Talk:Richard Stallman/Archive 5

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Trivia section

Trivia sections on Wikipedia are considered very bad form. All imformation within this section should be dispersed to apropriate places within the article. --The_stuart 18:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

I have removed this (formerly this) addition by Pakaran which reads:

"Stallman's personal homepage has "action items" much like some political party and action group sites, often taking a far-left perspective; he typically updates these items daily.".

Firstly i think that it doesn't belong in the trivia section at all, a trivia section should contain knowledge which is not commonly known even by those who are familiar with the man, such as that he meant to name GNU Hurd Alix and that he gave POSIX its name, something which would be obvious to anyone after clicking the first external link in this very article does not fit that.

Secondly think that the contents themselves are vague and just factually wrong, "often take a far-left perspective", most of what stallman puts in these action items have to do with human rights which I don't think anyone would call far-left. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:06, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)

I think some of his sources have an anti-Bush bias. If that kind of topic doesn't belong in the article in any case, than that's true :) --Pakaran. 02:15, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It was mainly the 9/11 conspiracy theories I was thinking of. However, the fact that he updates his page daily is not that important in any case. I'm just back here because that addition is one of the things I significantly regret of what I've done on WP. Pakaran (ark a pan) 03:24, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the trivia, I believe sources should be cited for each claim made there, especially the most recent one. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 21:58, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)

The Conlon Nancarrow pica is mentioned in this Bruce Sterling interview. There's already a reference for the Sussman paper. Another collaboration ("Heuristic techniques in computer-aided circuit analysis") is mentioned twice in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. "St. IGNUcius" and POSIX are trivially Googleable. [1] [2] --chocolateboy 19:26, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I heard the trivia that was deleted (that rms never owned a computer) from rms himself at a conference he gave at the École Polytechnique in 2002. --Sam 20:16, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Stallman has a habit of referring to those who don't subscribe to his terminology as "ignorant."
• Has developed a reputation of being something of a prima donna.
• Stallman named the GNU HURD kernel "Alix" after his then- (and only) girlfriend.

OK, I do know Stallman is a bit touchy on the whole free software vs. open source software thing, and the GNU/Linux vs. Linux. But these trivia points seem like digs on him. The 1st two are obvious, the third I'm more concerned about the fact that "Alix" was his only girlfriend. Does anyone have any sources to back these up? (the 2nd point might be hard to find sources). Note that the first two (and subsequent others dealing with his hardline stance on terminology was all done by 65.168.18.72) --Bash 04:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bash, Alix was most definitely not his only girlfriend. Hell, Free as in Freedom closes with the author and his wife having dinner with Stallman and his (starting 2001; current status unknown) girlfriend Sarah. --Maru (talk) 18:34, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Trivia part 2

What the hell is going on here? 65.168.18.72 reposted the "prima donna" accusation again:

• "Is widely regarded as something of a prima donna, especially when it comes to terminology. Stallman is on record as requiring interviewing journalists to use his particular terminology throughout their articles if they wish to interview him. As a result, many journalists refuse to interview him at all."

It's milder, but still an attack on Stallman.

Who cares if it's an attack? He's a demagogue and needs to be put out of our misery. Your wimpy attitude is only going to mean he succeeds. Watching Hitler's armies march through Europe - 'we must be sure to do the right thing'.

[And now the famous theorem is proved again. ;P]

EDIT: Alright, I deleted the attack, but 65.168.18.72, two things

1. Don't call him a prima donna. That's a personal attack.

No, it's a bloody fact, you turnip.

1. Please back up the statement that Stallman refuses to be interviewed unless his terminology is used throughout the interview. This sounds plausible, but I need sources to back it up. --Bash 19:10, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I used to work for the FSF - Stallman would in fact set pre-conditions such as using "GNU/Linux"

This has to stop. Stallman is such a loser - who only attracts other losers. He was totally incapable of producing his own FOSS Unix. Linus, a REAL PROGRAMMER, had no trouble. Stallman tries to steal Linus' product. Enough is enough. Send Stallman to the bath house to get rid of that foul odor, give him a haircut, get him laid for the first time in thirty years, AND BANISH HIM FROM THE ONLINE COMMUNITY.

