Something similar happened to Tom Preston Werner of Github when he was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Conference organizers have a responsibility to emphasize the high incidence of theft and assist them however possible - most people coming from developed countries do not have experience with this type of danger. This seems like a situation that could have been avoided if someone was keeping an eye on Rms' bag.
I agree that would be ideal, but it's hard to expect someone who is so accustomed to not having to worry about such things to keep this in mind. This is especially true in situations where you are excited (eg: after giving a talk about something you are passionate about). Clearly he will not make this mistake again, it would have been the right thing to do for the organizers to take better care of him though and protect him from the risks of the country that they invited him to visit - at the very least within the walls of the conference venue.
It's a technical talk, not a subway car. He's a guest. It's not realistic, or hospitable, to expect him to watch his belongings while he's interacting with his audience. Plus it's a new account that's trolling.
It's his responsibiity to make sure someone is watching it for him or to watch it himself, though. In the ideal case, someone would offer to watch it for him, but I'm guessing that didn't happen here.
That said, I do like the idea (suggested elsewhere) of pooling some money to get him a new one right away.
Like I wrote, he enjoys the ritual of interacting with the audience after the talk. I think most people at this point stop looking at their stuff for a minute.
Like the other guy wrote. He had his passport in the bag. The number one rule of traveling: your passport is your life. There are things in that should not be somebody else's task.
Edit: you guys might be right about the troll thing. I'm terribly confused now as I must confess I agree with a troll..
I traveled overseas for 3 straight years long ago, and with the exception of when I had my own locked apartment, I kept my passport physically on my body at all times. The comment above about developed countries is provocative. I know very little about Argentina, but I believe in the 1930's it was considered on par with European countries and North America in terms of development.
London has some pretty effective pickpockets (try Covent Garden on a busy weekend in Summer). Prague petty criminals prefer the accidental bumping into you approach, especially in the main tourist area outside Tyn cathedral/Astronomical Clock in the old town square.
I must admit that I relax a little when I enter an academic environment.
I have one of those wallets that have little straps that hook over your belt, and then you put the wallet inside your trousers. Works for me.
I also agree with the troll and it really does look like that was deliberate trolling. But really, it made sense anyway. You're not allowed to criticize Stallman on HN. I found that out the hard way. It's frowned upon even more than criticizing Steve Jobs (both before and after his passing). But since you brought this up I'd also like to add that I question how this got to the front page. I mean, yeah it sucks and I feel for the guy but this stuff happens. It's not like it was Obama or his bag was filled with national security secrets or a cure for cancer. I can summarize the story in a few words: Stallman had his bag containing his passport and important personal items stolen at a talk he gave. He was very upset. Really? That's big news? I could see bloggers passing the story around but when it ends up here I begin to wonder how much longer before HN is "not like it used to be".
I've criticized both RMS and Jobs on HN. People upvoted me for it. The quality of your arguments matters a lot in those and similar cases because people are more inclined to downvote for a poor argument where they would otherwise let it slide.
Exactly! If you want to convince a Christian that it would be better if some of Jesus's lessons were not followed, and you actually care about convincing them, then you should carefully phrase your criticism.
Perhaps that shouldn't be necessary, but if you rank spreading certain opinions higher than being able to spread them in a certain way, then you'll have to choose. I usually choose adjusting my communication to be more effective in spreading the opinion.
Of course some people can't be reasoned with, but if you communicate effectively, you will find most people can be reasoned with.
I understand that Stallman is an important figure in the software community, but this really doesn't qualify as news in my opinion. To be fair, the server went down so I can't access the article, but unless he had something really important in that bag, like the only copy of a new C compiler written from scratch, this article is just a minor inconvenience in the life of a celebrity.
I believe he is currently traveling through South America to give FOSS talks in many universities. I believe part of the issue is that because of this very details, it puts an end to his trip which has been rough and marked by health issues.
What I don't understand is why the post's author dares mentioning how RMS reacted. A bit of decency is always a nice thing to have, not to mention due respect.
You're right on your last point however the way he initially reacted didn't add anything to the story. It was the nervous reaction of a man who realized the trip he had spent days organizing was being called off because of one individual.
