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RMS Robbed of Passport and Other Belongings In Argentina
New submitter Progman3K writes "Richard Stallman, father of the FSF, had his bag containing his laptop, medicine, money and passport stolen after his talk at the University of Buenos Aires on Friday, June 8." Adds reader jones_supa, excerpting from the same linked story: "As a result of this occurrence, he was forced to cancel his talk in Cordoba, and it's still unknown how this will impact the rest of his speaking engagements throughout the world."
Passports want to be free.
Free as in steal it.
So, did he use truecrypt?
Perhaps he would had been better off if he made a living producing software and selling it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Whichever Argentinian stole it is probably claiming that it is theirs as a result of their ancestor looking after the cow that the bag was made from between 1828 and 1832.....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Maybe Linus can send him some royalties for the GPL, so he can pay for a new passport and a ticket back home?
This is not a signature.
Leave the stuff, take the person. How much could they get for Stallman?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
What a loss, the only laptop running Gnu Hurd. The individual who stole it will be very sorry though, as he will be forced to use emacs, and as it does everything, it will be the only program on the computer... :D
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I'm Argentine. I avoid problematic areas. But this happened during a conference. In ALL conferences in EVERY country stuff is robbed cause people are idiots. And security guards are idiots. THAT's common sense. Avoiding an entire country is plan idiocy.
Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.
With the Truecrypt license? If he is using encryption, I suspect he is using the GPL licensed dm-crypt!
This is really not newsworthy. It happens in Buenos Aires all the time. I was there 2009 at Wikimania (where RMS also attended) and I in the few days I was there multiple of my friends had their bags/laptops stolen, while I was in the same room.
The thiefs are really skilled and they make it almost impossible for you to notice the theft. The only way to defend yourself is to have all your stuff at your body all the time, thus being a harder target than everyone else.
quick - someone lend him a windows laptop.
Okay, that's enough Linus. It's simply not funny any more. Hand it back now.
If you're going to be a smartass, at least do it properly.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
As RMS's stuff is all GPL'ed, the thief has to obey the "copyleft" requirement, and as such, must be ready and willing to give out those same stolen items + any further contributions (e.g. any goodies placed in RMS's bag!) to anyone (including the authorities / RMS himself!). What a good sense of security GPL grants ;-)
> Perhaps he would had been better off if he made a living producing software and selling it.
Maybe he would; but we're surely better off since he chose to benefit mankind over himself.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a religious thing... but IMHO overall tech progress got a powerful impulse with the GPL and things like Linux (or GNU/Linux in his lingo). It's easy to underestimate the role of Free Software in mankind's advancement.
Now it would be nice if someone explained that to the thief. Argentinians have an advanced culture and possibly even a thief might grok why it is important not to take this man's passport.
I guess we need to look for a bag with no soap or razor in it.
University of Buenos Aires is a free, public university recognized as one of the best in the world. Anyone can attend and it's also filled with students from other South American countries that travel to Buenos Aires to study. Courses are usually huge, with ~200 students each, and anyone is free to attend them as a listener, even if you are not a student. Teachers, by tradition, are expected to be professionals that excelled in their respective fields and for them it is an honor to be able to be there, all this in the spirit of having the best public education.
This much freedom has the obvious drawback that, as no one checks your student ID at the entrance, anyone can go in including thieves, which often mix up with other students to steal stuff. I've seen this happening several times myself so you have to watch out for strange people and your belongings all the time.
As pro human rights groups are so strong here (product of opposition to US-Sponsored dictatorships during most of the past century), law is lax and stronger security measures are often seen in a negative light, as the population don't know anymore where to draw the line.
I'm sorry, but what kind of moron keeps all this stuff together in *one* bag? Your passport should always be on your person when possible. You should have backup credit and ATM cards separate from your regular cards, along with some emergency cash. This stuff is 'Travelling 101' for god's sake.
So, did he use truecrypt?
