Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman’s rider

secure.mysociety.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 292 posts

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#51

Post by pork »

0x12 wrote: post #45
joshaidan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, that's the problem. His mission was to promote free software, instead of the mission the university hired him for: sending the graduates off on their next journey.

You don't hire a missionary with a vision to pat yourself or your audience on the back. That's like expecting Sylvester Stallone to do higher mathematics or Mother Theresa to do an arms deal for you. Some people are what they are and their environment/audience will have to accept them as they are. The problem lies squarely with the person that hired him, the abstract of the speeches listed should have adequately expl…

...or like expecting Steve Jobs to give a great graduation speech.

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#54

Post by Androsynth »

Given the kind of talks he does, I can see where he's coming from with this; it sounds like the kind of list that was built up over time.

In general, I would imagine he doesn't want to repeat the kind of incident that happened at linuxworld 99, where the he was given the torvalds award[1].

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#56

Post by metafour »

I apologize up front to those of you who take the following comments as me being purposefully obtuse. That's not my intent.

I am not familiar with the intricate details of his message but on the surface it seems to me to be at odds, at some level, with the idea of it being ok to have a parrot as a pet. Software needs to be free or humans have a right to have free access to software but it's okay to keep a bird in a captive environment. Birds are meant to fly. Even if parrots aren't kept in a cage they're still kept within some confines. For those of you who have ever seen first hand a bird who surfs on wind drafts, remaining stationary in the air in the process, either on the edge of a canyon or just in a field somewhere; or a bird swooping through the Grand Canyon gets a sense of the freedom I'm inferring these birds are being deprived of.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm missing some piece of the puzzle but it seems hard to me to be able to reconcile these two ideas. Do you think he's ever thought about this?

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#57

Post by pavel_lishin »

hugh3 wrote: post #42
pavel_lishin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's reasonable, yes. The two paragraphs on the subject of parrots, however, seem rather unnecessary.

I am willing to bet that that particular paragraph was added after someone bought a parrot just for him.

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#58

Post by mbreese »

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.

I thought it was the weight of the stage, not the pyrotechnics...

Re: Richard Stallman’s rider

#59

Post by pwaring »

robfig wrote: post #52

""" Food: I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up. """ Love it. Anyone know why?

I don't know why, but it's a new one since 2008 (I hosted a RMS talk then and still have the rider).
Post reply on HN