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submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

From his website stallman.org:

Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.

Recent video of him speaking at GNU 40 Hacker Meeting. Screenshots of video stream.

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[-] [email protected] 82 points 9 months ago

Software freedom applies only to hardware you personally own. It wouldn't even apply to machines you interact with but do not own (such as ATMs or kiosks) since you aren't the one who agrees to the proprietary software license.

Stallman himself explains it in his computing FAQ.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

If you would like to put my speech on the Internet, or distribute it in digital form, I insist on using the formats of the free software community: Ogg Vorbis or Ogg Speex

Streaming is a kind of Internet distribution, so everything in the previous section applies. In particular, you must use only Ogg format or Matroska VP8 (Webm).

http://xahlee.info/emacs/misc/rms_speech_requirement.html

It seems reasonable to wonder if he'll allow an MRI image of his cancer if that image isn't saved in a Free format. I don't know where he draws the line, but his requirements seem to go quite a bit beyond what he owns or interacts with.

this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
856 points (98.4% liked)

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