Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/

by Rauchg • 14 years ago

92 111 14 years ago

Had his bag stolen -- glad that he's okay! Normally, though, we wouldn't call this "robbery" in English. Strictly speaking, robbery is used for a theft where force (or threat of force) is involved.

creativityhurts4• 14 years ago

He was robbed by someone attending his talk, not mugged on the street at gun point so I don't think that "glad he's okay" is appropriate here, especially since "okay" in this case means that he's in a foreign country without passport, money and medicine.

Such a shame.

Turing_Machine3• 14 years ago

He wasn't "robbed" at all. He was a victim of theft.

If he'd actuallyh been robbed (as the headline stated) concern for his physical well-being would be entirely appropriate. That's what I meant by my comment.

Rauchg2• 14 years ago

Turing thanks for letting me know - I adapted the title after I verified he was technically mugged.

javert4• 14 years ago

I don't think it was a "mugging," either, which AFAIK is a form of robbery that happens in the street.

javert4• 14 years ago

Thanks. I sort of almost majored in English in college (besides being a native English speaker) and didn't even realize the distinction there (i.e. "robbery" implies force).

drostie• 14 years ago

It's one of those things that bugs me about the early chapters of the novel Nine Princes in Amber:

    He glared at me, I don't know how long.    
    Finally, "I haven't got a thousand here," he said.
    "Name a compromise figure," I said.
    After another pause, "It's larceny."
    "Not if it's cash-and-carry, Charlie. So, call it."
    "I might have five hundred in my safe."
    "Get it."

Larceny is what happened to RMS, and I like to just remember it as "walking off with someone's pen" -- maybe a bit of an extreme example, but if you mentally call that "larceny" in your internal classification you more easily remember what larceny is.

Anyway, in the above case Corwin ("I") does in fact have a gun pointed at the doctor ("he") -- albeit the doctor's own gun -- and arguably that's dangerous enough that it goes from being "larceny" to outright robbery.

shrughes• 14 years ago

"Robbery" is often used when force isn't involved. If the object is stolen while you're nearby, people will often refer to it as a robbery. Outfielders rob batters of home runs all the time.

The word "rob" is particularly useful because lets the victim be used as the direct object. If you want to emphasize RMS as a victim of personal theft, that's the verb to use.

Turing_Machine3• 14 years ago

Some people may use it that way but that doesn't make it right.

The baseball example is a figure of speech, not a description of an actual crime. This was a real crime.

MehdiEG• 14 years ago

That sucks. I would have hoped that the university / event organisers would have provided any help possible to at least get his paperwork back in order though. The article makes it sound like he was pretty much left on his own devices after the theft.

mrleinad4• 14 years ago

Yep, he was. Although I find it difficult to think that RMS would find himself helpless and with no one around that would care for him, I do believe that the University/Event organizers couldn't care less for what happened.

andrewcooke• 14 years ago

what? any evidence (of lack of care from organisers)?

pandres2• 14 years ago

He comes pretty often to latin-america and he has friends and the foundation helping him at all times. One is still to get pissed of at the amount of time and work wasted because of this.

crazy2k_2• 14 years ago

When I left the place, he was talking to the Faculty's security staff, and he was accompanied by people from a foundation (the one which usually organizes his events here) at all times. They said he slept well and was calm today.

rdavl• 14 years ago

Hope he had backups...

makmanalp3• 14 years ago

Damn, this is not nice. Maybe HN can pitch in to get him a new laptop? I'd donate a few bucks.

Edit: What the heck? What's wrong with what I suggested?

chimeracoder• 14 years ago

It might be hard to find a Lemote Yeelong (at least the particular model he uses, which lets him use a free BIOS).

Here's one, though I'm not sure if it's the correct version: http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.htm...

makmanalp3• 14 years ago

From his usesthis interview: "I do hope to switch soon to a newer model of Yeelong with a 10-inch display."

Also I found it on Amazon, with Prime: http://www.amazon.com/Screen-Lemote-Yeeloong-8101_B-Netbook/... $450.