Having personally met RMS and knowing other persons that have the same type of condition, I would say that those people need some respect in the way they handle emotions and other social artifacts.
Simply throwing a verb doesn't give enough depth for a correct understanding. In that regard, it's disrespectful.
Whoah, wait, what condition? I wasn't aware that Stallman had any condition that would cause him to react that way. I even just posted a comment that touches on that topic. I hope I didn't just sound like a jerk picking on someone with a mental/emotional disorder I didn't know about.
You mean the second comment on the actual article page? I did. It mentions how distressed he was and why he was distressed but mentioned no condition. We are talking about a medical condition, right? I'm sorry, if that's not it then I might need it spelled out for me. If that is really it then I still think it was a little bit of an overreaction. I can definitely relate to being that upset but to be punching yourself in the head and carrying on that way where others can clearly see you is strange to put it nicely.
I am sympathetic to the fact that it was quite inconvenient for him, but it seems to me that this is only news because it happened to a celebrity.
It seems that his laptop was also stolen, which led to the cancelling of some lectures. That to me would have been a better article headline (i.e. "rms lectures cancelled due to computer theft).
Yeah. Right now the story is an hour old and has fifty comments.
"How can Richard Stallman getting his bag stolen be that interesting a story?", I thought, as I read the headline. "I guess I should read the story, there must be, in the details, some more important point about how the bag was stolen or what it contains that has broader relevance!"
... turns out, nope. He just had his bag stolen. Y'know, that sucks and all, but I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to care. Richard Stallman didn't care when I got my bag stolen.
Oh come on. I'm sorry, but how can you be older than 12 and not understand how this stuff works?
Would Steve Jobs have come to any of our funerals? Doubtful. That didn't stop literally the entire front page from being filled with articles about his passing.
They're celebrities in our little community. For better or worse, people want to know when painful, wonderful or otherwise-interesting things happen to celebrities.
Check out a copy of "People" or another celebrity gossip magazine next time you're at the grocery store. Same thing, but for a different community of people.
You may be immune to celebrity-fascination, but most people aren't and that's just how the world is. Get over it.
It may be relevant if his following appearances - as it looks like he was on the tour - will be affected by this. I.e. if he will be unable to appear at the next planned event, people would want to know what happened. I know if I planned to meet some interesting person and the event was cancelled at the last moment, I'd like to know what happened.
Okay, maybe we should wait until we're certain. I'd always assumed that life as a travelling philantropist doesn't exactly lead to a decent sum of money. I thought it'd be cool unanticipated thank-you coming at a shitty time for him though.
rms received the MacArthur Genius grant at some point, which comes with a decent sum of money.
Now before some might get the wrong idea (that it would be easy to be an rms if financial worries were taken care of), rms had a job teaching before he got the award and was already doing these speeches.
As an aside, in my opinion it makes his dedication even more admirable. It would be easy for him to decide that he's done enough for Free Software, gets himself a nice seaside property to retire on and tend to his RSI, instead of speaking around the world, getting mocked and willfully misrepresented in the press, and apparently get his stuff stolen.
But he doesn't, because his work is important. He's quite the character, warts and all, but he does have character.
The man who runs Freedom Included, Inc. (the seller of the laptop through Amazon) works at the Free Software Foundation with RMS. I don't think RMS will have trouble getting a new laptop.
I would donate to anything Stallman related anytime. But I am not quite sure if this would be in his intention. Are there any public infos about his personal/financial situation?
If you actually do this you'll either have to get it elsewhere or not tell him it came from Amazon. Stallman recently wrote about how we should stop supporting Amazon. I seriously wonder if he'd accept if he knew where it came from.
Considering RMS a careful person, he probably had backups for all the important information. However, for a person like him, that laptop is probably much more important: he needs to get a specific laptop that respects his freedom, as that one did, so he's probably going to be a bit behind on his e-mails until he gets a proper replacement.
"Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas." http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/
Well he is not the first celebrity to get robbed in B.A.
Bush daughter was visiting the city, the whole neighbourhood was crawling with CIA agents and her purse was still stolen...
