Talk:Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman Eats Something From His Foot

I added a reference to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ . I think that mentioning it briefly is fair.--183.89.146.93 (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I reverted this edit because I think it runs afoul of WP:BLPPRIMARY and no original research. I'll reserve judgement on its appropriateness for the article, but using a reliable secondary source is the absolute minimum before we proceed.— James Estevez (talk) 05:41, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I have added to the article a reference to mild trichophagia. Hair, toenails, sole callouses, scabs, pimples, snot or even just scratching whatever itches regardless of who is watching. It is all the same stuff to a nail-biter. It is just simple, mild asocial preening, but this Stallman and he does it on-stage and when the camera is rolling. His arch-enemies mostly do not do it. Well, what can we day? Living saints are allowed such leeway. I expect that history will be rather kind to Stallman.--213.111.192.30 (talk) 06:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I've seen some of your recent edits and don't know what to think. Some edits you made are factual and notable (thus worth mentioning), other things are really not notable, and this here is one example! I'm suspicious of your motives, in particular when you write such absurb things such as "His arch-enemies mostly do not do it.". What's that supposed to mean? (You've written about his arch-enemies below as well). Who are Stallman's arch-enemies? Do you count yourself amongst them? Are you actually trying to improve the article? Please take note of Wikipedia:Notability and, don't write about your own conclusions (e.g. regarding trichophagia, etc.) StewBragStone (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

If you would read the "Shaggy God" article, you would realize that his arch-enemies are anyone he bothers to give the finger (gesture) to.--187.51.57.213 (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Steve Jobs eulogy

Given that the article is already quite long, is the complete eulogy still worth to have included? In context of WP:RECENTISM, the whole event feels quite small and trivia. Any objects to remove it? Belorn (talk) 10:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed the eulogy and briefly provided Stallman's judgement on Jobs.--180.183.243.201 (talk) 12:54, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Privacy advocacy

Stallman is also an advocate of privacy. If you listen to any of the public talks he has given over the past ten years, this becomes clear. I have started a section to this effect.--180.183.243.201 (talk) 13:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Trading convenience for freedom

I added the sentence "He advocates trading convenience for freedom." I am hoping we can, if needed, further elaborate on where the trade-offs are for Stallman. Would he buy a different microwave oven if its embedded device uses open source? Would he go to a different dentist if the dentists office more fully embrace the policies of the FSF in their equipment? How about airlines, etc.?Practical things like that.

The article also has a comment by Torvald's that Stallman's thinking was "black-and-white". I qualified the scope of that statement but it got me thinking. I noticed this web article

Non-free "blobs" in the Linux kernel?

which suggests that FSF should assign A-to-F grades for popular Linux distros rather than simply have a short list of perfectly free ones. What kind of person is Stallman? Would he approve of such a scheme?--213.111.192.30 (talk) 19:17, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

B-Class

Is it time to upgrade this article to Rated B-CLass? The overall outline of the article has improved, with lots of stray sentences now in their correct place, improvide coherency.--213.111.192.30 (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I invite others to enumerate what they find to be contentious in the current article so that its quality can be improved.--213.111.192.30 (talk) 21:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Personal Ad

Stallman has a personal ad on his website describing an interest in meeting a woman with varied interest. I assert that his arch-enemies mostly do not have such. I have added reference to such in the article. I think that such is more accurate than the "crushing loneliness" referred to in his "Free as in Freedom" biography.--213.111.192.30 (talk) 07:30, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

See my comment higher above... All comments apply here as well, regarding notability, etc.

Note that only Stallman's former personal ad is available. I don't really think it's notable for mentioning. Regarding the fact that he does not want children (it is mentioned in the article), a better source than a former personal ad is this. StewBragStone (talk) 22:31, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

That is more tabloid than encyclopedic, unless some secondary source created an article discussing the ad itself. Even then, really not for an encyclopedia, and certainly not for an article trying to get a class B or GA. And Slashdot (one of my favorite sites) is NOT a reliable source, btw. Nor is blogspot. Even Linus' blogspot account is thin, but acceptable for some stuff as it is a known account. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 22:52, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Your removal of the slashdot cites was improper. Unlike most articles, this article has the cites gathered at the end of the article and what is embedded in the text are short singletons. There were red warnings in the ref section after your edits and a bot restored them. I removed them properly.--222.124.214.116 (talk) 23:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Adding them wasn't proper, and I was expecting the bot to fix them properly, but bots are bots. Thank you for saving me the trouble of hand editing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

• I removed the newmedia-mcm.blogspot.com source, as it fails WP:RS, but left in the fact as I've heard that 100x myself and confident that a source exists, we just need one from a mainstream, reliable source. I think Linus has even said as much before, but again, need a reliable source so I've tagged it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Influenced by....

