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Richard Stallman’s rider

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Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#21

Post by jolie »

Portmanager wrote: post #19

RMS is quite unkempt, his feet stink like a hobo. In general he has a retarded way of dealing with people, not a nice person to be in touch with. Just my 2 cents. PS: I did not mention his philosophy, neithe if his ideas are wrong. I just said he's got a bad personal hygiene and that he is has a retarded way of dealing with people, here are some quotes: http://edward.oconnor.cx/2005/04/rms It is plain wrong to offer…

RMS is a delightful man (I've had the pleasure of interviewing him at length in person), and his demands are completely in line with his philosophies. His dedication to free and open-source ideals, if impractical, is also inspiring and rare.

Saying he has "a retarded way of dealing with people" is perhaps too general. I myself found him enchanting and enlightening in our interactions. Maybe you just didn't like the way he treated you.

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#22

Post by luigi »

heyrhett wrote: post #7

All of his demands are either directly related to his health or the moral causes that he champions. He is specific and verbose. Some of these things might seem strange to people who are younger than 50 years old, and aren't flown around the world to give hundreds of talks. I think that this demonstrates the value of a clear and verbose contract.

Verbose means excessively wordy. I think you mean succinct.

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#23

Post by marquis »

jolie wrote: post #21
Portmanager wrote: post #19

RMS is quite unkempt, his feet stink like a hobo. In general he has a retarded way of dealing with people, not a nice person to be in touch with. Just my 2 cents. PS: I did not mention his philosophy, neithe if his ideas are wrong. I just said he's got a bad personal hygiene and that he is has a retarded way of dealing with people, here are some quotes: http://edward.oconnor.cx/2005/04/rms It is plain wrong to offer…

RMS is a delightful man (I've had the pleasure of interviewing him at length in person), and his demands are completely in line with his philosophies. His dedication to free and open-source ideals, if impractical, is also inspiring and rare. Saying he has "a retarded way of dealing with people" is perhaps too general. I myself found him enchanting and enlightening in our interactions. Maybe you just didn't like the w…

He certainly manages to get your attention. I saw him speak many years ago, the room was full of young, passionate enthusiasts and true to form even with his unkempt appearance we were glued to every word. I have no doubt he has been almost entirely responsible for maintaining the high profile nature of free software (for all his complaints about 'open source', the side affect has been to create a rich culture of sharing while producing work you can get paid for).

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#25

Post by Arjuna »

iqster wrote: post #14

Heh ... reminds me of the story of Van Halen's rider - no brown M&Ms or they have the right to not play the event (without penalty)! This actually served a purpose. The had exacting specs for some of their pyrotechnics. They reasoned that if someone had adhered to the rider carefully enough to notice the M&Ms clause, they likely would have been exacting for the other specifications as well.

For those that want to read more about the "Van Halen and M&Ms" story:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839581

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#27

Post by jessriedel »

luigi wrote: post #22
heyrhett wrote: post #7

All of his demands are either directly related to his health or the moral causes that he champions. He is specific and verbose. Some of these things might seem strange to people who are younger than 50 years old, and aren't flown around the world to give hundreds of talks. I think that this demonstrates the value of a clear and verbose contract.

Verbose means excessively wordy. I think you mean succinct.

"Verbose" is definitely the wrong word if he's defending this contract. Not sure I would call it "succict"; maybe "thorough" or "explicit".

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#28

Post by seiji »

tptacek wrote: post #18

This is charming; gives a sense of the guy; seems like it would be useful information. Who thinks to say "do not buy me a parrot"?

For such a specific rule, it must have happened before.

I'd wager somebody once gave him a parrot for breakfast.

"Good morning, sir. Your host ordered you a breakfast of eggs over easy and a parrot we've named Lenny, The Open Source Linux Parrot sponsored by Coke®."

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#29

Post by pavel_lishin »

runjake wrote: post #6
quanticle wrote: post #3

I don't see anything there that's especially unreasonable. When Stallman gives a speech he knows he's representing GNU and the FSF. The rider basically obligates the organization to tell Stallman in advance what kind of venue he's going to, and warns the organization that there will be a large crowd, so that they should plan accordingly. In his position, I'm sure that I'd have similar clauses in any agreement to talk…

I'm not sure if the message was posted to the list to criticize Stallman or whatever. And I was thinking the same thing as you, until I got down to the second half of the rider. Spoiler: it involves cats, parrots, hygiene, social awkwardness, and just about every other minute little detail. The sheer length of the piece might also be considered a turnoff.

An allergy to cats and a phobia of dogs seems like a perfectly acceptable thing to list in a rider.

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#30

Post by joshaidan »

My funniest memory of Richard Stallman is once he was invited to give the commencement speech at my local university, Lakehead University. He was pretty oblivious to the fact he was at a graduation, and not at any point in his speech did he address the students and their future. All he talked about was free software, how copyright was bad, and that the university should be using free software. Most of the students were pretty pissed off at him because he ruined one of the most significant moments in their life. He didn't even say, congratulations well done on graduating, or even a simple "hello." He only spoke about free software.

I think the video is still up on the university's website somewhere. If you're interested in it, I could try to find it and post it.

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