if you go through the effort of reading these rules.
That's why this label exists after all: so you don't have to give it as much
thought as these people did.

~~~
Sanddancer
MIT/BSD are free software though; Open Source adds licenses that allow viewing
the source, but have various restrictions on redistribution. They're just not
copyleft. Regarding Android, Google provides the source, and there was nothing
precluding them from using something like DirectFB instead to build android
on. With such a system, you'd end up with something that looks a lot like
gtk/gnome, which "...is licensed using the LGPL license, so you can develop
open software, free software, or even commercial non-free software using GTK"
[1].

Additionally, it makes for awkward copy. Made with GNU/Linux can be mentally
parsed a few different ways; it could mean they're joined, or could mean an
either or. Furthermore, the FSF shows their pettiness in other ways, such as
how they cram GNU/ into the names of Linux distributions that don't use it
[2]. Their actions on this front just end up feeling petty and petulant.

[1] [https://developer.gnome.org/gtk-
tutorial/stable/c24.html](https://developer.gnome.org/gtk-
tutorial/stable/c24.html)

[2] [http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-
distros.html](http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html)

------
scriptproof
"After a few years I found out that this was due to the hard keys of my
keyboard." Several years? Because doctors are not free? (joke)

------
dmytrish
"I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C.
But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but the code was
in C and Lisp (I simply happened to be in Java at the time)."

\- could someone explain this passage?

Edit: does he mean the island Java?

~~~
joesmo
I think so--seems to be a bit of a joke.

------
fixxer
Relatively speaking, Netflix is like a chorus of angels when all you've known
is Comcast.

Can anyone outline the argument against Netflix, Spotify, etc.? I don't
follow. Is he suggesting the content should be free?

~~~
dbbolton
No, both the FSF and rms have repeatedly said that charging for software (or
content) is perfectly fine. His issue is with the licensing and DRM.

Here is one of the FSF's sites about DRM:
[https://www.defectivebydesign.org/](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/)

Personally I do use Netflix and I don't think that the company or its users
are unethical, but ultimately if there were a reasonably priced service that
offered DRM-free content and didn't rely on closed-source plugins and apps, I
would switch in a heartbeat.

~~~
wampus
My guess is that Netflix couldn't negotiate agreements for a lot of the
content that makes the service attractive without relenting on DRM. We'll know
when Netflix turns evil, because it will force you to sit through commercials
and previews before showing you the content you want and paid to see.

~~~
dbbolton
I think you are absolutely right. It's not content providers that are pushing
for DRM, it's content producers. There's absolutely no way a rightsholder
would let Netflix show their content if, god forbid, there was any remote
possibility that a user could download and use their content outside of a
controlled environment.

In some ways it parallels internet piracy. ISPs for the most part are sick of
policing their users and sending out C&D letters for copyright infringement,
but they more or less have to due to pressure from major studios.

~~~
MichaelGG
Then check to see if DRM is needed to see Netflix "original" content.

~~~
dbbolton
It would be asinine of them to use different players/plugins for different
content.

------
melling
"The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or
its variant, Scheme), you don't know what it means for a programming language
to be powerful and elegant."

You would have thought that rms would have made more of an effort to build a
great Lisp on which to build better free software. Developers would be much
more productive in _Lisp_ than C or Java, for example.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Lisp looks to me to be slower, use more memory, and be wordier than C:

[http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/compare.php?lang=sbcl&lang2=gcc)

~~~
xenophonf
As with many benchmarks, you're comparing apples and oranges. A better
comparison would be with another language that uses automatic memory
management (e.g., C#/mono -
[http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?te...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=sbcl&lang2=csharp&data=u32)).
I'm assuming the optimization/safety settings are the defaults, too, which
means SBCL ends up doing a lot of additional type checking at runtime.

~~~
igouy
>>A better comparison would be with another language that uses automatic
memory management…<<

The default comparison is to Java:
[http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/lisp.html](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/lisp.html)

>>I'm assuming the optimization/safety settings are…<<

They are shown:
[http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/program.php?tes...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/program.php?test=nbody&lang=sbcl&id=2#log)

------
Havoc
aka very slowly. The web browsing part in particular sounds downright glacial.

~~~
carlosrg
The web browsing part is obsolete. In the last LibrePlanet he said he now uses
the GNU IceCat browser (free software distribution of Firefox + several
privacy protection add-ons,
[http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/](http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/))
with Tor.

~~~
dorfsmay
Also, keep in mind that one of the reason he wasn't using a web browser was
that he often only had time to read articles and other material from the web
when he did not have access to the internet (airplanes, trains, cars, taking a
rest while hiking in a mountain, etc...), so he used this technique to treat
the internet like offline emails.

