Bonum Certa Men Certa

Margarita Lacabe: My Relationship with Richard (Stallman)

Published on April 18, 2021. Reprinted with permission (original); By Margarita Lacabe.

Summary: Margarita Lacabe is a Doctor of Law graduated at the University of Berkeley. She met Richard Stallman at Berkeley when she was 18. She was shocked when she learned about the attacks to Stallman in 2019. At that time, she expressed her perplexity in an article she published in Facebook. In the light of the new attacks started in March 2021, she updated that article to be published here.

I met Richard when he was around 33 and I had just turned 18, the summer after my freshman year in college. We were introduced by a neighbor who studied computer science. Richard was doing some stint at Berkeley that summer, and we hang out some. He had me over to his place to listen to Indonesian music (or something of the sort), while he danced, and he came to my place or we went out for meals with our mutual friend for long conversations. While I don't specifically recall them, I'm sure there were hugs as well—I hugged a lot of people back then.



"Earlier on, Richard let me know he was sexually interested in me—something that was true of most of the computer scientists I met that summer—but he didn't press it, and our relationship was fully platonic. So I would not immediately assume that the so-called “pleasure cards” that he handed out at conferences were meant to be sexual come ons."Knowing Richard, I get his point that it makes little sense that while it'd have been perfectly legal for any of those men to sleep with me that summer, it would have been statutory rape if it'd happen a few weeks earlier. I can almost understand why he made the arguments on pedophilia that he made as well. Richard likes (or liked back then) to play devil's advocate, and to examine issues from different perspectives. At 18, I enjoyed matching intellects with him.

A lot of women seem to see Richard as a creep, but I don't think he means to be a creep. He is someone who just has practically no social awareness. A lot of computer scientists are in the spectrum and share these traits, but in Richard they go many steps beyond. As described, he has phobias (his one, when I met him, was of having his head under water, which meant he seldom washed his hair.)[*]

Richard marches to his own tune, but in my experience, he respected boundaries when they were made VERY clear to him, and he is a good man with a good heart.

Richard literally won a MacArthur genius fellowship a few years after I first met him. This brings up the question of how to deal with non-neurotypical people in our society who break social mores and act creepy without realizing the consequences of what they are doing. Do we need to put them in the corner, even though it was that very “disability” that enabled them to make profound positive changes in society?

I don't have an answer, but I care about Richard in the way one can't help but caring about old friends and I guess I want to say there is some nuance here. ____ [*] We are told that in the 1990s Stallman developed a technique for washing his hair which felt safe, and since then he has washed his hair regularly.↑

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Will Spend the Next Few Years Writing a Lot About Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
It's a growing problem
The State of EPO Staff's Health in Rijswijk or The Hague
We're going to cover the EPO some more later in the month
NVIDIA Corp Lost 36% of Its "Value" Since Cheeto Inauguration, But "Gen Hey Hi" (GenAI) is Totally Not a Bubble
Selling loads of unneeded hardware based on hysterical hype; like selling shovels during a Gold Rush
 
Links 05/04/2025: TikTok Unsold (Still), Royal Society is Dead
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Growing in East Asia, Windows by Default No More?
GNU/Linux is now on the shelf
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux 'Articles' From Linux-Hostile LLMs
It is almost always negative things and nobody can be held responsible for it except the charlatans prompting the LLMs
Links 05/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) "Sale Looks Highly Imminent" (US), Stock Market Drowning in Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Moving Plants, No to Smartwatches, RAID Hygiene
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 04, 2025
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day