There's something very enticing about someone who's principled and has managed to stick to their principles. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it in Stallman's case. I wish the world had stuck to his principles, but it clearly hasn't and it's unlikely it will ever inch closer. That's not to claim that he should reverse course or abandon his position.<p>It does transform his stance from a political one to a personal one: he's choosing what he'll allow in his life or not, consequences be damned. I've tried this in my own life with varying degrees of intensity and success, and I'm not sure if I'm jealous of Stallman or not. Is he lonely? Has he missed out on people or experiences? (almost certainly) Do his stances give him the fulfillment he believes they do?
I do agree some of these stuff. I find C++ ugly too. I pay for everything in cash. For email service, I just run my own; it does not use any webpages at all.<p>They also mention nonfree JavaScript codes in webpages. Even if it is free, it does not necessarily mean that it is the program that you want to run, and even if it is, you might want to modify the program and then to run the modified version; most web browser software does not seem to consider such thing.
> I reject Facebook because it requires each used (i.e., person used by Facebook) to have just one account,<p>I'm never sure whether I admire him or think he's a holy fool, but I do like the way he reframes "users" as "used" here.
I honestly believe that in this day and age Richard Stallman's way of viewing computing is haplessly out of touch and no longer relevant.<p>I say this as someone who saw him talk to my cambridge / boston area university's ACM group, afterwords he bummed a ride from my friend back to MIT. He dismissed most questions from students and while we were riding back in my friend's car (with Richard Stallman in the front seat) he basically didn't answer any questions and just argued semantics.<p>I love Richard Stallman and what he stands for, but I think we need to re-evaluate how we digest and understand his opinions on computing in current times.
> I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundamentally similar to Lisp. My conclusion is that that is not so. `read', `eval', and `print' are all missing in Python.<p>I believe he may be mistaken about this :D<p>Then again, he's a stickler for definitions. He may have some very specific idea in mind about these functions that the `input`, `eval` and `print` functions somehow don't satisfy
Most people think he is a kook.<p>I wonder what they will think once we're all on the Chinese-style "social credit" system--if we're even allowed to have our own thoughts by then?<p><i>Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Six-Pack, but your insulin refill has been declined.</i><p>Why?!<p><i>Our records indicate that you ordered chicken for lunch yesterday, and chose fried instead of baked. I'm so sorry. Have a nice day!</i>