Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his and not letting people's online speech be aggressively policed by oligarchs-run social control media mobs and defamatory cults which stir up hatred based on misinformation/disinformation
Over the years this subject came up many times. It happened again some days ago when we made an audio version of his latest talk, which was well attended (most of his talks this month were attended by vast crowds across in Europe).
I know Dr. Stallman personally and met him several times. We get along rather well, even if we don't agree on everything. I can relate to what he is going through and went through, seeing that some Americans spend about a million dollars trying to cancel me by viciously attacking my family while the lawyers are clearly breaching rules [1, 2] (I reported this to British authorities, as one should).
Seeing some of the malicious personal attacks on Dr. Stallman (I'd rather not name or repeat them; it would amplify the lies), I can understand what motivates that. It's not about his views on politics; it's about technology. Almost every day I see people who would rather not discuss matters like users controlling their devices; instead they want us to talk about socks, feet, and Bill Epsteingate's very close friend, who Dr. Stallman repeatedly called a "serial rapist". Yes, Dr. Stallman repeatedly called Bill's very close friend a "serial rapist". And what does that say about Bill?
If we mention Dr. Stallman quite a lot and defend people who think like him (regarding technology), it is about maintaining or securing the spectrum of 'permissible' views/stances in technology. The notion that users should avoid "the cloud" and take control of the programs they use oughtn't be "outlandish". █