I met RMS at the Atlanta Linux Showcase in 1998. In the area with vendor booths in the lobby area of the show, he had laid down a blanket and was sitting in the middle with his legs crossed. He had printed copies of man pages printed and stapled together with covers laid out in front of him.
I walked up and introduced myself and said that I was a big fan, appreciated his hard work, etc. He looked at me coldly and just said "so are you going to buy something?" and motioned toward the booklets. I didn't need a printed copy of the `sed` man page so I shrugged and he seemed quite annoyed, turned to his assistant with a notebook computer and started dictating something to them, as almost to make it clear that our interaction was over.
I'm not sure what the point of posting this is, but that's my RMS story - it was my first "never meet your heroes" moment, I guess.
I met RMS at a lunch in his honor at an Edinburgh vegetarian restaurant with very high ranking scholars/academics present, after an invited talk of his. Everyone was talking, eating, drinking and having a good time, whereas he was sitting at the head of the table doing email on his ThinkPad (yes, in text mode).
So I walked up, I introduced myself and asked a question about the freedom of _data_ versus the freedom of _software_, and without looking up to me he said "I don't do smalltalk". So I got back to my seat and told my "story" to my immediate neighbors, who were keen to learn what he'd said.
I totally get it. If I were famous I probably would do that all the time (fortunately I am not). I don't hate people, I just don't need to always talk to them. Sometimes I just don't want to talk to people, especially ones I don't know. I'd rather... well, do anything else, but by myself. Sometimes I am OK to talk to other people, but it's my choice, not one of a random person. Email is much better because you can choose when you send the mail, when you read the mail, and you don't have to perform on demand (for an introvert, social interaction is hard work).
When you do this, you get his "rider". Google it, it's real, it's infamous for the "don't buy me a parrot" section.
Anyway, in that, he makes clear that if people at dinner are not interested in talking about free software, he's going to pull out his laptop and get on with his work relating to free software.
He doesn't care about fancy food, drinks, etc. - he wants to raise money for free software, and work on free software. He did this in a restaurant when three others of us were chatting about something else, and we all just accepted that's what he does, and that's him. It was fine.
If you're not familiar with him or this, then it's going to be a weird experience.
He also struggles with social interactions in my limited experience, particularly when it's a "fan boy" interaction.
I've seen him not being super nice to other people who were trying to have a conversation with him, not because he's not a nice person (I found him quite personable one on one), but it seems to me that he struggles to know how to behave around people who don't know how to just talk to him about things he wants to talk about.
I once saw him in the audience of a conference with quite a notable set of speakers [0], and I can't remember who it was who he started hectoring in the Q&A (I mean, look at the speaker list, whoever it was, it's somebody you've probably heard of), but he just diverted it into a little lesson about free software for the speaker and everyone else listening. It's the only thing he cares about talking about. It's either a super-power focus, or really annoying. I personally think at this point you just either need to meet him where he is, or avoid him if you don't want to. He's not going to change.
I'm glad I met him, I'm glad he does what he does, I know he's a little spikier than others around him and I'm OK with that. I also know plenty of people who never want to speak to him ever again and think free software needs a new figurehead.
> I've seen him not being super nice to other people who were trying to have a conversation with him, not because he's not a nice person (I found him quite personable one on one), but it seems to me that he struggles to know how to behave around people who don't know how to just talk to him about things he wants to talk about.
I'd argue that while he may be nice, it's also generally considered impolite to be someone who "only talks to him about the things he wants to talk about". It's meant to be a two-way street, generally. Someone who only wants to talk about what -they- are interested in, not what their conversation partner is interested in is not being nice or polite.
You don't owe random strangers your time, and it's so strange to me that people feel so entitled to other peoples time. Can also be argued that it's rude to engage a person on a topic they're not interested in.
I do, to an extent, agree. But I also think it's impolite to have relationships where "we're going to talk about what I want to talk about, but when we go to talk about what you want to talk about I'm just going to pick up my laptop and ignore you or tell you I don't want to".
You could argue, in your description, the same about RMS - he might feel entitled to someone's time to talk about free software.
There is no relationship if you're never going to see these people again. My time is my most precious resource, and I'm not obligated to give it away because someone thinks their initiation of a conversation needs to be reciprocated.
RMS set boundaries and that's perfectly reasonable.
I have met few famous devs and eventually it seems most turn like that.
