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Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

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Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#351

Post by squarefoot »

mongol wrote: post #288
Biganon wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well first of all I was 15 or 16 at the time, so I guess I didn't give it as much though as you currently do, and besides, Che Guevara is (to me at least) not a symbol of communism first and foremost, but a symbol of a man fighting for his ideas (not saying that's my opinion of him especially nowadays, I'm talking about the symbolic power, especially of the famous photograph we all know). So... no. Besides, it was in…

You are surprising me. Where do you live? Many Europeans have lived under communism for decades, and repulse it as nothing else.

Sentiment about communism changes a lot. We, as western Europeans, haven't been brainwashed with decades of anti-communist propaganda, at least not to the level reached in the US, neither we lived under a communist regime, so we didn't develop extreme views until recent years. A couple decades ago one could find here a good number of right militants among immigrants from the former communist countries. As much as I'm left leaning and heavily hostile to any form of right wing ideology, I honestly can't blame who suffered for example the Ceausescu dictatorship for leaning the other way; it's pretty normal to me. Nowadays however the right wing nationalist ideology is developing support also among citizens of countries who never saw communism in all their existence, but that is the result of a subtle propaganda which I would date back in the early to mid 90s.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#352

Post by mrtksn »

layer8 wrote: post #308
mrtksn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough but how are people compensated when you adhere to the ideology? You can’t advocate an ideology without a solution to the problems at hand. Someone needs to write that software, and that someone needs to be fed and sheltered. It’s also not shameful to want more than staying alive.

Sell support, and protection against liability.

Cool. You do that, good luck for selling support for your open source TikTok video effects app.

The gist is, for different situations different business models can work. If the one you propose works for your software, good for you.

The problem starts when you demand that other business models should not exist, so yours can work.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#353

Post by luma »

fragmede wrote: post #312
tharakam wrote: post #235

̛If you check the surroundings, you will see the mess we are in. Virtually (?) there are 0 options for a viable IoT platform, mobile/desktop OS that doesn't annoy us. It could be privacy, locking, you name it, ... Only recently, I happen to realise, we could have listened to this man little more. Too late then, we are sold already. Recover well Mr Stallman! I wish you the best!

I just want an IoT plug so I can switch things off and on. It should expose a tcp port and allow me to send packets to it via wifi with some level of authentication. I don't want any cloud shit with it. Just a simple (okay, it's not actually that simple) device that connects to wifi and lets me throw packets at it to control it. Without GNU, that's just a fever dream. Many cancers are survivable these days. I hope he…

Check out the Sonoff S31: https://sonoff.tech/product/smart-plugs/s31-s31lite/

You get an ESP8266 micro with wifi plus a power supply, relay, momentary button, current and voltage sense, and a couple LEDs all for about $8. Serial debug and flash headers are broken out for easy access on the PCB.

They ship with chinese firmware but the headers and standard hardware make them dead simple to flash with your own firmware, or ESPhome or Tasmota if you prefer.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#354

Post by vlugorilla »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #5
freeqaz wrote: post #4

Some type of Lymphoma that is being managed, he said in the video. Does anybody have any other info about this?

The audio is really terrible, but he says that the cancer is being managed and that he will be around for many more years. I am glad to hear that. Before that, he talks about covid and long covid. But I couldn't tell if he says that he has long covid now. I know that he was being pretty careful to avoid covid, to the extent that's possible while travelling on planes as much as he does. I had some discussions with him…

> Can anyone tell from the video if he still has the big beard?

In minute 3 of the video he takes off the mask, he no longer has the beard

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#355

Post by jraph »

borbulon wrote: post #333
jraph wrote: post #181

Here he is, 70, under chemo, giving a speech. He keeps being a force of nature. May he recover well, or at least have long enjoyable years ahead. He has/had arguable/unacceptable behavior, but I believe we strongly owe him. He has built incredible software, defined important stuff and kicked our asses in the right direction.