It is too presumptuous to add to the infobox that he was influenced by Immanual Kant? The GNU Manifesto says "The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule." Stallman has clearly remained true to the manifesto he authored but he as yet to publish a single-volume "Stallman Manifesto" his activism of the past 20 years which goes beyond merely software. He does not mention Kant a lot, but he seems very consistent with Kantian ethics and I suppose he avoids mentioning the categorical imperative would put a lot of his tu[oca; audience to sleep. I think it would save the reader some time to have that hint in the infobox.--222.124.214.116 (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

It isn't about being presumptuous, although it is, it is about violating WP:OR. You might conclude this is the case, but unless a reliable source says that he is an influence, then it isn't allowed. You might also want to read WP:SYNTH. This is clearly not allowed here, in any way. In short, you don't get to connect the dots as an editor, that is the job of the reliable source. Our job in writing an encyclopedia is solely to publish what others have already clearly said, but in summary form. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Uh-huh.--222.124.214.116 (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed the footnote with the implied influence suggested. The now blocked proxy IP user suggestion is original research, as the above mentioning of kant is limited to a specific context and scope. Without a source that explicit paint Immanual Kant as an influence source, we can not use it in the article. Belorn (talk) 08:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Large portion of edits on this page is using open proxies

Recently, a majority of edits has originated from open proxies, many which has been nonconstructive or libel. A few of those has been blocked, and hopefully all nonconstructive or libel edits has been reverted. To give everyone some breathing space, I have requested a semi-protection for the article at request for page protection. Belorn (talk) 10:51, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the sentences about Torvalds' "black-and-white" blog post contain opinion information that is not in the post. And there are two such sentences. --AVRS (talk) 09:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there a source that says his fetching pages by e-mail is much about privacy? --AVRS (talk) 10:21, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 28 March 2013

Remove "Stallman is a supporter of WikiLeaks" or add citation. 72.198.40.125 (talk) 10:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done, citation provided. Gobōnobō ^{+ c} 12:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Free software in developing countries

Thumperward removed the section header "Free software in developing countries" from the rest of Stallman's "Software freedom" activism. His explanation was: ‎"Software freedom: this doesn't need its own subsection, and should be integrated with the rest of the section". I think it should be put back in.--Thunktuny (talk) 16:51, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to have an extra "Free software in developing countries" section. There is nothing inherently different about Stallman's views towards free software in developing countries and his views towards free software in "developed" countries. The paragraphs from that section are more about his travels to/advocacy within these countries than anything to do with country specific views on free software.-- Mrmatiko (talk) 18:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a strong pattern: which countries are willing to honor him with an audience with their head of state? It is not just what Stallman might say: we are supposed to describe the whole situation and the subsection helps to organize the information into a formate that is easy to understand quickly. You know, it might be a consequence of his attitude about not wearing a tie and his acceptance speech when he won the Torvalds award and stuff like that. I mean really: do you think that Obama wants site through some speech from Stallman where he cannot help from saying the word "freedom" 20 times in five minutes?--117.6.72.38 (talk) 18:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

As I said, Stallman doesn't have views on free software that are specific to developing countries, a section header that implies such views would be inaccurate. -- Mrmatiko (talk) 20:11, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoa! Wait a second... Is the Wikimedia Foundation's purpose to be a soapbox for the shaggy gods of this world or to describe the NPOV reality? WAKE UP and please re-read WP:NOTTRUTHand WP:NOTSOAPBOX together and integrate the two policies in your mind, rather than the way that Stallman FAILED to integrate the subsystems Hurd.--117.6.72.38 (talk) 21:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I suppose this marks the end of the discussion. --AVRS (talk) 10:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

If it weren't heading to a natural end, that both the recent IPs have been blocked as open proxies suggests that it would have ended anyway. I've removed some further critical commentary along the same lines, as this isn't supposed to be a general discussion forum. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Context or analysis?

