
Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina - Rauchg
http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/
======
brentvatne
Something similar happened to Tom Preston Werner of Github when he was in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. Conference organizers have a responsibility to
emphasize the high incidence of theft and assist them however possible - most
people coming from developed countries do not have experience with this type
of danger. This seems like a situation that could have been avoided if someone
was keeping an eye on Rms' bag.

~~~
rastingerzoh
rms, he himself, should have kept an eye on the bag, not somebody else...

~~~
nakkiel
I don't understand the downvotes. Care to explain?

~~~
RockyMcNuts
It's a technical talk, not a subway car. He's a guest. It's not realistic, or
hospitable, to expect him to watch his belongings while he's interacting with
his audience. Plus it's a new account that's trolling.

~~~
javert
It's his responsibiity to make sure someone is watching it for him or to watch
it himself, though. In the ideal case, someone would offer to watch it for
him, but I'm guessing that didn't happen here.

That said, I do like the idea (suggested elsewhere) of pooling some money to
get him a new one right away.

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dbbolton
I understand that Stallman is an important figure in the software community,
but this really doesn't qualify as news in my opinion. To be fair, the server
went down so I can't access the article, but unless he had something really
important in that bag, like the only copy of a new C compiler written from
scratch, this article is just a minor inconvenience in the life of a
celebrity.

~~~
nakkiel
He had his passport.

I believe he is currently traveling through South America to give FOSS talks
in many universities. I believe part of the issue is that because of this very
details, it puts an end to his trip which has been rough and marked by health
issues.

What I don't understand is why the post's author dares mentioning how RMS
reacted. A bit of decency is always a nice thing to have, not to mention due
respect.

~~~
kzrdude
Decency? We're adults, we respect him like other humans and we can handle the
real story. At least we should have the decency to.

~~~
nakkiel
You're right on your last point however the way he initially reacted didn't
add anything to the story. It was the nervous reaction of a man who realized
the trip he had spent days organizing was being called off because of one
individual.

Having personally met RMS and knowing other persons that have the same type of
condition, I would say that those people need some respect in the way they
handle emotions and other social artifacts.

Simply throwing a verb doesn't give enough depth for a correct understanding.
In that regard, it's disrespectful.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Whoah, wait, what condition? I wasn't aware that Stallman had any condition
that would cause him to react that way. I even just posted a comment that
touches on that topic. I hope I didn't just sound like a jerk picking on
someone with a mental/emotional disorder I didn't know about.

~~~
nakkiel
Read the second comment on the link.

~~~
billpatrianakos
You mean the second comment on the actual article page? I did. It mentions how
distressed he was and why he was distressed but mentioned no condition. We are
talking about a medical condition, right? I'm sorry, if that's not it then I
might need it spelled out for me. If that is really it then I still think it
was a little bit of an overreaction. I can definitely relate to being _that_
upset but to be punching yourself in the head and carrying on that way where
others can clearly see you is strange to put it nicely.

------
makmanalp
Damn, this is not nice. Maybe HN can pitch in to get him a new laptop? I'd
donate a few bucks.

Edit: What the heck? What's wrong with what I suggested?

~~~
gsivil
I am not so sure that rms cannot afford a laptop. He is in need of more free
models to choose from than a few bucks

~~~
ginko
According to <http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com> RMS would like to have a
real laptop with an open BIOS.

Shouldn't a laptop like the Thinkpad X60 or T60 with Coreboot installed
fulfill that requirement? They are supported according to the coreboot site.

Are there any other potential problems I'm not thinking of? Possibly a
firmware issue with the Intel chipset?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Well, there's probably graphics (?) or something else with proprietary
firmware on it...

------
mrleinad
Considering RMS a careful person, he probably had backups for all the
important information. However, for a person like him, that laptop is probably
much more important: he needs to get a specific laptop that respects his
freedom, as that one did, so he's probably going to be a bit behind on his
e-mails until he gets a proper replacement.