~~~
tedunangst
It also, intentionally or not, allows him to remain uninformed through an
email thread. Stallman makes a claim (perhaps about some projects licensing
policy), someone refutes the claim with a link to the policy, stallman dodges
with "I can't browse the web, but based on what I was told..."

------
motxilo
I would like to understand why he's got an account on Twitter. Yes, he uses to
proxy his credentials to other sites, but I see the other reasons for not
having an account on other sites also applying in the case of Twitter.

------
AnonJ
His ideas are mostly hugely idealistic and categorical, ignoring real world
scenarios and downplaying the downsides of free softwares. People who believe
in complete anarchy can perfectly choose to live in their enclosed community,
but if the world were to follow their way of living it would be a total
disaster. Though of course debating their ideas would contribute to the
development of practical, real world ideas in some ways. Better to have such a
voice around than not, of course, but most people, after thinking it through,
would just rightly reject taking his ideas verbatim.

------
amelius
"The Google+ account using my name is also not mine."

and then

"Google+ offers to hide the user's real name, but demands people prove an
"established identity" or provide ID."

Sounds contradictive.

~~~
quadrangle
That's not a contradiction. He says "someone signed up an account in my name,
it's not me" and "I happen to now that G+ has certain rules, and I don't like
them" and incidentally the rules prohibit someone from impersonating him on
G+, but that doesn't mean the rules have perfect enforcement.

------
bitL
I am not sure why anyone cares how RMS does his computing? Would you complain
about Michelangelo using his chisel in a certain way and not in your preferred
way? Or Gaudi drawing just with ordinary pencils on a thin paper instead of
using all the technology available in his age for initial drawings of his
architectural wonders? Get over it.

~~~
normloman
Everyone knows the technique you use influences the final work. If I draft a
novel by talking into a tape machine, it's gonna come out different if I wrote
it on paper.

------
mmrasheed
A truly remarkable tech veteran, Richard Matthew Stallman is. My utmost
respect for you, sir.

This webpage and its content made me thinking about the purpose of internet as
both communication media and e-commerce. Can someone picture the alternative
internet following contents of that page as guideline?

------
dogma1138
I wonder if this guy also does not have bank accounts, credit cards, phones
(land or cell) to their name, and all live in a cabin in the woods without
paying taxes.

It's also a bit odd that for a guy who intentionally buys a 10+ year old or so
hardware to run free/libreboot on it (at least partially to trust the boot
layers), didn't mind buying a Chinese laptop which was not only made in China,
but also designed from parts natively developed in China including the CPU by
a government institute.

His browsing habits are also a bit well laughable tbh, both because at the end
even if he hogs the free WiFI at Starbucks he is traceable, and delivering
internet pages of email ins't intrinsically more secure or surveillance
resilient than browsing them directly.

This guy always interested me in some ways, it's quite amazing how one can be
so talented and so coo coo for cocoa puffs at the same time, and in contrast
to the usual extreme left social anarchists or marxists also very
accomplished.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_in contrast to the usual extreme left social anarchists or marxists also very
accomplished_

I can't find any evidence for him being either of these things. He has
described himself as a Liberal [1], and praised Dennis Kucinich, whose
political positions are quite progressive, but hardly "extreme left
anarchist/Marxist" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, these kinds of
views are pretty mainstream in Western Europe and other places.

[1] [https://stallman.org/archives/2009-sep-
dec.html#10%20Decembe...](https://stallman.org/archives/2009-sep-
dec.html#10%20December%202009%20%28Obama%20is%20no%20Liberal%29)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Dennis_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Dennis_Kucinich)

~~~
dogma1138
I suggest your read his essays, I've never said he's a Marxist, but his creed
to stick to his principles is very similar to some extreme left organizations.
And no sorry, but his views are not mainstream in Western Europe, I live in
London, I've lived in Frankfurt and in Amsterdam, and I spend most of my
summers in Iceland per the orders from my "female unit", while some of his
views might be shared with more or less with main stream views in modern
democracies including the US btw, the reasoning behind his views, and the
vigilance and the veracity in which he practices them even if it hurts certain
organizations (take a look at his protests against OLPC when they decided to
look into Windows which actually resulted in them losing some funding), heck
he and his marry band went to Peru to protest OLPC's being delivered with
Windows in hoping to build up enough counter pressure to actually revert that
decision.

Now being a vanguard for free software is one thing, but using your reputation
to go and protest children in developing nations getting PC's because they've
switched from GNU to Windows? That's some hard core vegan shit there like
dying because you refuse to eat a burger.. So yep I do hold his views and
actions as extremes, not all of them ofc, some i might even agree on in
practice if not in justification.