and "free software" for interviews. That is completely true, at least as of 2001-2002. It was his way of getting people to use those terms, using the leverage of whether he would grant an interview or not. --Brianyoumans 05:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe you, but we can't include original research in WIkipedia. Let's see if we can find a third party source, such as a journalist, that talks about this. Nandesuka 13:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this page ("Stallman recently refused to be interviewed for Salon magazine unless the operating system would be called GNU-Linux."). It would be better if we could find something confirming this by the Salon reporter in question. Nandesuka 13:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I chased down the relevant quote: here:

And although Torvalds released the kernel of his operating system well before GNU produced a reliable one of its own, Stallman insists Torvalds' work should properly be called GNU/Linux, because early contributors adapted GNU components for Linux - never mind that the Linux core is non-GNU and now approaches 6 million lines of code. (Stallman declined to be interviewed unless this article used his nomenclature throughout.)

"Reported in Wired" is notable enough for me. Nandesuka 04:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wired have printed a very silly mistake. Stallman does not ask for Torvalds' work to be called "GNU/Linux". Stallman calls Linus' work "Linux". He uses "GNU/Linux" or "GNU+Linux" only for operating systems which are formed by adding Linux to GNU. IMO, wired could still be cited as the source for the claim that Richard turns down journalists who use the term "Linux" for operating systems made by combining GNU and Linux, but if a less silly source could be found, it should replace Wired's silly article. I also know it to be true that Richard turns down journalists who do things which he thinks harm the free software movement, such as calling GNU "Linux" or saying that Richard supports "open source", and I think he even blacklists them. Gronky 21:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Trivia Cont'd

Lots of these items are worthless, and many of them belong in the copy of the article... at the moment it reads like a lazy schoolboy essay written in bullet-point form.

Examples:

• "Stallman did not participate in the counterculture of the 60s, but found its rejection of wealth as the main goal of life inspiring." -- Hardly trivia since it describes his main motivations. It needs to be sourced and written into the article copy, or removed.
• "POSIX" -- again, hardly trivia. It needs to be sourced and included in the article copy or removed.
• "He cannot swim" -- big deal. This is relevant how?
• "He can't program in Java" -- relevant how? He has talked about "The Java Trap" in the past. If the article had part discussing his objections to Java, it might be relevant there. As it is, it's just a rather pointless factoid.
• "Right Management System" -- pointless bit of cruft, unless Microsoft chose the name specifically to irk him, and I don't think they did.
• "Linus Torvalds said: 'Think of Richard Stallman as the great philosopher and think of me as the engineer' -- interesting, but not for a trivia section. More appropriate if written into the article section discussing his relationship with Linux. -Motor (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well said. Most of these points -- Java, POSIX, Linus, philosophy -- need to be moved and/or expanded on, not deleted. Until they are expanded on, they should stay, as a form of "stub". --GRuban 20:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed a couple of the most obviously poor entries (I'm waving on the SF entry... it should probably go too, unless it is a major influence on him).. I added the fact template to others -- without sources for these, they should be removed. Additionally, as I said above, once these items are sourced many of them should be written into the article rather than left in a shoddy bullet-point form. -Motor (talk) 22:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

All of those, except the Java and influences ones, cna be sourced to at least Free as in Freedom. --maru (talk) contribs 23:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

People shouldn't complain so much about the Trivia section. The article has a bibliography of which people should be familiar before questioning the article's accuracy, and it has been edited (and verified) by the article's subject, so let's not get too obsessed with the this section. Suprisingly, the biographical section of the article had most of the inaccuracies fixed directly by RMS, and not so much the trivia section.--71.241.138.70 16:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

