RM Mess

Robert W. Gehl, 28 March 2021

I guess I have strange timing.

I just got done reading Sam Williams's 2002 book Free As In Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software. I started reading it about March 15 or so.

At the time, I thought of Stallman as largely in the background of the world of FOSS, since of course he resigned from the Free Software Foundation back in 2019. I knew that he was called out for some comments about Marvin Minsky and the Jeffrey Epstein case -- comments that were, at best, tone-deaf and, at worst, apologies for the sexual predation of children. I also knew of increasing numbers of women who reported Stallman's behavior made them uncomfortable and even unsafe.

But since I'm putting together Goal 2 -- a book-length research project about FOSS -- I figured that I need to engage with Stallman in some form, even if he was fading into the background.

So Williams's book caught my eye. As I read, I came across curious moments that may have appeared differently in 2002 than they do to this reader in 2021.

My intention was to read the book and post a bit about it here, as I did with Dreaming In Code as part of my larger research project into FOSS.

But it turns out that I also finished the book in time for RM Mess 2.0. So this is changing from a book review into a post that connect Williams's now two-decades old biography with a current event.

Content warnings: this post discusses sexual assault, child exploitation, and harassment. You might want to skip it on those grounds. Moreover, if you're tired of discussions of Stallman, you also might want to skip this post.

Curious Moment #1: On "freedom" for children

Post Tags

• Stallman
• Free Software Foundation
• Goal 2
• FOSS Library