The thing is that the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) is public, so anyone can enter their buildings. That, and the fact of having a distracted crowd, makes it a tempting target to a pickpocket. It doesn't have to be a student. It could be anyone passing, entering, grabbing something, and leaving the place before anyone notices something strange.
> Despite his controversial views on a variety of topics, his evangelism work all over the world is a true inspiration for countless people
I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive. He goes around telling programmers that they should give their code for free and he belittles anyone who doesn't follow his advice.
Except he doesn't actually care if you charge for your code. All he cares about are the rights of the consumer. Now, supporting these rights does make it somewhat more difficult to charge for your software, but it clearly isn't impossible: there are companies built around free software. Moreover, if everyone provided free software, it would actually be easier to charge money for it because you wouldn't have to compete with proprietary software and drm.
Even then, RMS has no problem people selling and buying software, he only cares that, once a user has acquired the software product, he can alter it (that's the "free as in freedom" part, as opposed to "free as in beer" which RMS — as far as I know — doesn't really care for).
Now building a business with these constraint is not — as far as I know — a solved business model in the general case, but saying that RMS wants developers to "give their product for free" is a complete and absolute misrepresentation of his position.
> I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive.
Which is completely irrelevant to what you quoted.
> He goes around telling programmers that they should give their code for free
So I take it you have never looked at his writing or heart him speak, and only repeat fifth-hand earsay? Because if there's one thing RMS does not do it's tell people they should "give their code for free". RMS has (and talks about) issues with freedom-less software, not with paid software.
> and he belittles anyone who doesn't follow his advice.
Meanwhile you call him and his ideals "dangerous" and "offensive" for what you imagine are disagreements with your position?
I think you are wrong. Convincing people to freely give is nothing dangerous and actually it is a proven fact that it is beneficial both economically and societally - many people now have their bills paid by jobs enabled by free software and while it may be that RMS might like it, commercial software is not dead either and won't be anytime soon. If anything, free software made more people able to sell their services as programmers.
My option is that RMS is going to far in his opposition to commercial software and in his zeal for freedom he sometimes promotes choices which I (and many others) disagree with. But his contributions are still great, despite all the disagreement.
How is that dangerous or offensive? You don't have to agree with his hardfast approach on all Free Software, all the time, but I think software freedom in general is incredibly important to society and I'm glad we have someone like RMS who believes so strongly in it. Being uncompromising can be both a vice and a virtue.
Let's not rehash that discussion in this thread. Let's imagine the article did not contain the line you quoted, but was neutral about the views of RMS.
With so much traveling, all around the world, and dealing with thousands of people, something's bound to happen.
I hope RMS has an enrypted backup of his data on his home server. It isn't that hard to do, even if you care deeply about privacy and freedom.
As for the rest of the stuff ... I really hope that the organizers can obtain the medicine for him in short order. It's the least they can do. The stolen passport does slow him down, but he should contact the nearest embassy or consulate and they can help him:
The stolen laptop sadly is unlikely to be recovered. The conference organizers should buy one for him.
Does RMS actually have any money saved up, or just the bare essentials? A public figure like that should make quite a decent amount of money from speaking engagements.
That sucks. I would have hoped that the university / event organisers would have provided any help possible to at least get his paperwork back in order though. The article makes it sound like he was pretty much left on his own devices after the theft.
Yep, he was. Although I find it difficult to think that RMS would find himself helpless and with no one around that would care for him, I do believe that the University/Event organizers couldn't care less for what happened.
He comes pretty often to latin-america and he has friends and the foundation helping him at all times. One is still to get pissed of at the amount of time and work wasted because of this.
When I left the place, he was talking to the Faculty's security staff, and he was accompanied by people from a foundation (the one which usually organizes his events here) at all times. They said he slept well and was calm today.
That has to be perhaps the worst site ever. Without javascript enabled, the entire article is covered up by a CSS overlay telling me I need to enable javascript.. all while the actual content I want to read is behind it.
My experience in countries that are less "developed" is that you'll get any kind of medicine you may need if you're ready to pay the price for it. I'm sure he'll be fine.