"People shouldn't complain so much about the Trivia section." -- the Trivia section is an eye-sore on this article. "Suprisingly, the biographical section of the article had most of the inaccuracies fixed directly by RMS, and not so much the trivia section" -- What does this have to do with requesting cites for the facts in the trivia section, and removing obviously irrelevant nonsense to tighten up a poorly-structured article? Not to mention requesting that many of trivia section entries are not trivia at all, but substantive claims that should be written into the article rather than left as bullet-points. It's not a matter of accuracy, so much as tidying up a bad article and wanting the information in it verified to a higher standard. That's why I've re-reverted you... anon IP editor. BTW: by adding the fact template I'm requesting more than just "it came from this book"... preferably a page number so it can be easily verified by others... there are too many people adding crap to this article to trust just one person, especially if they happen to be an anon-IP editor. -Motor (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, the Java entry can be considered confirmed by Stallman- I think he may even have been the one who added it in. Of course, then there is concern about verifiability... --maru (talk) contribs 18:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the Java entry (again), because this is an encyclopedia. If RMS, or any other editor, wants to make clever puns, I suggest they start a weblog, not use Wikipedia for non-encyclopedic content. Nandesuka 00:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The trivia section is definitely not an eyesore. The article is probably one of the higher quality biographical articles on the site. Although silly, the trivia section is fine and people have been distracted by it (or instead the criticism section) while the main biographical material has not been verified by the same standard (proof by RMS's fixes). These pleas to make the article more "encyclopedic" fall flat when paper encyclopedias are not required to have footnotes and don't have trivia sections. If having trivia sections doesn't prescribe to your sensibilities, then I'm sorry to hear that. But don't use fact checking to enforce your motives. Further, attempting to find a compromise by merging trivia items into the main article will likely result in an article with poor style. People familiar with Stallman (or Stallman himself) have and will continue to speak up when inaccuracies exist. This current exercise is futile and wasteful. You win the edit war; I'll just surrender. --65.19.87.53 06:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Core speech

"explainging the proposed changes became a core speech." -- typo aside, 'core speech' sounds like a bit of opaque management-speak. If by "core", you mean that explaining the changes to the GPL is one of the most important parts of his agenda when speaking, then it needs to be stated clearly and in plain English. - Motor (talk) 00:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

If you can smooth the wording, please do. My meaning is that before 2006, he had 3 speeches (each with a seperate topic) that he gave over and over again. Now, he has a 4th speech, and during 2006 he will give it over and over again. Gronky 01:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

reverts in Criticism

Hi, 64.222.109.153 and 71.241.136.108 (are you one person or two?) Thanks for helping out; I see you think the number of sources on the Emacs/XEmacs split here should be limited and the others moved to XEmacs.

I don't much mind where that material goes (except that XEmacs is a little messy at present.) But I do ask you to be more careful in your reverts. Each of you now (or you, twice, as the case may be) has, while cutting down the discussion of the Emacs conflict, reverted edits I made that clarified text, labeled links, and fixed typos. As you might imagine, I find this a little frustrating.

After the first instance, I made a comment at User_talk:64.222.109.153, but in hindsight I suppose that wasn't the right place. =) I am a little new around here.

Thanks,

Greg Price 08:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I restored again the edits unrelated to XEmacs. Please don't revert them (unless you have a reason, in which case please give it here.)

I made a new rewrite of the XEmacs text, too, for two reasons:

• Stallman wasn't "at the center" of the split; necessarily it had two ends, and he was just one of them.
• The link to JWZ's email archive should be labeled.

If you think the resulting text is too long, please go ahead and tighten it. But please don't just revert it without discussing it here.

Thanks,

Greg Price 08:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Your initial rewrite was good, except for the formatting, and 71.241.136.108 should not have deleted it. I've restored the Xemacs discussion that lists Ben Wing's, Zawinski's, etc. criticisms separately. I think devoting a few sentences to the topic is not excessive. Nandesuka 12:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry about ignoring Gnp's grammar fixes. I thought I had moved things pretty close to as-is to XEmacs, and reverted sentences back to a form agreeable for some time (In Wikipedia time at least). The material belongs at XEmacs not just because it duplicates material, but its more notable at the XEmacs article. The poor quality of the XEmacs article is only reason to improve it, not to avoid putting your contributions there.

Links that serve as references don' always have link text. I'd think it could result in poorly chosen link names and make external links appear like Wikipedia entries. There could be a Wikipediai guideline on this, but it contradicts the style in this article. --71.241.136.108 16:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

lesser and other

The "Lesser terminology issues" was given that name because Stallman places less emphasis on correcting them. They are words he avoids, and he will correct them in certain situations, but he is less pedantic about them than he is about the big three: "GNU/Linux", "free software", and "Intellectual Property". Gronky 19:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Then they should be part of the pre-existing Terminology section with an explanation similar to the one above. They don't need their own section. - Motor (talk) 21:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The Bezroukov tirade/external link

Does anyone have something to say for this link that was on the page?