No, because he doesn't believe that it's really desirable to have security on a computer.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
Blindly spawning mindless stereotypes like "third world countries are best shunned" is also first-class idiocy.
I mean, really, who looks at that beard and thinks, "I'm gonna steal from that wizard. No way his bag has any exploding magical components in it or anything."
[quote]In ALL conferences in EVERY country stuff is robbed[/quote]
Not in any of the countries I've done conferences in. And they didn't even have security guards.
When I was last visiting Buenos Aires Jenna Bush (George Bush's daughter) was robbed while she was dining with friends - while being protected by Secret Service!
Oh, gee...well can I please go to the countries you go to? Or better yet, go with you? Apparently you have some sort of magical capability that prevents teh thingz from being st0lens.
Maybe that's why he was reported to repeatedly hit his head afterwards.
I've done many stupid things in my life, some which I regret, some which I don't, some that had negative consequences and some that fortunately didn't. If you tell me you haven't, I know you're lying.
c++;
Someone from a civilized country.
While I am sorry for his loss (and that is only a story because of who was robbed - a zillion other tech people get robbed in foreign countries and they don't make /.) RMS has traveled the world for years, and I would have thought he knew better about he risks of theft. His passport and money should not have been left unsecured, and he should have ascribed to a layered packing regime that I learnt about years ago that includes three general zones:
On your person - Contains stuff that is critical to your well being and ability to travel
Passport and money belongs squarely in that last category. They are replaceable, but their loss has a much greater impact on a trip than losing stuff from the other two categories.
Leaving his passport and money in an unsecured location was a stupid and idiotic move on *his* part (although I bet that that is probably somewhat offset by him being distracted for a moment). And yes I know that this sounds like blaming the victim, but there is a point where you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
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It's the world that needs more openness. And better utilization of the technology we do have.
Losing the passport wouldn't be such a calamity if governments were up to date. We shouldn't even use a physical item like that for purposes of verifying identity and permissions. At a border crossing, stating names and perhaps a number, or undergoing a brief biometric scan ought to be all that travelers need do. The officials at the border can then use their networked computers to check the information. It's just dopey to rely on the picture of a person carried by that person to check identity! That's as dopey as DRM. Yeah, yeah, like cash they have put security threads and watermarks and such on the passport pictures, to make forgery more difficult. And don't forget the embedded RFID chip! Currently, with passports the US now issues business sized cards for your wallet. The cards have useful phone numbers and a space upon which you are supposed to write your passport number, for just such an occurrence. Haven't progressed much!
As for personal data, no one should ever have the only copies of their work on a single laptop, except possibly for whatever was being worked on in the last few minutes or since the last time the laptop had been connected to the Internet. The laptop itself is pretty cheap these days. I hope RMS didn't lose any data. Passwords are similar. Never have unencrypted passwords or or other unencrypted sensitive data on a laptop. But if he wasn't up to scratch on that stuff, this could be the worst loss of all.
Medicines shouldn't be a big deal either. Unfortunately, they can be thanks to intellectual property law. At $5/pill for typical name brand drugs, those medicines could easily cost more to replace than everything else in the bag.
Money? Let's hope he's not in the habit of lugging around thousands of dollars in cash. Sensible travelers only carry a little cash, leaning on credit cards whenever possible. But I could see a guy like RMS scorning credit cards because they come with lots of baggage, like the tracking of your every purchase. At any rate, banks, like governments, are woefully behind on technology. Shouldn't need a piece of plastic to do a transaction.
With all that said, his Argentine hosts treated him very shabbily. If laptop bag theft is such a big problem, they should know that. It's their home, they ought to know what protections guests will need, what crimes are in vogue. Should have had someone or something watching his bag. Wasn't anyone recording his speech on video? There's no footage at all of his bag being swiped? That a thief got away with his bag doesn't speak well of them. They seem negligent at the least. Such thefts may be aided by corruption. I shouldn't wonder that petty theft of that nature is a very low priority for their police, who will undoubtedly say there's nothing they can do.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
truecrypt isn't distributed with open software license, so my guess would be no...