~~~
rastingerzoh
the joys of cloud computing. oh wait...

~~~
creativityhurts
"Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe
three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail,
I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to
catch mistakes and faux pas." <http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/>

Oh well. The interview is from 2010 though.

------
myth_drannon
Well he is not the first celebrity to get robbed in B.A. Bush daughter was
visiting the city, the whole neighbourhood was crawling with CIA agents and
her purse was still stolen...

~~~
mrleinad
Maybe I'm downvoted for this, but I feel a lot worse for RMS than for Bush's
daughter..

------
eta_carinae
> Despite his controversial views on a variety of topics, his evangelism work
> all over the world is a true inspiration for countless people

I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive. He goes around
telling programmers that they should give their code for free and he belittles
anyone who doesn't follow his advice.

~~~
tikhonj
Except he doesn't actually care if you charge for your code. All he cares
about are the rights of the consumer. Now, supporting these rights _does_ make
it somewhat more difficult to charge for your software, but it clearly isn't
impossible: there are companies built around free software. Moreover, if
_everyone_ provided free software, it would actually be easier to charge money
for it because you wouldn't have to compete with proprietary software and drm.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Exactly. Look at Canonical. They give away Ubuntu completely free, yet they
make money out of selling cloud services and support.

~~~
masklinn
Even then, RMS has _no problem_ people selling and buying software, he only
cares that, once a user _has acquired_ the software product, he can alter it
(that's the "free as in freedom" part, as opposed to "free as in beer" which
RMS — as far as I know — doesn't really care for).

Now building a business with these constraint is not — as far as I know — a
solved business model in the general case, but saying that RMS wants
developers to "give their product for free" is a complete and absolute
misrepresentation of his position.

------
EGreg
With so much traveling, all around the world, and dealing with thousands of
people, something's bound to happen.

I hope RMS has an enrypted backup of his data on his home server. It isn't
that hard to do, even if you care deeply about privacy and freedom.

As for the rest of the stuff ... I really hope that the organizers can obtain
the medicine for him in short order. It's the least they can do. The stolen
passport does slow him down, but he should contact the nearest embassy or
consulate and they can help him:

[http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/lostpassport...](http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/lostpassport/lostpassport_1197.html)

The stolen laptop sadly is unlikely to be recovered. The conference organizers
should buy one for him.

Does RMS actually have any money saved up, or just the bare essentials? A
public figure like that should make quite a decent amount of money from
speaking engagements.

~~~
pandres
Most medicines have already been obtained for him. He has friends and the
foundation helping him in Argentina, the main thing is the laptop.

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MehdiEG
That sucks. I would have hoped that the university / event organisers would
have provided any help possible to at least get his paperwork back in order
though. The article makes it sound like he was pretty much left on his own
devices after the theft.

~~~
mrleinad
Yep, he was. Although I find it difficult to think that RMS would find himself
helpless and with no one around that would care for him, I do believe that the
University/Event organizers couldn't care less for what happened.

~~~
pandres
He comes pretty often to latin-america and he has friends and the foundation
helping him at all times. One is still to get pissed of at the amount of time
and work wasted because of this.

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eta_carinae
> The report goes on to convey the truly heartbreaking image of a hopeless RMS
> sitting at the university staircase, crying.

Words fail me.

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devicenull
That has to be perhaps the worst site ever. Without javascript enabled, the
entire article is covered up by a CSS overlay telling me I need to enable
javascript.. all while the actual content I want to read is behind it.

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pgrote
The passport replacement is relatively easy, right?

The bigger concern is the medicine. How does that work with prescription
medicine outside the US?

The laptop is rather unique, so if someone pawned it you would think it could
be hunted down.

~~~
nakkiel
My experience in countries that are less "developed" is that you'll get any
kind of medicine you may need if you're ready to pay the price for it. I'm
sure he'll be fine.

Passport are simple to replace but Visas simply aren't replaced at all. He
could get new Visas under no delay, unfortunately I don't think he has the
_right_ connections for that kind of "fast lane" service.

