Stallman Selling Autographs

UltimaGuy writes "Sports stars, musicians, and other celebrities have been charging for autographs for years, but who would have thought Richard Stallman would be doing the same? Is this just for fun, or a clever, highly effective protest? Hackers, geeks and nerds gathered together at the 7th FISL - Internacional Free Software Forum, in Porto Alegre (Brazil) last week, were astounded when they got word that Richard Stallman, the founding father of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GPL, was charging R$ 10 (about US$ 3) for an autograph and R$ 5 (less than US$ 2) to get his picture taken by free software enthusiasts at the event floor."

Actually from the FA

[Andy Gardner]

It doesn't look like he was directly profiting from the autographs, rather he was autographing "in exchange for a contribution of 10 reais (5 dollars) for the Free Software Foundation."

Not quite Microsoft evil.

The guy is a nutcase

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously does anyone actually pay attention to what RMS does these days? He's an embarrassment to the open source movement with his childish media stunts and unkempt appearance.

Well I guess some goofballs can be entertaining but RMS just goes too far!

He has done this before too!

[Harish Mallipeddi]

The last time he was in Singapore he charged S$10 for his autograph from everyone. Ironically though he didn't charge anything for taking a photograph with him. You know which option I opted for :)

Re:Neither fun nor protest

[tomhudson]

Poster sayeth:

yet charging for software is wrong, wrong, wrong.

You ought to read the GPL [gnu.org]. You can charge whatever price you want for any GPL'd software. That's one of the freedoms. You're also free to dual-license it if you're the creator - another freedom. It works for Trolltech (Qt), MySQL, etc.

GPL:

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish)

Re:Neither fun nor protest

[bigman2003]

But at the same time he is a complete and total hypocrite.

Stallman says:

The term "autograph tax" is a foolish exaggeration--I am not a government, so I cannot make anyone pay taxes. I'm told that such foolishness is common among the people making this criticism: that they generally seek opportunities to criticize the Free Software Foundation, whether valid or not.


This is a man who says that ATI is 'an enemy of your freedom.'

He is the king of foolish over-exaggerations.

Yet when someone applies the word 'tax' to something he is doing, he wants to get very exact and detailed about the symantics.

I can't wait for this guy to die in his own pile of disgusting, long-haired, fat-guy-in-a-stained-shirt, pile of goo.

TFA is a little different then original text

[TropicalCoder]

Complete translation of the original article in the Business Journal Baguete

FISL: Stallman's autograph auctioned for R$ 22 (~US $10) 22/04/2006

An autograph from Free Software guru Richard Stallman was auctioned for R $23 (~US $11) at FISL 7.0 (International Free Software Forum) this Saturday, the 22nd. The initiative by gaucho Leonardo Vaz (Open BSB - RS) [Ed: Residents of the state of Rio Grande do Sul are called "gauchos".] caused a joyful uproar on this last day of the event when he went to personally deliver the money collected to Stallman, accompanied by about a hundred people.

Vaz bought Stallman's signature during the first edition of the Forum, six years ago. To charge contributions for the Free Software Foundation in trade for autographs or photo ops is only one of the eccentric habits of the American, who accepted the money gratefully and affirmed that it would be delivered to the recently founded Free Software Foundation of Latin America.

The auction concept summarizes the distracted atmosphere of this last day of FISL 7.0. The launch of GULA (Alcoholic Linux Users Group) is scheduled for 4:00 pm, which promises to shake up the final hours of the meeting.

[Obs. Apesar de ser canadense, moro em Brasil há seis anos agora.]

Re:Hatchet piece - RTFA next time, stupid editors

[anothy]

as seldom as possible. i'm certainly no HURD user, and i've gotten over emacs years ago. thanks mostly to the larger GNU/FSF's seeming inability to write portable code, i'm bound to use gcc more often than i'd like (which would be never; it's slow, astoundingly large, and often incorrect). in 90 seconds of looking (about all this is worth), i wasn't able to find anything claiming to be a list of contributions from rms, but would chiefly find it useful as a list of components to consider replacing.

please don't assume we're all "GNU/linux" fanboys.

What does that prove?

[ClosedSource]

"Remember that you use his software every day."

Far, far more people use Bill Gates's software every day than RMS's, so what does that prove? (Yes, I know Bill didn't write most of MS's code but RMS didn't write much of the available "free" code either.)

Re:Sellout?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then maybe he should get a job... perhaps making software and selling it for a fair price. Oh wait.. St Ignucious would crucify him or something.

Re:Sellout?

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS has a trust fund. He is not paid by the FSF. I'd tell you to get a clue, but somebody else would then be missing their clue, and you'd probably just lose it anyway.