The USA has it's third world areas..... Detroit, New Jersey, South Central LA, Mississippi......
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If i was abroad and had everything important to me in a single bag it would be chained to my leg.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... running OSX with TattleTale. Oh, the irony!
www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
Every comment I've read is either abrasively sarcastic or downright mean. What gives? This used to be the land of OSS/free speech.
To be sure, /. has never been exactly "nice". But, come on guys! This kind of negativity needs to stop.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
I was born in Argentina too. The post author above was talking the best he could on his second language (as I am doing here), while I bet most of you can only talk English. Still, you made fun of him, and yes, it was funny, but that does not encourage participation. Now, on the topic: Buenos Aires has become a dangerous place in the last 10 or so years, and if you travel there you need to watch over your belongings and know when/where you can go and when/where you cannot. You can get robbed, scammed, or attacked if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I agree with the comment that said that Argentina is more and more resembling an African nation. And the people living there has no reference to compare, and passionately will defend their country's image against all logic. All that said, there is no excuse for this. Like him or not, RMS has been and is a very important influence in the world of software, and without crazies like him we will probably not have free Linux and all the free software that is available around and most of us use. He deserves better. The person who stole from him did not care or did not knew about him. Now, avoiding an entire country because you are afraid it is not as civilised as your own country, or your experience would be unfamiliar, seems extreme.
What? No backup?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
An overwhelming majority of the server/desktop/laptop Linux distributions are what you call GNU/Linux. The only notable exceptions I know of are Android, and embedded systems that use busybox due to performance/memory constraints.
Very very few people has actually used some mythical "vanilla Linux" that isn't operated with the GNU tools.
c++;
Do simple things like this and you too can be on your way to a much better paying job.
Dear anonymous coward, while I laud your efforts I feel that you are making a false assumption to start with - that the editors want to improve on their lot in life. I am coming to the opinion that that they are raking in so much $$ for so little work that they don't care about the quality.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Carry your passport/docs ON YOU, separate from your wallet, end of story.
If you need medicine to survive, wear enough to buy time to reload.
That's basic security at home or abroad. You should also carry duplicate info on a flash drive and wear that, and be able to access another copy online.
People who understand that computers "don't give a fuck what they think" need to understand many PEOPLE don't give a fuck what they WANT.
Any geek should be delighted to embrace physical security measures as they are to embrace computer security measures.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In ALL conferences in EVERY country stuff is robbed cause people are idiots.
Well, a couple of years ago I've co-organized an international conference (2 years in a row), and nothing got stolen. It worries me that you think that is the norm.
You shouldn't have been modded Troll for that.
Naive people don't take security measures. That some REFUSE means the point doesn't get hammered enough!
In other news, slow Zebra get eaten.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Looks like Lemote can get another laptop ready to ship him, hopefully preloaded w/ GNewSense.
Please send money immediately.
I earn my paychecks by writing Free Software. Sucks to be you, I guess.
Dilbert RSS feed
We're not quite down to African levels yet. We're getting there, though.
The US and Europe are on their way too (at least for ordinary folks) - on the real road to serfdom.
He was going well until he said:
That's an extremely ignorant comment. RMS has been to Argentina (and around Latin America) plenty of times without any problems. Shit happens. And it can happen in your beloved first-world New York too.
Fuck condescending comments about the third world.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Hes going to have to or had to go to the consulate or the embassy. He already has an unhealthy distrust of the system. How is he going to manage?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
There's only a couple areas in NJ that fit your stereotype - Camden, Trenton, Newark - but the rest is what makes NJ the state with the second highest gross income per capita out of all the states.
Oh, I'm sure he must be having all source code on his laptop. It's not an Intel x86, remember, it's a hybrid of a MIPS w/ some x86 support instructions, so he'd need to compile stuff that he wants to run.
