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Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

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Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#111

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

ginko wrote: post #91
gsivil wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

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

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#112

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

tikhonj wrote: post #72
eta_carinae wrote: post #65

> 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.

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 compet…

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

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#113

Post by stinkytaco »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #85
stinkytaco wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running the risk of being an armchair psychologist, I think it's pretty well established that RMS likely falls somewhere on the autism spectrum, or at least has some sort of behavioral condition that leads to behavior like this, as well as his documented social quirks. Which is to say that I think he's probably mentally stable, but a bit strange by everyday standards.

But punching himself in the head? I knew Stallman was weird as we all did and that yeah, he's probably got some disorder but when he's punching himself in the head publicly you can't help but wonder if maybe we should reevaluate our faith in his ideas. Having a mental disorder does not automatically invalidate anything he's ever promoted or done but for me personally, I'd ask myself whether the next idea he promotes…

I guess you should evaluate his ideas for yourself, without bringing his mental state into it. If you disagree with Stallman, so be it, lots of people do for good reasons. But evaluate his ideas, not his personality because his personality should not affect whether you agree with him or not.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#114

Post by planetguy »

glesica wrote: post #82
planetguy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Right now the story is an hour old and has fifty comments. "How can Richard Stallman getting his bag stolen be that interesting a story?", I thought, as I read the headline. "I guess I should read the story, there must be, in the details, some more important point about how the bag was stolen or what it contains that has broader relevance!" ... turns out, nope. He just had his bag stolen. Y'know, that sucks and…

Oh come on. I'm sorry, but how can you be older than 12 and not understand how this stuff works? Would Steve Jobs have come to any of our funerals? Doubtful. That didn't stop literally the entire front page from being filled with articles about his passing. They're celebrities in our little community. For better or worse, people want to know when painful, wonderful or otherwise-interesting things happen to celebritie…

Even by the standards of celebrity culture, though, so-and-so gets his luggage stolen is a pretty darn piss-weak story.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#115

Post by rogerbinns »

jrockway wrote: post #102
billpatrianakos wrote: post #71

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 le…

"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".

I'd imagine he was also tired (travel and new people/circumstances do that), plus perhaps a touch of blaming the victim (himself), and realising the implications of letting down other people/places on the rest of his tour. An emotional reaction like a facepalm means he is human with feelings, something some people are forgetting.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#116

Post by crazy2k_ »

MehdiEG wrote: post #3

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.

When I left the place, he was talking to the Faculty's security staff, and he was accompanied by people from a foundation (the one which usually organizes his events here) at all times. They said he slept well and was calm today.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#117

Post by crazy2k_ »

jrockway wrote: post #102
billpatrianakos wrote: post #71

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 le…

"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".

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.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#118

Post by kenneth_reitz »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #71

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 le…

I landed in Zurich, Switzerland last week to discover that my bank had shut off my debit card via fraud protection.

I had $0 in cash on me. It was quite frightening, even in one of the richest cities in world.

Everything worked out in the end, but it was the most I've been stressed out in a while.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#119

Post by jrockway »

crazy2k_ wrote: post #117
jrockway wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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".

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.

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.

Re: Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

#120

Post by masklinn »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #112
tikhonj wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compet…

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

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.

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