Stallman has a lot of stuff under his "Activism" section now and it is better organized than it was a month ago. For such a large section, I think that it seems to go straight into line-items with little context. Thumperward removed the following, claiming it was "analysis". I think that some of it should be restored as context, in order to order to provide a more proper introduction to such a large section.

Stallman extends his philosophy to political issues and the largest part of his personal web site amounts to a daily political blog. The GNU Manifesto lays down an outline based on the ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Stallman strives to maintain consistent with it in his own behavior in order to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy. The GNU Manifesto and the Open Letter to Hobbyists help to define the spectrum of the dialog where Stallman is at one end, acting as an anchorman. He often mentions political issues as asides in his public speaking.

--180.183.153.128 (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

It's context spun from thin air. This isn't an essay. We need to present Stallman as he is presented by third-party sources, rather than simply picking random factoids about him and weaving them into a narrative, which is precisely what the above section does. The overemphasis on Kant was discussed previously. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:BOLD. Matter resolved.--203.159.63.19 (talk) 16:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

That is a lot of work lost

User:Alison just came in and blew away about a month's worth of progress on the article. An entire month's world of effort by many people because one highly-privileged person says so. What is the project coming to? I would think it is tie for an RfC on this Alison.--203.159.63.19 (talk) 08:28, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

For reference/undoing/picking-through-the-edits: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Stallman&curid=3434143&diff=549283775&oldid=549283144 --AVRS (talk) 09:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The policy is quite clear in this case: WP:EVASION tells us to revert and only keep obviously helpful changes. Since the edits are done by a sockpuppet user, using proxies to evade blocks, its worth taking a extra hard look through the edits. Belorn (talk) 08:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Then there's this - just so you know where this is goin - Alison ^❤ 15:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I unrelatedly rejigged the intro

I wouldn't usually leave a note, but having seen the above comment, I thought I should explain that my edit has nothing to do with whatever's been happening over the past days/weeks.

The rationale for my change is that the previous intro started with a paragraph containing a list of dongles, eulas, non-disclosure agreements, binaries, source code, etc. Such a list doesn't define Stallman, so it's not the best way to fill the first paragraph.

I think I kept all the words that were there, but I moved things around and grouped sentences into paragraphs that I think are more coherent.

Here's my wonderful edit: [1].

(update: actually, I made the following substantial changes

• removed GNU core utils - he wrote some bits but it's not what he's famous for
• removed bit about licences being contracts - that's true in continental Europe but not in Anglo-Saxon systems (where "consideration" (some form of ~payment) is required)
• I added that he's gotten 14 honorary doctorates for his work - confirms notability)

Gronky (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

That's cool because I now realize that it had been written in an unencyclopedic way, due to original research. Now it says it from his position, and I assume/hope it's sourced.Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 18:42, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I hope my version of the text shows a neutral position. I changed the content only slightly. Some parts are sourced - seven references are given. Some things have no source because they're obvious. An example is the end of the first paragraph, where it says he's famous for GNU, FSF, GCC, Emacs, and the GPL (maybe "copyleft" should be added). This could be sourced if necessary, just find a few links to speaker bios that conferences publish about him. But it's too obvious and non-controversial to need a reference, IMO. Other things lack sources because they're explained and sourced later in the article, an example is the sentence about him having 14 honorary doctorates (the WP rules allow this for intro paragraphs, but off the top of my head I don't know which rule). Gronky (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

He's Jewish, right?

After having checked a couple of sources I'm quite confident Stallman is a Jew, can anyone confirm that for sure before I add it to the article? Thanks,Yambaram (talk) 10:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Please see the archive, and in particularly, this one. Basically, there seems to be implied that a interview with Stallman has him self-identified himself as having Jewish ancestry, and as being an atheist. However, some wikipedia editors has raised the issue that Jewish descent is not relevant/interesting enough to warrant a place in the article. However, the article is already tagged with American people of Jewish descent so I don't see adding the fact about Jewish descent to the article text itself would be wrong. Please don't forget the "descent" part, as "is a Jew" is ambiguous in this case.