~~~
throwawayaway
you've made an analogy saying a protest for your beliefs is like dying for
your beliefs?

and you are calling somebody an extremist?

talk about hyperbole.

~~~
dogma1138
The guy protests charity's that get money from Bill Gates, he actively
attempted to prevent children from getting computers under the OLPC's program
because they could run Windows with a 7$ extension card.

When Steve Jobs died he made this post on his site:

Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever
fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley,
"I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to
die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than
theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's
computing.

Sorry but i don't need a hyperbole to relate my position that this guy has
quite a few extreme views, and takes quite a few extreme actions.

P.S. Wanting to cancel a program that was aimed at bringing computing to
children in underdeveloped nations is actually worse than dying out of
stubbornness for your beliefs, it's actively denying people who have very
little just because you think that running Windows is a Sin, this is the
equivalent of Christians evangelists holding out donations to African
countries that do not institute anti-gay and anti-sodomy laws.

~~~
throwawayaway
i think you've levelled some very hyperbolic accusations re his OLPC protests.

can you provide me with the source materials for these protests? i'm not
really accepting them at face value, due to your previous hyperbole.

in many cases you can protest against behaviour whilst allowing that behaviour
to continue. peaceful protest versus using violence for example.

thanks for the apology re the previous hyperbole.

here's links to the steve jobs statements that you find so extreme, in case
anyone is particularly interested in them(rather than reading the shortened
version you have presented)

[https://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html#06_October_2...](https://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html#06_October_2011_\(Steve_Jobs\))

[https://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html#27_October_2...](https://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-
oct.html#27_October_2011_%28Steve_Jobs%29)

i'm sure most people have said similar about those who have passed who do not
have their enduring admiration.

------
jongdubois
Maybe if he tried to learn some of these other tools which he currently 'has
no time for' \- He would realize quickly that they pay for themselves in time
saved. I guess it's probably more of a sentimental thing for him though.

------
ulkesh
While I admire RMS's passion on freedom and privacy and the abhorrence of
using non-free (free-as-in-freedom) software, I just wonder what he'll do or
feel when non-free software has to be used to save his life one day.

~~~
bcrawl
Could you please qualify your statement with an example.

In his essay, He has already mentioned that he considers Microwaves, TV's,
ATM's as utilities and has no qualms,

>"if updating software is not a normal part of use of the device, then it is
not a computer.",

So, it derives that he is OK with flying on planes (which has proprietary
software but is not prone to updates like your PC software is) or maybe an MRI
machine or an Xray machine of the sorts for your life threatening scenario you
mentioned. These are utilities.

~~~
sullyj3
That seems like a really flimsy distinction. I would've assumed the software
on planes and MRI machines gets updated.

~~~
tedunangst
For that matter, I don't really consider updating my iPhone "normal use"
though I'm pretty sure it doesn't get an exception given his remarks about
"iThings".

~~~
simoncion
Do you consider updating the apps installed on your iPhone to be a part of
"normal use"?

~~~
tedunangst
That happens automatically, so don't think much about it. Back when you had to
do it manually, I almost never did.

Now, I don't consider updates to be _abnormal_ , but neither is it something
I'd ever list in response to "how do you normally use your phone?"

Or my kindle. I update the software on that far less frequently.

~~~
simoncion
So, software upgrades are _such_ a normal part of the day-to-day operation of
an iPhone that they happen automatically.

Thus, the iPhone is _very much_ a computer.

Contrast this with -say- most computer monitors. There _is_ software running
in them, but -in (almost?) every case- upgrading that software requires either
gaining access to programming ports inside the monitor and performing an
arcane ritual that might involve specialized hardware or physically swapping
out chips.

------
alansmitheebk
RMS is a genius programmer but debating his opinions about what makes for a
better website is like Debating Don Knuth's opinions about what makes for a
better email client. We canonize these people and yet they are luddites.

------
dreamdu5t
Stallman is a leech. He lives off the productivity of others. His lifestyle
and brand is a luxury afforded to him by being employed by academic
institutions. His free software is only possible because other people sell
software and hardware. He is arrogant and naive, not revolutionary.

~~~
gargarplex
We need the left to balance the right.

------
throwawayaway
how dare he snipe at UX like that. who does he think he is?