One explained me that they are bombarded non-stop by people for years and years and at the end they'd rather be mean than "waste" their time on the rare chance of having a meaningful interaction.
The overwhelming majority of their interaction ends up with people asking them for opinions about their projects, collaborations, etc, and it gets so tiring that they statistically prefer to lose the chance of having a nice meaningful interaction rather than take the chance of yet another waste of time.
I know it's mean, but I get it.
Not saying they are all like that, just saying it's quite common among famous developers, they are bombarded non stop by people wanting to chat.
For what it's worth, I've never met the guy but I wrote to him once regarding the image of free software that people who are selling unsupported LibreOffice CDs are causing.
He was willing to civilly discuss and listen to a different point of view. We never reached agreement, but I felt that so long as an interesting twist on something dear to him is being discussed, he is patient for discourse.
Could also be a different psychological path in person and through text. I know I behave much more anxiously irl and I might act colder than my personality can be.
Unsure why this is a reply to the OP, the only thing common is RMS and nothing else.
But, RMS is known to be socially awkward, the same goes for many autistic individuals. It's just that he doesn't mask and comes out as “rude”.
If send an e-mail, he will usually take his time to write down a succinct response.
I know a few autistic people including one of my nephews. They are different in some ways particularly when they are very young and are still struggling with expressing their emotions. But none of them are arrogant and disrespectful. I think you can be autistic and also a jerk, one doesn’t justify the other.
I'm going to be rude now, but I don't mean it to be taken that way.
"I know a guy with a leg missing, and he can still run, so clearly someone who has lost their legs is able".
I have had the discussion a bunch of times, I'm beginning to think that nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.
Yes, some autistic people can mask quite well, and, some are mild cases.
But the crucial issue that most autistic people have is: they don't even become aware that they're being rude unless they spend active effort in first identifying, then understanding, then trying to fix it.
I'll tell you something else too: most people are uncomfortable with criticism, it makes them defensive and clam up. If you make someone defensive, enough times, then the situation becomes infected and very emotionally charged.
Now, imagine you have an illness that prevents you from processing your emotions properly, and the whole world is unkind to you, and you can't really understand why, but people call you rude.
It takes a lot of bravery and integrity to really reflect on that soberly.
Please, I implore you all to stop pretending you understand autism because you know someone- or a bunch of self diagnosed people, I keep seeing it[0], autistic people have great difficulty controlling how they're perceived, that's the whole issue.
> I'm beginning to think that nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.
I'm going to say that your definition of "severely autistic" is actually mild to moderate at worst.
The definition of "severely autistic" I know of and have seen in personal experience (family) and in my career has nothing to do with "masking" and such.
It's being a late teenager who is effectively non-verbal, who wore diapers until age 12, who has an "anchoring dog", a 150lb Newfoundland that was trained from birth with audio recordings of him screaming or tantrums, that acts both as an emotional support, but as a literal anchor - tethered to him so that when, as many severely autistic people do, he starts to wander based on internal stimuli - the dog can just sit down and tense up and say "Not unless you plan on dragging a very large dog with you that is trained to stay still when it notices you walking away from your family".
Things along those lines.
> they don't even become aware that they're being rude unless they spend active effort in first identifying, then understanding, then trying to fix it.
This is demonstrably not RMS. He is quite aware of this, and quite openly states he has no intention of apologizing for it, let alone "fixing it".
The “severe” autism that I used to experience, at least the most severe that I experienced was non-verbal, sometimes with violent outbursts.
But of course there’s a whole range.
What concerns me though is that when I’m on the internet, people talk about autism like it’s a quirky character flaw that can be overridden with moderate effort.
Hasn’t the definition of autism in the DSM changed to the point of requiring only a single characteristic to be “technically” on the spectrum, whereas it used to require many more criteria? I think it’s literally “not what it used to be”.
It seems like a diagnosis that would benefit from more distinguishing words so as not to conflate people at different ends of that spectrum.
It must be infuriating or
Bewildering to see someone knowingly nodding along saying, “oh yeah. I’m autistic too,” when other autistic people you know literally aren’t capable of doing that.
> nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.
Yes, most people have not met someone with more than mild autism.
I think the other issue is that people are confused as to _what_ autism is (it doesn't help that its a massive fucking spectrum) For most people, meeting a dutch grandmother for the first time would assume that they count as autistic.