This is actually true. I can attest that, at least until the early to mid 90s, his 'rms' login on the MIT AI servers had no password.
And absolutely no one runs GNU-free Linux, since it's illegal to distribute the kernel without a copy of the GNU GPL.
Dilbert RSS feed
Richard Stallman goes around eating toejam
When someone is different, or thinks differently than I do, my first inclination is to attack them. I'm the reason we have a two party system. I'm the reason you can't get married.
I've never bothered to ask myself, in the privacy of my own head, why someone (or anyone) invokes such a passionate response in me. I'd rather my contribution be vitriolic than substantive. I'd rather attack those that produce because of their ideals and not the content of their contribution. The world would be a better place if I didn't exist.
He used someone else's cell phone to call 911?
(see his appearance rider if you don't get the joke)
The locals in Petersburg haven't forgotten the siege, huh? Should have let them know the war was over.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I've been told more recently (within the past two years) that this isn't quite true any longer: the computer in his office doesn't have a password, but he has to use one for any other machine on campus.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I don't know about you but I keep my money either in a wallet or money clip in my pocket. I also keep my passport at the hotel in a safe if I'm not required to carry it with me within the country. If I have excess cash then I try to keep that cash in a safe at the hotel again and only carry what I will need for the day.
When I visited Cancun, I had my passport, a money clip and a set of credit/bank cards in elastic in my front pockets along with the room keycard. You should alway try to limit your exposure when you are out and about.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
And I earn my paychecks because of the various free platforms that are available thanks to GNU. Although we sell our end product, it runs on OS's that are free, written using free compilers and tools, connects to backends running free software, stores customer data in free software databases, etc. The business side does use a lot of non-free software though.
I'd be curious to find an accounting of what percentage of business value out there can be traced down to being "enabled" by free software vs. non-free software.
i agree. commenting to undo mod error.
I hope he caries his katana with him at all times!
Clearly you didn't get the memo. It IS ok to attack someone for eating toejam. In public. Centre stage.
Spoken like someone who's never been to Buenos Aires.
Argentina isn't exactly third world. Nothing like it. Second world at worst, and similar to many of the less-wealthy European countries at best. It has a relatively low crime rate compared to many US cities.
You run the risk of getting a bag with a laptop stolen anywhere in the world. London, Paris, New York, Detroit, Berlin, Tokyo... etc. And in universities in any of those cities.
1) Argentina was quite prosperous at one time, but the past decade or so has been really hard on them. Their economic problems have caused a significant drop in the standard of living for many of its citizens, and crime has become much more of an issue. Today, it is much more akin to an African nation than it is to a Western nation.
As an Argentinian myself, i have to (sadly) agree. The standard of living for major cities (Cordoba, Rosario, Buenos Aires) has dropped sharply in the past decade, but it is practically nonexistant once you travel to the north, where basic services like running water, electricity, or sewers are scarce if present at all.
That said, Buenos Aires is more akin to a typical european city. But crime rates are horribly high - the citys' premimum neighborhoods and locations sits next to a shantytown so big it's almost a favela by now. You got to be careful if visiting.
Nothing like it. Second world at worst
What, it's communist?
http://xkcd.com/225/
No national identity cards I'd like to make a list of countries that do not require a national identity card, and have no plans to adopt one. If you live in or have confirmed knowledge of such a country, please send email to rms at gnu.org.
Here's my list of countries with no national ID cards and no plans for one: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, the Philippines, and Switzerland. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.
India is now trying to institute national ID cards. Support the campaign against them.
Austria doesn't require people to have a national ID card, but requires people to notify the police of where they are staying even for 3 days.
Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland don't have ID cards as such, but they have ID numbers that citizens are forced to use frequently. For example, in Iceland the national ID number is often required to rent a video or use a gym.
Wikipedia has a list of identity card policies by country.