• Chapter 3 of an free documentation book detailing Stallman's life

It's sharply and overtly POV, thick with speculation and innuendo, so it's not much of a reference. There's no indication it's had any particular influence,which would make it interesting and the POV merely part of the exhibit.

In policy terms, it's well described by the first item in Wikipedia:External links#Links to normally avoid. --Greg Price 14:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

No. It's been pretty steadily added by anons and removed by users over the last several months. --maru (talk) contribs 22:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Interviews

The "Interviews" sub-section is within the "References" section and it contains a lot of external links. How many of them were actually used as references to add facts to the article, and how many have just been added without a good reason? - Motor (talk) 15:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Fluent French

I'm not a native French speaker, but after listening to a recording of Stallman speaking French, hearing his terrible American accent and his floundering for words with "uh, uh..., uh", I really wouldn't say he speaks the language "fluently".

Edit: In this recording of RMS's French that I'm listening to, he actually stops the speech to ask someone how to say a certain word in French. Hardly "fluent".

rms makes the same pauses you're talking about when speaking spanish. I've never heard him speaking in french, but you said it, he's fluent, not very fluent nor native. Technical things have a lot of tech/jargon words that are not so easy to remember :)

--Licurgo 14:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the "uh, uh, ..,uh" is a French colloquialism, any they spell it "euh". In English we jam in short (under-pronounced) phrases to fill in gaps while we think, in French they say a drawn out "euh". As far as I can guess, this feature in each language is to indicate to others that your not finished your sentence. (I don't know about Spanish.)

In the speech you probably listened to, he asks a French speaker for two words. The verb "to lump together", and something about the pantone colour system. If being stuck for two words when talking for over an hour means you're not fluent, then I am fluent at no languages.

When speaking in English, he wouldn't have the option of asking someone for help with a word, so no one will get the opportunity to point out that he doesn't speak fluent English. Sure, his French isn't perfect, but it is fluent, or near-fluent at worst. Editing the article to say that "he claims" to speak fluent French is ignoring the evidence of his actual level of French - we don't have to rely on, or report, his claims, we have real evidence that is is fluent (or "near-fluent" if you are willing to say the same about native French speakers who get stuck for a word every now and then). Gronky 20:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Spanish doesn't even have a euh sound, dont know what they do but nothing remotely like euh which is very French. Technical terms between English and Latin languages aren't normally hard to remember as the Latin languages will say Spanishize or Portuguesize a technical term from the English. There is an enormous difference between genuinely fluent and being perfect in another language and it sounds like Stallman is indeed fluent. Ras Billy I 01:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Harvard Physics Degree

I think it's important to mention that rms was hacking at the >same< time he was getting a magna cum laude degree in physics, when some people in mit (some "hackers") were absorbed by the hacking and did nothing else. Some of them even loose mit courses because they were hacking so hard.

What I mean, is that rms is not just a or the "philosopher" of gnu and free software like Linus Torvalds says in the movie Revolution OS, he's also a very good programmer (emacs, gnu C compiler, etc.)

"Richard was often in night phase, and when the people in the lab discovered after the fact that he was simultaneously earning a magna cum laude degree in physics at Harvard, even those master hackers were astonished."

from: [[3]] from the book Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution

So i think this should be added. --Licurgo 03:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Stallman's reply to a Torvalds quote, through Wikipedia itself

On 15th November 2005, Stallman edited his own article, adding a reply to Linus Torvalds has opined that while GNU/Linux may be an appropriate name for a GNU-based distribution, using that name for Linux in general is "just ridiculous.". That he replied is factual, and it is recorded in the article's history. The reply, however, has since been removed somewhere along the line.

I believe his reply (Stallman only recommends the term "GNU/Linux" for combinations that include the GNU system.) to be quite relevant and that it should be included for the sake of thouroughness and maintaining neutrality. Thus, I added it back in a slightly different manner: In reply, Stallman notes that he only recommends the term 'GNU/Linux' for combinations that include the GNU system.