I run a "uniformed organisation" for kids, and as we make sure that we take _all_ kids regardless of who they are, I bump into a large amount of interesting diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions. Currently I look after siblings, one who is mostly mute and diagnosed, and the other who is very much lightly on the spectrum.
There is another kid who is both ADD and autistic(Diagnosed). He is prone to RMS-like behaviour. If you talk to him in the right way, he can understand why certain behaviours are to be not repeated. However, he is and remains a teenager.
I am not diagnosed as autistic and also have trouble understanding why people can call my interactions rude as I just tend to try to be honest and precise.
It just happens that I don't like hypocrisy.
I am not an antisocial and consider myself a very polite person and will often say hello and wish a good day to strangers when I am riding my bicycle in the trails or walking in a village / small town.
Calling a spade a spade is already considered rude in some cultures/contexts, so I think the most you could say is "this isn't even rude from my perspective".
I know somebody who smoked a lived to be 90 years old, therefore all that they speak about harms of smoking are lies.
You realize people are different, and your knowledge of tiny number of data points tells you very little about people who aren't those people you know?
To some people, like myself, it has only in later years become apparent that RMS is autistic. In the late 90s, early 2000s is when I became aware of Stallman and his work on GNU and FSF. All that was pretty much always in form of writing and articles. Only semi-direct interaction was when a friend of mine invited him to talk at the local LUG, which he refused, if it wasn't change to GNU/Linux User Group, he was told "NO" and that was it. He always came across as difficult, but only in later years have many of us become aware that he might actually have a diagnoses of some form, until then he was just labeled at "difficult".
This is a really important perspective to remember in all our daily lives but also when motivated politicians say things like "autism epidemic". I guess there might be an equivalent decline in people labeled as difficult?
If anyone is going to support policy for our fellow humans spend an extra moment making sure to both have empathy and make sure we're comparing apples to apples.
I've worked with RMS a good bit over the past few decades, and, in my interactions with him, he has always come across kind, helpful, and professional.
He's gotta have a weird thing with his feet. My old boss saw him at a talking event here in Orlando, and he said he was picking skin off his toes or something weird the entire time he was talking. He's the hero we needed but probably deserve (as punishment for being bad humans).
I don't think he's a communist, and even if he was, I doubt a political ideology you may share ideas with has anything to do with how you interact with people.
I strongly disagree.
I don't know whether he would identify himself as a communist politically, but it doesn't matter. Furthermore, I am entitled to analyze his ideas and classify them as I please.
And as far as I'm concerned, he is arguing about fruits of labor being free in the typical “comrade” idealization from communism.
If at least he was actually doing what he preaches, one could be charitable. But actually he is just a goddamn activist, endlessly arguing about why the work of others should be free while he does zero work of value himself.
Every far-left friend I have had, who always touts some form of communism or sharing of resources, has been the one who systematically shares the least.
And that is true both from a material point of view and effort/labor perspective as well.
Hence my conclusion that they are assholes.
It seems to have hurt the sensibilities of his followers, but that was expected, and since they are assholes, you cannot expect them to be truthful.
By the way, political ideology is identifiable in genetics, so yes, it is absolutely certain that your political ideas correlate with how you interact with peoples.
1. Stallman has never, ever argued that fruits of labor should be free. He's always and only focused on knowledge: software, manuals, books for school, etc.
In particular he's been against closed software of appliances and hardware you buy. If you buy a printer you should also own it fully and be able to modify it the way you please, which requires access to its software. He's never talked about services or physical goods being free.
2. There are psychological traits that can influence on a statistical level (very high numbers) political views. But this is just tendencies, it's not determinism.
Openness to new experiences correlates often with openness to change and experimentation on social matters. Neuroticism often correlates with sensitivity on safety matters. Agreeableness with tendencies towards egalitarian views. And all of that still matters way less than cultural background and many other things.
But extraversion or social skills, like in Stallman's case have 0 relationship with political views. In fact, by your logic and his traits, he should fall on the other end of the political spectrum.
Software, manuals, books, and knowledge in general are fruits of labor. It is not physical labor but labor nonetheless. Otherwise how would you reconcile software developers getting paid (as well as pretty much any intellectual profession)?
The argument against appliances isn't any good. You are not entitled to getting access to the schematic and inner workings of things you buy. By this logic, everything should come with the full blueprint and documentation on the production process.