------
rdl
I wonder if he'll add some basic security precautions (a locking area for his
stuff while speaking) to his fairly detailed rider.

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Turing_Machine
Had his bag stolen -- glad that he's okay! Normally, though, we wouldn't call
this "robbery" in English. Strictly speaking, robbery is used for a theft
where force (or threat of force) is involved.

~~~
shrughes
"Robbery" is often used when force isn't involved. If the object is stolen
while you're nearby, people will often refer to it as a robbery. Outfielders
rob batters of home runs all the time.

The word "rob" is particularly useful because lets the victim be used as the
direct object. If you want to emphasize RMS as a victim of personal theft,
that's the verb to use.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Some people may use it that way but that doesn't make it right.

The baseball example is a figure of speech, not a description of an actual
crime. This was a real crime.

~~~
duaneb
I'm pretty sure peoples' use of the word is the definition of how it is used.

~~~
pemulis
The words have a specific technical meaning in this case, so it's important to
use them correctly. A robbery and a simple theft are treated very differently
under the law. Prescriptive grammar is the only way to go when you're dealing
with a technical system built out of ordinary language, like law or
programming.

------
weslly
That's sad, even though I don't like a lot of things he say I hope he can
recover it soon.

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MindTwister
On android the page is unreadable (at least in Dolphin) because of the
undismissable menu.

------
bdcravens
I gnu I had a great quip about his property and identity being open sourced,
but can't quite put it together.

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rdavl
Hope he had backups...

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billpatrianakos
Reading about Stallman's reaction to this makes me wonder about his mental
stability. "Punching himself in the head"? And cursing? Now, cursing I can
understand but the picture painted in the story makes it look like Stallman
was throwing a tantrum, screaming obscenities, punching himself in the head
and then crying. We all knew he was an eccentric fellow but when you're
punching yourself in the head, in public no less, you have to wonder what else
is going on there. Losing a bag with such important items in it would put
anyone in a pretty upset state. Putting aside who we're talking about I think
a reaction like that definitely deviates from the norm to the point of maybe
crossing the line from eccentricity to instability.

~~~
jrockway
_"Punching himself in the head"?_

FWIW, I don't think the author is a native speaker of English, and may mean
something closer to "facepalm" than "beating the shit out of himself".

~~~
crazy2k_
I don't know if you're quoting me or someone else, but I can tell you I saw
him doing that. It was a bit scary. He also yelled many times and, when he was
at the stairs, he bit his own arm while shouting.

~~~
jrockway
I've been a human for most of my life, and from what I can tell, this is a
pretty typical reaction to losing all your possessions in a foreign country.

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its_so_on
Sorry to hear what happened.

It's interesting that he was at a conference, presumably speaking about what
he always speaks about.

This means his bag and things were to advance his mission, which is kind of to
advance a 'commons'.

it nicely illustrate's RMS's philosophy (gpl). Even though he was speaking to
advance the public good, a private enterprizer took his bag, removing it from
the commons he worked so hard to advance.

RMS's philosophy, code, and bags require the protection of law.

------
asitseems
if he had a chromebook he wouldn't be crying in the stairs. childish

~~~
nakkiel
Seriously, how old are you? I've seen, read, done, ... a lot of stupid things
but you beat all my expectations.

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thejerz
Most of us have cloud backups like Mozy or Carbonite, or keep our documents in
the cloud with tools like Google Docs, iCloud, or Zoho. To us, losing a laptop
is an inconvenience... but not a cause for canceling future engagements. But
RMS is different. He's ethically opposed to the "cloud," calling it a "trap."
That is his prerogative. But you can't cry when you lose your data!!

~~~
ctz
Could you explain how to pass through immigration using a passport stored in
the cloud?

~~~
uvdiv
Well why not?

A serious question: what's the advantage of physical identity cards over
digitally-signed documents + two-factor?

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discore
I can't resist wondering if RMS has brought up the licensing of his medication
with his doctor, who looked at him quizzically.