Passport are simple to replace but Visas simply aren't replaced at all. He could get new Visas under no delay, unfortunately I don't think he has the right connections for that kind of "fast lane" service.
Had his bag stolen -- glad that he's okay! Normally, though, we wouldn't call this "robbery" in English. Strictly speaking, robbery is used for a theft where force (or threat of force) is involved.
"Robbery" is often used when force isn't involved. If the object is stolen while you're nearby, people will often refer to it as a robbery. Outfielders rob batters of home runs all the time.
The word "rob" is particularly useful because lets the victim be used as the direct object. If you want to emphasize RMS as a victim of personal theft, that's the verb to use.
The words have a specific technical meaning in this case, so it's important to use them correctly. A robbery and a simple theft are treated very differently under the law. Prescriptive grammar is the only way to go when you're dealing with a technical system built out of ordinary language, like law or programming.
I think that's fine in general. However, in this case, "robbery" is basically being used as a technical legal term describing a particular crime. It's a little bit like calling every laptop a macbook (except there's no trademarks involved).
He was robbed by someone attending his talk, not mugged on the street at gun point so I don't think that "glad he's okay" is appropriate here, especially since "okay" in this case means that he's in a foreign country without passport, money and medicine.
He wasn't "robbed" at all. He was a victim of theft.
If he'd actuallyh been robbed (as the headline stated) concern for his physical well-being would be entirely appropriate. That's what I meant by my comment.
Thanks. I sort of almost majored in English in college (besides being a native English speaker) and didn't even realize the distinction there (i.e. "robbery" implies force).
It's one of those things that bugs me about the early chapters of the novel Nine Princes in Amber:
He glared at me, I don't know how long.
Finally, "I haven't got a thousand here," he said.
"Name a compromise figure," I said.
After another pause, "It's larceny."
"Not if it's cash-and-carry, Charlie. So, call it."
"I might have five hundred in my safe."
"Get it."
Larceny is what happened to RMS, and I like to just remember it as "walking off with someone's pen" -- maybe a bit of an extreme example, but if you mentally call that "larceny" in your internal classification you more easily remember what larceny is.
Anyway, in the above case Corwin ("I") does in fact have a gun pointed at the doctor ("he") -- albeit the doctor's own gun -- and arguably that's dangerous enough that it goes from being "larceny" to outright robbery.
Reading about Stallman's reaction to this makes me wonder about his mental stability. "Punching himself in the head"? And cursing? Now, cursing I can understand but the picture painted in the story makes it look like Stallman was throwing a tantrum, screaming obscenities, punching himself in the head and then crying. We all knew he was an eccentric fellow but when you're punching yourself in the head, in public no less, you have to wonder what else is going on there. Losing a bag with such important items in it would put anyone in a pretty upset state. Putting aside who we're talking about I think a reaction like that definitely deviates from the norm to the point of maybe crossing the line from eccentricity to instability.
Running the risk of being an armchair psychologist, I think it's pretty well established that RMS likely falls somewhere on the autism spectrum, or at least has some sort of behavioral condition that leads to behavior like this, as well as his documented social quirks.
Which is to say that I think he's probably mentally stable, but a bit strange by everyday standards.
But punching himself in the head? I knew Stallman was weird as we all did and that yeah, he's probably got some disorder but when he's punching himself in the head publicly you can't help but wonder if maybe we should reevaluate our faith in his ideas. Having a mental disorder does not automatically invalidate anything he's ever promoted or done but for me personally, I'd ask myself whether the next idea he promotes is coming from a place of logic or if it's his condition talking. People don't seem to really question him as it is and if there really is something more going on with him maybe that should happen more? Because people are so sensitive when talking about Stallman I have to make a disclaimer: I didn't say he's stupid or wrong or crazy. I'm just wondering how stable the guy is and his public reaction to what happened gives me just cause. I'd wonder the same thing no matter who it was.
[...] when he's punching himself in the head publicly you
can't help but wonder if maybe we should reevaluate our
faith in his ideas [...]
We should reevaluate everyone's ideas then (which is probably just as well), because nobody is perfect. Most people have some deeply-seated issues, very successful and very public people almost always have even harsher personal problems. It's what enables them to stand out, to move further than most of us. So, yes, of course RMS has some kind of disorder, most entrepreneurs have some kind of disorder, most CEOs probably too.
