reason. Just days before my Palo Alto meeting with Stallman, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel granted a request filed by the Recording Industry Association of America for an injunction against the file-sharing service. The injunction was subsequently suspended by the U.S. Ninth District Court of Appeals, but by early 2001, the Court of Appeals, too, would find the San Mateo-based company in breach of copyright law,[5] a decision RIAA spokesperson Hillary Rosen would later proclaim proclaim a “clear victory for the creative content community and the legitimate online marketplace”.[6]
For hackers such as Stallman, the Napster business model is scary in different ways. The company’s eagerness to appropriate time-worn hacker principles such as file sharing and communal information ownership, while at the same time selling a service based on proprietary software, sends a distressing mixed message. As a person who already has a hard enough time getting his own carefully articulated message into the media stream, Stallman is understandably reticent when it comes to speaking out about the company. Still, Stallman does admit to learning a thing or two from the social side of the Napster phenomenon.
“Before Napster, I thought it might be OK for people to privately redistribute works of entertainment”, Stallman says. “The number of people who find Napster useful, however, tells me that the right to redistribute copies not only on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis, but to the public at large, is essential and therefore may not be taken away”.
No sooner does Stallman say this than the door to the restaurant swings open and we are invited back inside by the host. Within a few seconds, we are seated in a side corner of the restaurant next to a large mirrored wall.
The restaurant’s menu doubles as an order form, and Stallman is quickly checking off boxes before the host has even brought water to the table. “Deep-fried shrimp roll wrapped in bean-curd skin”, Stallman reads. “Bean- curd skin. It offers such an interesting texture. I think we should get it”.
This comment leads to an impromptu discussion of Chinese food and Stallman’s recent visit to China. “The food in China is utterly exquisite”, Stallman says, his voice gaining an edge of emotion for the first time this morning. “So many different things that I’ve never seen in the U.S., local things made from local mushrooms and local vegetables. It got to the point where I started keeping a journal just to keep track of every wonderful meal”.
The conversation segues into a discussion of Korean cuisine. During the same June, 2000, Asian tour, Stallman paid a visit to South Korea. His arrival ignited a mini-firestorm in the local media thanks to a Korean software conference attended by Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates that same week. Next to getting his photo above Gates’s photo on the front page of the top Seoul newspaper, Stallman says the best thing about the trip was the food. “I had a bowl of naeng myun, which is cold noodles”, says Stallman. “These were a very interesting feeling noodle. Most places don’t use quite the same kind of noodles for your naeng myun, so I can say with complete certainty that this was the most exquisite naeng myun I ever had”.
The term “exquisite” is high praise coming from Stallman. I know this, because a few moments after listening to Stallman rhapsodize about naeng myun, I feel his laser-beam eyes singeing the top of my right shoulder.
“There is the most exquisite woman sitting just behind you”, Stallman says.
I turn to look, catching a glimpse of a woman’s back. The woman is young, somewhere in her mid-20s, and is wearing a white sequinned dress. She and her male lunch companion are in the final stages of paying the check. When both get up from the table to leave the restaurant, I can tell without looking, because Stallman’s eyes suddenly dim in intensity.
“Oh, no”, he says. “They’re gone. And to think, I’ll probably never even get to see her again”.
After a brief sigh, Stallman recovers. The moment gives me a chance to discuss Stallman’s reputation vis-- vis the fairer sex. The reputation is a bit contradictory at times. A number of hackers report Stallman’s predilection for greeting females with a kiss on the back of the hand.[7] A May 26, 2000 Salon.com article, meanwhile, portrays Stallman as a bit of a hacker lothario. Documenting the free software- free love connection, reporter Annalee Newitz presents Stallman as rejecting traditional family values, telling her, “I believe in love, but not monogamy”.[8]
Stallman lets his menu drop a little when I bring this up. “Well, most men seem to want sex and seem to have a rather contemptuous attitude towards women”, he says. “Even women they’re involved with. I can’t understand it at all”.
I mention a passage from the 1999 book
“I wasn’t really trying to be romantic”, Stallman says, recalling the Alix story. “It was more of a teasing thing. I mean, it was romantic, but it was also teasing, you know? It would have been a delightful surprise”.
For the first time all morning, Stallman smiles. I bring up the hand kissing. “Yes, I do do that”, Stallman says. “I’ve found it’s a way of offering some affection that a lot of women will enjoy. It’s a chance to give some affection and to be appreciated for it”.
Affection is a thread that runs clear through Richard Stallman’s life, and he is painfully candid about it when questions arise. “There really hasn’t been much affection in my life, except in my mind”, he says. Still, the discussion quickly grows awkward. After a few one-word replies, Stallman finally lifts up his menu, cutting off the inquiry.
“Would you like some shimai?” he asks.
When the food comes out, the conversation slaloms between the arriving courses. We discuss the oft-noted hacker affection for Chinese food, the weekly dinner runs into Boston’s Chinatown district during Stallman’s days as a staff programmer at the AI Lab, and the underlying logic of the Chinese language and its associated writing system. Each thrust on my part elicits a well-informed parry on Stallman’s part.
“I heard some people speaking Shanghainese the last time I was in China”, Stallman says. “It was interesting to hear. It sounded quite different [from Mandarin]. I had them tell me some cognate words in Mandarin and Shanghainese. In some cases you can see the resemblance, but one question I was wondering about was whether tones would be similar. They’re not. That’s interesting to me, because there’s a theory that the tones