If one of the known / trusted HN elders decides to pool the money, this seems doable.

gsivil• 14 years ago

I am not so sure that rms cannot afford a laptop. He is in need of more free models to choose from than a few bucks

makmanalp3• 14 years ago

Okay, maybe we should wait until we're certain. I'd always assumed that life as a travelling philantropist doesn't exactly lead to a decent sum of money. I thought it'd be cool unanticipated thank-you coming at a shitty time for him though.

vladd• 14 years ago

It's not a matter of cash affordability, rather cash accessibility (considering his cards and IDs got stolen).

ginko• 14 years ago

According to http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com RMS would like to have a real laptop with an open BIOS.

Shouldn't a laptop like the Thinkpad X60 or T60 with Coreboot installed fulfill that requirement? They are supported according to the coreboot site.

Are there any other potential problems I'm not thinking of? Possibly a firmware issue with the Intel chipset?

LiquidSummer• 14 years ago

Get him a box of Lenode laptop that he wants, inside, it should have a mac book pro. Film his reaction!

mrleinad4• 14 years ago

Considering RMS a careful person, he probably had backups for all the important information. However, for a person like him, that laptop is probably much more important: he needs to get a specific laptop that respects his freedom, as that one did, so he's probably going to be a bit behind on his e-mails until he gets a proper replacement.

rastingerzoh2• 14 years ago

the joys of cloud computing. oh wait...

creativityhurts4• 14 years ago

"Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas." http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

Oh well. The interview is from 2010 though.

creativityhurts4• 14 years ago

Here's his interview on The Setup where he describes his laptop and the software he uses http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

brentvatne2• 14 years ago

Something similar happened to Tom Preston Werner of Github when he was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Conference organizers have a responsibility to emphasize the high incidence of theft and assist them however possible - most people coming from developed countries do not have experience with this type of danger. This seems like a situation that could have been avoided if someone was keeping an eye on Rms' bag.

rastingerzoh2• 14 years ago

rms, he himself, should have kept an eye on the bag, not somebody else...

nakkiel9• 14 years ago

I don't understand the downvotes. Care to explain?

brentvatne2• 14 years ago

I agree that would be ideal, but it's hard to expect someone who is so accustomed to not having to worry about such things to keep this in mind. This is especially true in situations where you are excited (eg: after giving a talk about something you are passionate about). Clearly he will not make this mistake again, it would have been the right thing to do for the organizers to take better care of him though and protect him from the risks of the country that they invited him to visit - at the very least within the walls of the conference venue.

thejerz• 14 years ago

Most of us have cloud backups like Mozy or Carbonite, or keep our documents in the cloud with tools like Google Docs, iCloud, or Zoho. To us, losing a laptop is an inconvenience... but not a cause for canceling future engagements. But RMS is different. He's ethically opposed to the "cloud," calling it a "trap." That is his prerogative. But you can't cry when you lose your data!!

ebiester• 14 years ago

I think the larger problem, for him, is procuring another laptop that is 101% Free. I'd be surprised if he didn't have backups somewhere online, but a system he controls.

ctz• 14 years ago

Could you explain how to pass through immigration using a passport stored in the cloud?

uvdiv• 14 years ago

Well why not?

A serious question: what's the advantage of physical identity cards over digitally-signed documents + two-factor?

nakkiel9• 14 years ago

I host sensitive data and perform backups on my company's servers. We're renting a rack and handle the hardware ourself. All happily running on FOSS. I don't think RMS has anything wrong with that.

Medicine has no backup, but you can buy some more.

A passport has no backup. Fortunately, embassies can issue emergency passports, but Visas are lost.

If anything, I'm sure he was not sad for his laptop.

rcthompson• 14 years ago

You can back up and restore your data securely over the internet using only free software on both ends, if you really want to. And if anyone knows how to do so, I'm sure RMS does. Perhaps he even has a full backup of all his important data from the stolen laptop.