Having cancer myself, I can tell you that there are a lot of misconceptions about what life “under chemo” is like. I’m in a clinical trial for pills now, but when I was doing infusions, the worst of them had me out of commission for about 4 days - chemo day (which was about schedule, not side effects), then days 4, 5, and sometimes 6 after chemo day. The rest were completely manageable, in fact I looked forward to wo…

> the worst of them had me out of commission for about 4 days - chemo day (which was about schedule, not side effects), then days 4, 5, and sometimes 6 after chemo day

Isn't chemo tolerated differently in different patients? It's still anecdotes, but I've heard many stories of people, some usually very dynamic, being strongly weakened by it. To the point some even decide it's not worth it and stop the treatment altogether. I personally know someone currently under chemo too.

Anyway, it's good you tolerate it well and I wish you a good recovery!

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#356

Post by Shekelphile »

drt5b7j wrote: post #227
Biganon wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how that could be taken as an intentional provocation...?

A) A picture of che Guevara is always an association with communism B) RMS is very well known as someone who is, amongst other things, not a communist. Frankly I fail to see how this could be taken as anything other than a provocation. Why would you have a picture of RMS as Che and then ask him to sign it? The only other explanation I can think of is you're too stupid to not see A or B.

How can this be viewed as a provocation, unless your views align with the regimes who people like Che faught against?

Regardless of your views on 'communism' (and I say that as someone who will quickly detest any of those governments at that time in history), they faught against overtly fascist regimes that trampled on all personal freedoms and routinely rounded up dissidents to be summarily executed. RMS 'not endorsing' fighting for personal freedom is an endorsement of the status quo of that era, where governments like Pinochets would literally kidnap dissidents, sedate them, throw them into the cargo holds of 747s and dump them out over the ocean from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#357

Post by luma »

PostOnce wrote: post #322

Stallman's character is one of the reasons I have repeatedly considered establishing some kind of "Church of Computing", i.e. an organized "religion" solely to secure religious protections and rights as they apply to the modern world. For example, the right not to have to use some random company's app to interact with a government agency or a public school (and agree to said company's EULA, etc). It only takes a few…

You refuse to learn something because you are afraid that that thing might change and require you to learn new things? Maybe this isn’t the best industry for you.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#358

Post by alerighi »

tharakam wrote: post #235

̛If you check the surroundings, you will see the mess we are in. Virtually (?) there are 0 options for a viable IoT platform, mobile/desktop OS that doesn't annoy us. It could be privacy, locking, you name it, ... Only recently, I happen to realise, we could have listened to this man little more. Too late then, we are sold already. Recover well Mr Stallman! I wish you the best!

Well Linux is usable as a desktop operating system. For IoT there are multiple open source project, Home Assistant, ESP Home, just to name a few.

The real problem are mobile operating system. Android phones are nowadays even more and more locked down, and using ROMs without Google Services is nearly impossible.

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#359

Post by shafyy »

op00to wrote: post #338
bitmadness wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he have a reputation for poor hygiene?

Years and years ago he talked at my university lug. I picked him up in my car from the train. The BO smell remained in my car for WEEKS. Dude had a serious aroma.

Classic Seinfeld

Re: Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk [video]

#360

Post by touisteur »

mongol wrote: post #288
Biganon wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well first of all I was 15 or 16 at the time, so I guess I didn't give it as much though as you currently do, and besides, Che Guevara is (to me at least) not a symbol of communism first and foremost, but a symbol of a man fighting for his ideas (not saying that's my opinion of him especially nowadays, I'm talking about the symbolic power, especially of the famous photograph we all know). So... no. Besides, it was in…

You are surprising me. Where do you live? Many Europeans have lived under communism for decades, and repulse it as nothing else.

The Communist Party had 2-digits percentage of votes in France until the 90s. We had coalition governments with communist (and green) ministers last time in 2002 I think? And one of the main newspapers, when people still read them, was l'Humanité, clearly further left than the mainstream left (parti socialiste, then).

Hate of communism was just never as rabid 'round here. In 1993 we had one of the mainstream pop songwriters write a love song to it (Rouge) and it had the Red Army Choir singing there and sold a million discs on this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_(Fredericks_Goldman_Jo....

We still have 'revolutionary' communist (troskists, and other variations) like Lutte Ouvrière, la Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire at each presidential election, gathering between 3 and 6% of votes...

Europe is diverse...

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