If it gets added, it should be only a very minor mention. It's not something he promotes and it's not something that he or others use as a defining characteristic. Atheism, on the other hand, is something he promotes and it's something he mentions often (without being asked), so atheism could be used as a yardstick: mentions of his jewishness should be much more minor than whatever mentions the article has of atheism. Gronky (talk) 21:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback guys. Sorry I should have checked the archives before asking, next time I'll do it. I added it here. Yambaram (talk) 03:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I am one of a number of editors who are perplexed by the tendency to apply labels like "Jewish" to people, where there is no clear indication that the label has some significance to the life of the subject. I have reverted the text ("Despite the fact that Stallman is of a Jewish descent") because there is no reason why being of Jewish descent should preclude someone from being an atheist, so "despite" is wrong; also, is there a source and a reason to include such a factoid?. Johnuniq (talk) 03:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how significant this is but here we see Stallman drawing upon a clearly Jewish reference to Hillel the Elder. Bus stop (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not significant. If Stallman made a habit of drawing inspiration from Jewish sources we'd have a reliable source stating so. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

If what American_Jews#Religious_beliefs says is true, that "atheist despite Jewish" detail you've added is absurd. --AVRS (talk) 09:33, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It's absurd regardless. Free As In Freedom provides more than enough context to evaluate Stallman's ethnoreligious background, which makes it plain that there is nothing particularly notable about the union in question. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

We may be justified in saying "Stallman is of Jewish ancestry and he is an atheist" because in this source Stallman says, when prompted by an interviewer, "I am an atheist but of Jewish ancestry." Bus stop (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

IMO, that is a very insignificant mention. I guess those who care can infer it from the last names mentioned in the article. --AVRS (talk) 18:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I took a stronger word at first, but replaced it with a neutral one. --AVRS (talk) 19:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Bus stop, thanks for the helpful links, I'm not sure why and what this big of a deal is all about. To users: Johnuniq, AVRS, and Thumperward - what makes you so determined to make sure that any reference of him being culturally/with Jewish ancestry is removed? I'm sure there're a lot of "insignificant mentions" (as you said) in this article, why continually pick on that one? Besides, I and other people find it important and significant, and it sure adds to the article. Since reliable sources isn't the issue here, I edited it again, you may see the minor changes I made. Yambaram (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Putting it in the article makes it seem consequential, but there's nothing to show that being Jewish is a defining characteristic of Stallman. (Maybe it's comparable to adding a sentence "Stallman's grandparents had brown hair" ?) We could flesh out that sentence with another one explaining that there's no indication that he's "culturally Jewish", doesn't promote the Jewish community and only mentions his Jewishness when asked, but that might be giving undue weight to a minor issue.

The article is already in the Jewish-Americans category. Maybe that's enough. Anyone who's interested can find the information. But I'm not going to remove it. I'm actually undecided.

And there is one aspect of Stallman that might be influenced by his Jewishness: in his political notes, he's very critical of Israel. I wonder if he feels that as (someone who could be called) a Jew, he has a particular duty to denounce wrong-doings which could be seen as being done in the name of Jews. He's been publishing his political notes on a daily basis for more than ten years, so they are without doubt a defining part of who he is. Gronky (talk) 02:53, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Gronky, thanks for improving the article and bringing out these interesting points here - I greatly appreciate your NPOV attitude. Yambaram (talk) 05:52, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Not any reference, but the assumption that being a Jewish, he should be religious or anything. The Russian article contained a short "born in a Jewish family" in the bio section; it has been removed, but it was neutral as to what that might mean to anybody. --AVRS (talk) 06:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

No he shouldn't be religious or anything, since it's a tiny mention that does no harm to the article but only makes it more informative (you may see "Who is a Jew?" if you will). As a side note - the Hebrew article as well as some other ones in different wikis do say that He's Jewish. The fact that the Russian article about Stallman contained this and then it got removed means nothing but that someone didn't want it mentioned in the article just as much as someone else did. Yambaram (talk) 19:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That was just an example of a neutral mention. It was not about the fact that it was added/removed or whether it was notable. --AVRS (talk) 08:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok I see. Please let me quote what an anonymous user said on this talk page a few years ago when a similar argument came up: "...What's the difference between a person born in a Black/Asian/Irish family and so forth? Yet every notable person articled on Wikipedia has a blurb about their ethnicity regardless of its impact on their lives. People want to know." Yambaram (talk) 15:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