However, no backup, be it cloud-based or not, can get you back your stolen passport, money, or medicine. So I think you may be a bit out of line implying that RMS is crying merely over something that he could have saved if only he had been willing to compromise his deeply-held beliefs.

(Even the laptop itself may have been quite difficult to obtain, since if I recall correctly, RMS uses a specific laptop that has a completely free software stack, including firmware and such.)

mrleinad4• 14 years ago

How can you say that, when you don't know the man? He's not crying for his data, his HD didn't broke and lost all of his e-mails and stuff. All of his belongings were stolen by someone, and that I can relate to. He's really sensitive, and as entitled to cry for that as anyone else in that situation.

dbbolton2• 14 years ago

I understand that Stallman is an important figure in the software community, but this really doesn't qualify as news in my opinion. To be fair, the server went down so I can't access the article, but unless he had something really important in that bag, like the only copy of a new C compiler written from scratch, this article is just a minor inconvenience in the life of a celebrity.

babarock• 14 years ago

Knowing HN, it will inevitably trigger discussions about the organization of conferences. For better or worse.

The article is not about rms, but about the venue where the celebrity got robbed.

nakkiel9• 14 years ago

He had his passport.

I believe he is currently traveling through South America to give FOSS talks in many universities. I believe part of the issue is that because of this very details, it puts an end to his trip which has been rough and marked by health issues.

What I don't understand is why the post's author dares mentioning how RMS reacted. A bit of decency is always a nice thing to have, not to mention due respect.

kzrdude• 14 years ago

Decency? We're adults, we respect him like other humans and we can handle the real story. At least we should have the decency to.

dbbolton2• 14 years ago

I am sympathetic to the fact that it was quite inconvenient for him, but it seems to me that this is only news because it happened to a celebrity.

It seems that his laptop was also stolen, which led to the cancelling of some lectures. That to me would have been a better article headline (i.e. "rms lectures cancelled due to computer theft).

planetguy2• 14 years ago

Yeah. Right now the story is an hour old and has fifty comments.

"How can Richard Stallman getting his bag stolen be that interesting a story?", I thought, as I read the headline. "I guess I should read the story, there must be, in the details, some more important point about how the bag was stolen or what it contains that has broader relevance!"

... turns out, nope. He just had his bag stolen. Y'know, that sucks and all, but I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to care. Richard Stallman didn't care when I got my bag stolen.

glesica• 14 years ago

Oh come on. I'm sorry, but how can you be older than 12 and not understand how this stuff works?

Would Steve Jobs have come to any of our funerals? Doubtful. That didn't stop literally the entire front page from being filled with articles about his passing.

They're celebrities in our little community. For better or worse, people want to know when painful, wonderful or otherwise-interesting things happen to celebrities.

Check out a copy of "People" or another celebrity gossip magazine next time you're at the grocery store. Same thing, but for a different community of people.

You may be immune to celebrity-fascination, but most people aren't and that's just how the world is. Get over it.

smsm422• 14 years ago

It may be relevant if his following appearances - as it looks like he was on the tour - will be affected by this. I.e. if he will be unable to appear at the next planned event, people would want to know what happened. I know if I planned to meet some interesting person and the event was cancelled at the last moment, I'd like to know what happened.

rdl• 14 years ago

I wonder if he'll add some basic security precautions (a locking area for his stuff while speaking) to his fairly detailed rider.

its_so_on• 14 years ago

Sorry to hear what happened.

It's interesting that he was at a conference, presumably speaking about what he always speaks about.

This means his bag and things were to advance his mission, which is kind of to advance a 'commons'.

it nicely illustrate's RMS's philosophy (gpl). Even though he was speaking to advance the public good, a private enterprizer took his bag, removing it from the commons he worked so hard to advance.

RMS's philosophy, code, and bags require the protection of law.

pgrote• 14 years ago

The passport replacement is relatively easy, right?

The bigger concern is the medicine. How does that work with prescription medicine outside the US?