You are free to choose to buy things that are more open, and it is indeed a desirable quality for the consumer, but definitely not a right. Without closed-source software, ubiquitous computing would not exist.
When you buy a printer, it is working as is, as described with the limitations that are laid out. You are free to keep using it as long as it is functional with the computer/OS it was designed for. You are free to make your own printer or select a brand that offers full firmware access if this is important to you.
As for the psych thing, I never said it was full determinism, and I really don't want to argue about it with you.
The point I am making has nothing to do with social skills.
In the story of the OP, Stallman gave zero shits about him unless he wanted to buy some of his manuals. This is both hilarious and hypocritical for a dude who spends all day arguing about making “free” software. It maps perfectly to the experience of anyone who has to deal with people who are communist in spirit. They'll argue about sharing everything to never contribute anything or the minimum they can get away with. It is not a subtle effect, and the more communist they are, the worse it is.
In fact, the thing I get out of this is that my first statement was perfectly accurate. Predictably, you got worked up about it because Stallman is an idol, and you are some sort of Marxist-derived ideologue, and your feelings got hurt. It seems very likely that you are also yourself an asshole. Not that I wouldn't buy you a beer to listen to your comrade fantasies (they're very entertaining, like fantasy novels), I don't strongly discriminate against assholery, but if it walks like a duck, I call it a duck.
In French the word I would use is “enfoiré", the literal translation is indeed “asshole” or “bastard,” but the meaning I'm trying to convey is "personne malfaisante, déloyale" which roughly translates to "deleterious and dishonest person."
And this is a perfect description for Stallman's behavior as well as the vast majority of communists. It's not like there wasn't extensive literature/proofs on the subject…
> and you are some sort of Marxist-derived ideologue
1. Stallman is not my idol, I don't like the guy at all and I find him disgusting from many points of view, but I see his point of why access to information and software is important to humanity. I am surrounded by appliances I don't really own and control, from printers to TVs and it's disgusting, I absolutely understand his points. I should be able to modify and repair stuff I buy with my money, it's mine. This has been normal for 99.99% of human history by the way.
2. I don't really like left vs right labels, I find them asinine. Politics are complex, there's countless topics on which one could be leaning in one or another end. Moreover I don't like anything that ends with "ism" it's never brought anything good to the world. I'm more right-leaning if you care to know. Yet I know people and have family members that have the most diverse view, and I respect those. I judge people for how they behave and act to others and the ideals they fight for.
3. Since you keep judging me (wrongly, you miss on everything, like you did on Stallman), I'll judge you. You sound like a loser mixup between a 4chan incel on those boards like /pol/ and a 60 years old bigot on facebook.
4. Psychological and social studies demonstrate that the qualities you find in Stallman are more common among the people on the other end of the political spectrum.
I am the least likely guy to defend communists, but come on. It's not even clear he is a communist, and if you need to dunk on communists, you could find much, much better targets. His personality has nothing to do with his political views, and there are a lot of smooth talking and suave communists. It's just a cheap shot, which doesn't do good to anyone.
I don't have much time to expand, but this is not at all a cheap shot.
It's how I see him now that I am more cognizant about the world. Since I first learned about him when I got interested in Linux back in the late 90s, the only thing he has done is complain about others needing to share their work for free.
This is basically the whole communist shtick.
It is a well-informed opinion, drawing from personal experience, economics courses, readings on psychology, as well as historical research.
Here is a paste of a previous reply.
I strongly disagree.
I don't know whether he would identify himself as a communist politically, but it doesn't matter. Furthermore, I am entitled to analyze his ideas and classify them as I please.
And as far as I'm concerned, he is arguing about fruits of labor being free in the typical “comrade” idealization from communism.
If at least he was actually doing what he preaches, one could be charitable. But actually he is just a goddamn activist, endlessly arguing about why the work of others should be free while he does zero work of value himself.
Every far-left friend I have had, who always touts some form of communism or sharing of resources, has been the one who systematically shares the least.
And that is true both from a material point of view and effort/labor perspective as well.
Hence my conclusion that they are assholes.
It seems to have hurt the sensibilities of his followers, but that was expected, and since they are assholes, you cannot expect them to be truthful.
By the way, political ideology is identifiable in genetics, so yes, it is absolutely certain that your political ideas correlate with how you interact with peoples.