That claim seems to be false. I just quickly checked the 14 biography articles currently linked from Main Page and very few have ethnicity details. Examples of ethnicity being mentioned with clear reasoning are Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (because that's why he's king) and Romeo Santos (because he makes the music of his parents region). John Draper Perrin is a rare example of ethnicity details without comment on why they're important. And at the other end of the spectrum, the Jason Collins article doesn't even mention that he's black. Of course, 14 articles is a small sample, and I'd guess that ethnicity is more relevant for articles about North Americans since for most other regions, things are simpler: Italians are generally of italian origin, and Britons of british, but even the North Americans in the 14 articles I checked don't show a trend for mentioning ethnicity. Gronky (talk) 03:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for taking the time to do this short research, we all know this argument can go on forever and therefore I see no point in continuing it. But I hope we both agree on the fact that in many cases, and particularly this one, there's no such thing as "the right answer/solution". Yambaram (talk) 23:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Decline of MIT hacker culture 4th Paragraph

What does the fourth paragraph of Decline of MIT hacker culture contribute to the article? I am in favor of removing it due to irrelevance. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 08:28, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It could certainly be shorter but I think his work in that period, mentioned at the end of the paragraph, is important. It was his last big project before launching GNU.

His community was falling apart and defusing Symbolics' work was his first attempt to defend his way of life. When he saw the long term weakness of this strategy he stopped trying to defend or bring back his old community, with its inherent vulnerabilities, and instead launched the GNU project and a movement to create a new community which would be more resiliant and would help society at large rather than just the few who were in his small community.

Cloning Symbolics' software was two years of full time and was clearly a formative part of his life's work and his thinking.

As well as shortening that paragraph, we should probably make it clearer why this is important.

If you do remove some parts, it would be best to move them to some other article. Is there an article about MIT hacker culture or about the community that formed alongside the official activities of the AI lab? I can't find one. I only found an article with a section about the official activities of the AI lab: MIT_Computer_Science_and_Artificial_Intelligence_Laboratory#LCS_and_AI_Lab. Gronky (talk) 09:23, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Where should we document the decline of the AI lab?

I started trying to review the section "Decline of MIT hacker culture" (after the discussion above), but I don't want to delete anything without being sure it's documented somewhere on Wikipedia.

It looks like it should go in another article. This article should say how it affected Stallman, and the general info should go in another article which isn't about any single person.

The article can't be called "Decline of MIT hacker culture", because many would argue that MIT hacker culture is alive and well: Hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"MIT AI Lab" wouldn't be good either since that existed from 1973-2003 years (and after as CSAIL) and I'd only planning on documenting one aspect which ended in the mid-80s.

Maybe "MIT AI Lab's hacker community"? But I don't know, does everyone agree that this community did disappear? I mean, what's the post-Stallman history of that hacker community? And can we even call it a "community" when most people there (including RMS) were employees?

I guess I should just get started working on it and we can change the title and scope as our knowledge accumulates. Gronky (talk) 22:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to do it this month, so I'll just note a few pages here that could give ideas:

• Hacker_(programmer_subculture)
• MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
• Hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Hacker ethic
• Lisp Machines
• Symbolics

.Gronky (talk) 08:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Under Personal life, switch link of "Made for you"

I think the link for "Made for You" should be switch to his article on his personal home page, "http://stallman.org/articles/made-for-you.html", from the current link. - OnesimusUnbound (talk) 19:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. Go for it! Gronky (talk) 21:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Quotes on significant social issues (RMS still holds)

I added the following to "Personal Life," and it was deleted twice:

Stallman believes prostitution, adultery, necrophelia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, incest, and pedophilia should all be legal, stating "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children," and "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children."

On the second submission, I cited that I have personally contacted him in email (July 2012) asking if these quotes were accurate, to which he replied yes. I asked him if they were taken out of context, and he replied no. I asked him if there were any additional explanations he'd like to give, and he said no. And the latest references are in his January 2013 archives on stallman.org. [2]

These are obviously stunning and shocking quotes, but they are also things people researching RMS should know about with regards to his person and personal views -- specifically the necrophelia, child pornography, and pedophilia portions, which are views generally not accepted by societies. I would like these references added back in to the article.