The laptop is rather unique, so if someone pawned it you would think it could be hunted down.

nakkiel9• 14 years ago

My experience in countries that are less "developed" is that you'll get any kind of medicine you may need if you're ready to pay the price for it. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Passport are simple to replace but Visas simply aren't replaced at all. He could get new Visas under no delay, unfortunately I don't think he has the right connections for that kind of "fast lane" service.

myth_drannon• 14 years ago

Well he is not the first celebrity to get robbed in B.A. Bush daughter was visiting the city, the whole neighbourhood was crawling with CIA agents and her purse was still stolen...

mrleinad4• 14 years ago

Maybe I'm downvoted for this, but I feel a lot worse for RMS than for Bush's daughter..

kylebrown• 14 years ago

The spanish article mentions that the photographer's camera was also stolen.

molmalo• 14 years ago

The thing is that the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) is public, so anyone can enter their buildings. That, and the fact of having a distracted crowd, makes it a tempting target to a pickpocket. It doesn't have to be a student. It could be anyone passing, entering, grabbing something, and leaving the place before anyone notices something strange.

discore• 14 years ago

I can't resist wondering if RMS has brought up the licensing of his medication with his doctor, who looked at him quizzically.

asitseems• 14 years ago

if he had a chromebook he wouldn't be crying in the stairs. childish

nakkiel9• 14 years ago

Seriously, how old are you? I've seen, read, done, ... a lot of stupid things but you beat all my expectations.

MindTwister• 14 years ago

On android the page is unreadable (at least in Dolphin) because of the undismissable menu.

weslly• 14 years ago

That's sad, even though I don't like a lot of things he say I hope he can recover it soon.

eta_carinae2• 14 years ago

> Despite his controversial views on a variety of topics, his evangelism work all over the world is a true inspiration for countless people

I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive. He goes around telling programmers that they should give their code for free and he belittles anyone who doesn't follow his advice.

floomp• 14 years ago

How is that dangerous or offensive? You don't have to agree with his hardfast approach on all Free Software, all the time, but I think software freedom in general is incredibly important to society and I'm glad we have someone like RMS who believes so strongly in it. Being uncompromising can be both a vice and a virtue.

tikhonj2• 14 years ago

Except he doesn't actually care if you charge for your code. All he cares about are the rights of the consumer. Now, supporting these rights does make it somewhat more difficult to charge for your software, but it clearly isn't impossible: there are companies built around free software. Moreover, if everyone provided free software, it would actually be easier to charge money for it because you wouldn't have to compete with proprietary software and drm.

TazeTSchnitzel2• 14 years ago

Exactly. Look at Canonical. They give away Ubuntu completely free, yet they make money out of selling cloud services and support.

Confusion2• 14 years ago

Let's not rehash that discussion in this thread. Let's imagine the article did not contain the line you quoted, but was neutral about the views of RMS.

smsm422• 14 years ago

I think you are wrong. Convincing people to freely give is nothing dangerous and actually it is a proven fact that it is beneficial both economically and societally - many people now have their bills paid by jobs enabled by free software and while it may be that RMS might like it, commercial software is not dead either and won't be anytime soon. If anything, free software made more people able to sell their services as programmers.

My option is that RMS is going to far in his opposition to commercial software and in his zeal for freedom he sometimes promotes choices which I (and many others) disagree with. But his contributions are still great, despite all the disagreement.

masklinn2• 14 years ago

> I disagree, I think his evangelism is dangerous and offensive.

Which is completely irrelevant to what you quoted.

> He goes around telling programmers that they should give their code for free

So I take it you have never looked at his writing or heart him speak, and only repeat fifth-hand earsay? Because if there's one thing RMS does not do it's tell people they should "give their code for free". RMS has (and talks about) issues with freedom-less software, not with paid software.

> and he belittles anyone who doesn't follow his advice.

Meanwhile you call him and his ideals "dangerous" and "offensive" for what you imagine are disagreements with your position?

eta_carinae2• 14 years ago

> The report goes on to convey the truly heartbreaking image of a hopeless RMS sitting at the university staircase, crying.