This begs for a source, though; so, I added the link to Stallman's edit to Wikipedia, in the form of a footnote. It was he who wrote it - the fact that the medium in which he did so happens to be Wikipedia is, IMO, not relevant to the case. The footnote was removed by Nandesuka (first in this edit and later by Motor after someone else put it back in), under the reasoning of Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Wikipedia can never be a source for itself.. While I do agree that Wikipedia can never be a source for itself, I would submit that in this case this would not apply: it is not Wikipedia who is being quoted, it is Richard Stallman (who is the subject of the article). He happened to write the reply in the Wikipedia site, yes, but I would still say that: 1) it is factual that he wrote it (as long as we believe User:Rmstallman is indeed Stallman and that his account was not compromised, etc); and 2) it is relevant to the case in hand (it is a reply by the subject to an accusation of ridicule a specific claim). It would seem logical to quote it, regardless of where it is written.

Capi 10:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You have absolutely no way of knowing that the Wikipedia user named User:Rmstallman is actually RMS. You have no basis to believe that it's him, because Wikipedia is not a reliable source for itself. Using the comments of Wikipedia editors as sources for articles violates both WP:RS, WP:NOR, and the general principle that this is an encyclopedia, not a blog. No doubt RMS has made similar replies elsewhere that are published in some reliable, verifiable source. Refer to those, not to some random Wikipedia editor's comment. Nandesuka 12:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The best way to know if the user 'Rmstallman' is really RMS is to email him at rms@gnu.org to confirm it yourself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.255.45.169 (talk • contribs) 12:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC).

I bet he get TONS of spam. I wonder how he filters out spam? Family Guy Guy 02:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I have found another source from which the same information can be directly concluded. I have rewritten the sentence (nowhere is it mentioned in the source that this is in response to Torvalds, so I lost the "in reply" bit) and added the new source. On an unrelated matter, the sources and links in the article could use some cleaning up - external links in the ugly [4] format are mixed with reference notes, causing havoc with the note numbering system. Capi 18:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, you need to read WP:NOR again. Wikipedia does not permit original research. We are not here to draw conclusions or inferences, but to be an encyclopedia. There are three problems with your addition. First, the cited source doesn't say what you claim it does. What it actually says is more similar to what is in the first sentence of the modified paragraph. Second, given that, adding material in rejoinder to Linux is redundant with that sentence. Third, and most importantly, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. RMS has made his argument, Linus has made his statements, and we are not a "referee" to adjudicate the truth (either by value judgments such as "this is not what Stallman believes, or by over/under coverage of a given point of view). Hope that helps. Nandesuka 12:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. I would say, however, that leaving the Torvalds comment there by itself without a rebuttal is over covering a given point of view... (at least the other unrelated Torvalds quote was removed) It is clearly irrelevant to what is said in the paragraph: the paragraph says Stallman wants people to use GNU/Linux to describe the combination of GNU + Linux, and we insert a quote by Torvalds saying "calling everything that has Linux on it GNU/Linux is just ridiculous". This is an article about RMS, not about examples of Torvald's flaming . The quote is criticising something which is said nowhere in the paragraph, it is standing on its own without debunking and it is the last word in said paragraph. Capi 13:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The article could also be converted to the new refs system too. - Motor (talk) 18:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have been conversing with rms on the subject of this entry. He has asked me to add the reply to Linus Torvald's comment when it is deleted. I got the request directly from rms@gnu.org so I think it's legitimate to conclude that he thinks as stated. Ewlabonte 22:45 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Your email is neither verifiable nor a reliable source, and is absolutely not appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia. If and when RMS publishes such statements in a verifiable, reliable source, then it may become appropriate for inclusion in this article. In the meantime, Wikipedia is not here to act as a soapbox for its editors (or for the subjects of its articles), and we do not include original research. "I talked with the man myself and he said this was true" is the very definition of original research. Nandesuka 00:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

You, know, I wonder if your motivations are purely based on quality control concerns. The statement isn't controversial. Not every clause in the article is backed up by references. However, Stallman made a statement at [5] which is not at all ambiguous.