I don't think Stallman is a communist. I'm a communist and initially I looked into it to learn more, but it's just a kind of techno-anarchism. The thing he misses is the thing that many (not all) anarchists miss: that there is a larger centralizing logic to capitalism that can't be resisted by small scale decentralized efforts and legal maneuvers. Rather, he does recognize the centralizing logic (the reason d'etre behind the GPL!) but I think it's become clear at this point that the general course of the evolution of the landscape has favored capitalist interests even though free and open source software has had a significant (and in many cases quite favorable) impact.
Free software gives people part of the means of production. In the 1980s/early-1990s model where personal computers were common but most software was run locally, it was an effective challenge to corporate interests, but since the evolution of robust networks and remotely processed software, it has ceased to be nearly as effective.
However, it's important to note that if free software ever truly challenged industrial interests, they would just get the laws changed to prevent it from restricting them in any real way using some bizarre legal maneuver. As it is, it is tolerable and produces useful products corporations can use for free. That's what it means to live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The primary Stallman’s output is neither technical nor legal but moral. He condemns any entity that doesn’t grant its users four “freedoms.” And the primary disease that GPL spreads is not arbitrary legal restrictions but the moral code (altruism) that sanctions it. The fact that it’s not meant to be forced upon developers is irrelevant: it preserves the philosophy that could be weaponized in the future, possibly in an altered form.
But yeah, altruism is typically shared by both anarchists and communists. The only remaining question seems to be: who better embodies the ideal?
Well, they tout altruism, but they don't actually practice it.
It's all fake; if they were true altruists, they wouldn't need to argue all day about people needing to share their stuff.
In altruism, there is the concept of not personally benefiting or not requiring reciprocity.
But the demagogues endlessly promoting communist ideologies definitely benefit from it by appearing morally superior and getting resources for no valuable work in exchange.
The GPL, shows that, actually, they are not really ok with the no reciprocity part.
There are very few truly altruistic individuals, and their defining characteristic is that they just do the good stuff instead of endlessly talking about it for brownie points.
Basically the complete reverse of communists (and everyone far left in general).
Potato, potahto.
I mean, I appreciate you putting in the effort to argue about precise categorization, but it is not terribly relevant to my perspective.
The fact is that he is just one more type of asshole who spends most of his time arguing about other people needing to work for free or requiring utopian collectivization of the work (process, output, etc.). The details are not essential because the idea is still the same: preferring the nebulous idea of collective freedom against individual freedom (and this includes moral corporations).
There is no centralizing characteristic to capitalism. It is, in fact, exactly the contrary and the main reason that what we call “capitalism” is the de facto system of exchange ever since humans evolved past primitive needs.
Capitalism relies on self-interest to function, and there is no central entity. One could argue about the government and the money supply control as a central entity, but it's actually not a requirement, just a convenience. If government money becomes untrustworthy, you just switch to using something else as a medium of exchange (often other moneys or precious metals).
On the other hand, communism absolutely requires centralization and violence/coercion to force people to comply. I have no idea how you can jump to the conclusion that capitalism is centralizing when it's absolutely the reverse.
As for the free software and the parallel to possessing the means of production in communism, it is very interesting because it basically disproves the whole theory without much effort.
Software development is a field where the capital requirements to get started are extremely low, yet hardly any people with access to this capital have been able to produce value, both at the individual level and group/business level.
Clearly it is not enough to be able to access the capital and all the tools for free.
What's more, all of this is only possible because there are some other people working on things that allow software development to even exist. Those things are entirely dependent on the capitalist system. Thinking you can build a “free utopia” on top of a capitalist system is delusional and extremely dumb.
I can't argue all day, but at this point I really don't understand how some people who are not very young anymore can still believe in the bullshit of communism and its derivatives.
I don't really care per se, but the problem is the moral posturing and constant activism of those communists. If their stuff was any good, they wouldn't need to spend all day trying to convince productive people to buy into their utopia.
I walked up and introduced myself and said that I was a big fan, appreciated his hard work, etc. He looked at me coldly and just said "so are you going to buy something?" and motioned toward the booklets. I didn't need a printed copy of the `sed` man page so I shrugged and he seemed quite annoyed, turned to his assistant with a notebook computer and started dictating something to them, as almost to make it clear that our interaction was over.
I'm not sure what the point of posting this is, but that's my RMS story - it was my first "never meet your heroes" moment, I guess.