Words fail me.

billpatrianakos6• 14 years ago

Reading about Stallman's reaction to this makes me wonder about his mental stability. "Punching himself in the head"? And cursing? Now, cursing I can understand but the picture painted in the story makes it look like Stallman was throwing a tantrum, screaming obscenities, punching himself in the head and then crying. We all knew he was an eccentric fellow but when you're punching yourself in the head, in public no less, you have to wonder what else is going on there. Losing a bag with such important items in it would put anyone in a pretty upset state. Putting aside who we're talking about I think a reaction like that definitely deviates from the norm to the point of maybe crossing the line from eccentricity to instability.

stinkytaco2• 14 years ago

Running the risk of being an armchair psychologist, I think it's pretty well established that RMS likely falls somewhere on the autism spectrum, or at least has some sort of behavioral condition that leads to behavior like this, as well as his documented social quirks.

Which is to say that I think he's probably mentally stable, but a bit strange by everyday standards.

billpatrianakos6• 14 years ago

But punching himself in the head? I knew Stallman was weird as we all did and that yeah, he's probably got some disorder but when he's punching himself in the head publicly you can't help but wonder if maybe we should reevaluate our faith in his ideas. Having a mental disorder does not automatically invalidate anything he's ever promoted or done but for me personally, I'd ask myself whether the next idea he promotes is coming from a place of logic or if it's his condition talking. People don't seem to really question him as it is and if there really is something more going on with him maybe that should happen more? Because people are so sensitive when talking about Stallman I have to make a disclaimer: I didn't say he's stupid or wrong or crazy. I'm just wondering how stable the guy is and his public reaction to what happened gives me just cause. I'd wonder the same thing no matter who it was.

jrockway2• 14 years ago

"Punching himself in the head"?

FWIW, I don't think the author is a native speaker of English, and may mean something closer to "facepalm" than "beating the shit out of himself".

rogerbinns• 14 years ago

I'd imagine he was also tired (travel and new people/circumstances do that), plus perhaps a touch of blaming the victim (himself), and realising the implications of letting down other people/places on the rest of his tour. An emotional reaction like a facepalm means he is human with feelings, something some people are forgetting.

crazy2k_2• 14 years ago

I don't know if you're quoting me or someone else, but I can tell you I saw him doing that. It was a bit scary. He also yelled many times and, when he was at the stairs, he bit his own arm while shouting.

kenneth_reitz• 14 years ago

I landed in Zurich, Switzerland last week to discover that my bank had shut off my debit card via fraud protection.

I had $0 in cash on me. It was quite frightening, even in one of the richest cities in world.

Everything worked out in the end, but it was the most I've been stressed out in a while.

RockyMcNuts2• 14 years ago

Who'd a thunk he'd be a control freak with little tolerance for the imperfections of human society?

(The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - G. B. Shaw)

EGreg• 14 years ago

With so much traveling, all around the world, and dealing with thousands of people, something's bound to happen.

I hope RMS has an enrypted backup of his data on his home server. It isn't that hard to do, even if you care deeply about privacy and freedom.

As for the rest of the stuff ... I really hope that the organizers can obtain the medicine for him in short order. It's the least they can do. The stolen passport does slow him down, but he should contact the nearest embassy or consulate and they can help him:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/lostpassport...

The stolen laptop sadly is unlikely to be recovered. The conference organizers should buy one for him.

Does RMS actually have any money saved up, or just the bare essentials? A public figure like that should make quite a decent amount of money from speaking engagements.

pandres2• 14 years ago

Most medicines have already been obtained for him. He has friends and the foundation helping him in Argentina, the main thing is the laptop.

bdcravens• 14 years ago

I gnu I had a great quip about his property and identity being open sourced, but can't quite put it together.

devicenull• 14 years ago

That has to be perhaps the worst site ever. Without javascript enabled, the entire article is covered up by a CSS overlay telling me I need to enable javascript.. all while the actual content I want to read is behind it.

Rms has his bag stolen in Argentina

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