There is a quote from the West Wing that rings in my ears whenever a public figure shows some kind of flaw and someone like you inevitably demands that flaw invalidates everything they stand for:
Because we’re all broken, every single one of us, and yet we pretend that we’re not. We all live lives of imperfection and yet we cling to this fantasy that there’s this perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plane than the rest of us, well we’re just asking to be deceived.
>>he's probably got some disorder but when he's punching himself in the head publicly you can't help but wonder if maybe we should reevaluate our faith in his ideas
That's a bit of a leap of faith from a second hand account from a comment on a blog that related the event. I think it's safer to assume for now that the person who made the comment is not a native speaker (due to his name, and, obviously, being present at the talk) and is describing someone acting out the "stupid, stupid! stupid. How could I be so careless!" routine combined with hitting your own head, which I believe is a fairly common way to express exasperation, as "punching himself in the head".
I guess you should evaluate his ideas for yourself, without bringing his mental state into it. If you disagree with Stallman, so be it, lots of people do for good reasons. But evaluate his ideas, not his personality because his personality should not affect whether you agree with him or not.
>> People don't seem to really question him as it is...
I'm not sure with whom or where you hang out, but I'd say Stallman is one of the most controversial figures in the world of software. Even people who mostly agree with his viewpoints often say he takes it too far.
I'd imagine he was also tired (travel and new people/circumstances do that), plus perhaps a touch of blaming the victim (himself), and realising the implications of letting down other people/places on the rest of his tour. An emotional reaction like a facepalm means he is human with feelings, something some people are forgetting.
I don't know if you're quoting me or someone else, but I can tell you I saw him doing that. It was a bit scary. He also yelled many times and, when he was at the stairs, he bit his own arm while shouting.
I've been a human for most of my life, and from what I can tell, this is a pretty typical reaction to losing all your possessions in a foreign country.
Who'd a thunk he'd be a control freak with little tolerance for the imperfections of human society?
(The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - G. B. Shaw)
It's interesting that he was at a conference, presumably speaking about what he always speaks about.
This means his bag and things were to advance his mission, which is kind of to advance a 'commons'.
it nicely illustrate's RMS's philosophy (gpl). Even though he was speaking to advance the public good, a private enterprizer took his bag, removing it from the commons he worked so hard to advance.
RMS's philosophy, code, and bags require the protection of law.
Most of us have cloud backups like Mozy or Carbonite, or keep our documents in the cloud with tools like Google Docs, iCloud, or Zoho. To us, losing a laptop is an inconvenience... but not a cause for canceling future engagements. But RMS is different. He's ethically opposed to the "cloud," calling it a "trap." That is his prerogative. But you can't cry when you lose your data!!
You can back up and restore your data securely over the internet using only free software on both ends, if you really want to. And if anyone knows how to do so, I'm sure RMS does. Perhaps he even has a full backup of all his important data from the stolen laptop.
However, no backup, be it cloud-based or not, can get you back your stolen passport, money, or medicine. So I think you may be a bit out of line implying that RMS is crying merely over something that he could have saved if only he had been willing to compromise his deeply-held beliefs.
(Even the laptop itself may have been quite difficult to obtain, since if I recall correctly, RMS uses a specific laptop that has a completely free software stack, including firmware and such.)
I host sensitive data and perform backups on my company's servers. We're renting a rack and handle the hardware ourself. All happily running on FOSS. I don't think RMS has anything wrong with that.
Medicine has no backup, but you can buy some more.
A passport has no backup. Fortunately, embassies can issue emergency passports, but Visas are lost.
If anything, I'm sure he was not sad for his laptop.
I think the larger problem, for him, is procuring another laptop that is 101% Free. I'd be surprised if he didn't have backups somewhere online, but a system he controls.
How can you say that, when you don't know the man? He's not crying for his data, his HD didn't broke and lost all of his e-mails and stuff. All of his belongings were stolen by someone, and that I can relate to. He's really sensitive, and as entitled to cry for that as anyone else in that situation.
