draw from past political leaders? Like the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, his attempt to drive social change is based on an appeal to timeless values: freedom, justice, and fair play.
Stallman divides his attention between my analogy and a particularly tangled strand of hair. When I stretch the analogy to the point where I’m comparing Stallman with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stallman, after breaking off a split end and popping it into his mouth, cuts me off.
“I’m not in his league, but I do play the same game”, he says, chewing.
I suggest Malcolm X as another point of comparison. Like the former Nation of Islam spokesperson, Stallman has built up a reputation for courting controversy, alienating potential allies, and preaching a message favoring self-sufficiency over cultural integration.
Chewing on another split end, Stallman rejects the comparison. “My message is closer to King’s message”, he says. “It’s a universal message. It’s a message of firm condemnation of certain practices that mistreat others. It’s not a message of hatred for anyone. And it’s not aimed at a narrow group of people. I invite anyone to value freedom and to have freedom”.
Even so, a suspicious attitude toward political alliances remains a fundamental Stallman character trait. In the case of his well-publicized distaste for the term “open source”, the unwillingness to participate in recent coalition-building projects seems understandable. As a man who has spent the last two decades stumping on the behalf of free software, Stallman’s political capital is deeply invested in the term. Still, comments such as the “Han Solo” wisecrack at the 1999 LinuxWorld have only reinforced the Stallman’s reputation in the software industry as a disgrunted mossback unwilling to roll with political or marketing trends.
“I admire and respect Richard for all the work he’s done”, says Red Hat president Robert Young, summing up Stallman’s paradoxical political nature. “My only critique is that sometimes Richard treats his friends worse than his enemies”.
Stallman’s unwillingness to seek alliances seems equally perplexing when you consider his political interests outside of the free software movement. Visit Stallman’s offices at MIT, and you instantly find a clearinghouse of left-leaning news articles covering civil-rights abuses around the globe. Visit his web site, and you’ll find diatribes on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the War on Drugs, and the World Trade Organization.
Given his activist tendencies, I ask, why hasn’t Stallman sought a larger voice? Why hasn’t he used his visibility in the hacker world as a platform to boost rather than reduce his political voice.
Stallman lets his tangled hair drop and contemplates the question for a moment.
“I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom”, he says. “Because the more well-known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn’t say that free software is as important as they are. It’s the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them”.
Once again, Stallman presents his political activity as a function of personal confidence. Given the amount of time it has taken him to develop and hone the free software movement’s core tenets, Stallman is hesitant to jump aboard any issues or trends that might transport him into uncharted territory.
“I wish I knew I how to make a major difference on those bigger issues, because I would be tremendously proud if I could, but they’re very hard and lots of people who are probably better than I am have been working on them and have gotten only so far”, he says. “But as I see it, while other people were defending against these big visible threats, I saw another threat that was unguarded. And so I went to defend against that threat. It may not be as big a threat, but I was the only one there”.
Chewing a final split end, Stallman suggests paying the check. Before the waiter can take it away, however, Stallman pulls out a white-colored dollar bill and throws it on the pile. The bill looks so clearly counterfeit, I can’t help but pick it up and read it. Sure enough, it is counterfeit. Instead of bearing the image of a George Washington or Abe Lincoln, the bill’s front side bears the image of a cartoon pig. Instead of the United States of America, the banner above the pig reads “United Swines of Avarice”. The bill is for zero dollars, and when the waiter picks up the money, Stallman makes sure to tug on his sleeve.
“I added an extra zero to your tip”, Stallman says, yet another half smile creeping across his lips.
The waiter, uncomprehending or fooled by the look of the bill, smiles and scurries away.
“I think that means we’re free to go”, Stallman says.
Chapter 6. The Emacs Commune
The AI Lab of the 1970s was by all accounts a special place. Cutting-edge projects and top-flight researchers gave it an esteemed position in the world of computer science. The internal hacker culture and its anarchic policies lent a rebellious mystique as well. Only later, when many of the lab’s scientists and software superstars had departed, would hackers fully realize the unique and ephemeral world they had once inhabited.
“It was a bit like the Garden of Eden”, says Stallman, summing up the lab and its software-sharing ethos in a 1998 Forbes article. “It hadn’t occurred to us not to cooperate”.[1]
Such mythological descriptions, while extreme, underline an important fact. The ninth floor of 545 Tech Square was more than a workplace for many. For hackers such as Stallman, it was home.
The word “home” is a weighted term in the Stallman lexicon. In a pointed swipe at his parents, Stallman, to this day, refuses to acknowledge any home before Currier House, the dorm he lived in during his days at Harvard. He has also been known to describe leaving that home in tragicomic terms. Once, while describing his years at Harvard, Stallman said his only regret was getting kicked out. It wasn’t until I asked Stallman what precipitated his ouster, that I realized I had walked into a classic Stallman setup line.
“At Harvard they have this policy where if you pass too many classes they ask you to leave”, Stallman says.
With no dorm and no desire to return to New York, Stallman followed a path blazed by Greenblatt, Gosper, Sussman, and the many other hackers before him. Enrolling at MIT as a grad student, Stallman rented an apartment in nearby Cambridge but soon viewed the AI Lab itself as his de facto home. In a 1986 speech, Stallman recalled his