That's just passports. I have no idea whether he uses credit cards - as you said, he probably avoids them for the reasons you mentioned. In which case, he is SOL. Passwords? As others have pointed out, he doesn't believe in them. (Of course, if the thief is unfamiliar w/ GNewSense and Emacs, that laptop would probably be of no more use than a doorstop.) I doubt he has personal data there either - and on his website above, he proudly brags that he's not f'ed (implying is not on FaceBook. I'm not either, but I don't have that attitude - I just don't have the narcissist personality that logs different events in my own life online).
As some others have noted, his med was probably pot. Hope he gets a good free supply in Argentina. If you were talking about real meds, he'd have to know the equivalent Argentine brands, or see a doctor there for the same prescriptions.
Somehow, w/o being totally unsympathetic to him, one could say that in most of the examples above, he was hoisted by his own petard.
According to a testimonial, the whole incident was pretty thought through. The robbers replaced Stallman's bag with an identical, albeit empty one at the end of the talk. On top of it, the canera on which the whole conference (and probably the robbers) was filmed got stolen too. The op name is lucas romero if you want to try to find it. ill post a link when i get home
And in today's world, avoiding third-world nations "just because" is ridiculous. You're saying that executives from Apple should never have gone to China. You're saying that Venezuela, a member of OPEC, should never have members from other OPEC nations visiting there. And where do you draw the line...I'm not sure I'd consider Argentina a third-world country just because they had an economic breakdown...and there is no way they are more akin to an African country than a Western one. If a financial meltdown with long-term effects qualifies a country for third world status, then why not Japan? They still haven't recovered from the financial collapse that happened in the 90s.
And let's keep something in mind...this was Richard Stallman speaking at a conference in a major city. This was not him going off into a remote area in the countryside to dig a well. There are places in most American states where he'd be statistically more likely to come to harm than he was in that hotel. Petty crime is what happens in such places, and little else.
The reason why the post had been modded down...and why it should still be, even if it is not...is because the whole point of it is ridiculous. For a soccer mom to avoid nations with shaky economies? Fine, if a bit wimpy. But for large-impact entities...be they people or simply influential people at large organizations...to shun safe areas in third-world countries because of petty crime is entirely infeasible, self-defeating, and frankly smacks of the armchair thinking of someone who has never ventured outside middle America. The world is global; that's how it is now.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
You should take a trip to the North someday.
I was surprised to find he actually has a katana as a result of the original XKCD Cartoon
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I used to run a stall at UKUUG conferences (admittedly not an international event) selling Linux CDs and stuff. Because I wanted to listen to the talks I would leave the stand unattended at times. I regularly came back to find collections of piles of money on the table from people who'd served themselves.
... he needs a GNU/Passport?
You're applying the Cold War version of the 'three worlds' theory. That's considered obsolete.
Apply Chariman Mao's Theory of Three Worlds instead.
When the Bush daughters were in Buenos Aires, they got their purse stolen in broad daylight, while under Secret Service protection. That's pretty hardcore.
When I was in the Buenos Aires subway, someone bumped into me, and everyone on the train just assumed I had my wallet stolen (it wasn't, as I was careful). It's that bad down there apparently.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Funnily enough I had no problems overseas, but did have a fairly nice leather jacket stolen from my hotel room while staying in St. Augustine, Florida.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Do you earn you money writing free software. Or do you earn your money writing software to support an other business model for your company?
If you company only wrote free software, and didn't offer any other services, you wouldn't make much money.
RMS views on Open Source creates an environment where there are a lot less business models to profit off of software.
You can make money off of open source, that part is proven. But what it does is remove business models.
I never connected Code with ethics. Code is just a bunch of instructions that the computer follows, I am a bigger fan of open specifications, where you can write your own compatible code if you need to. Code itself isn't that helpful.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
As someone how lives in buenos aires, I must tell you; you're quite wrong.
I know which places to go to, and which no to go to. If you take a wrong turn, and walk 4 blocks down the wrong street, it might be your last wrong turn. Or you might just get mugged.
I had a friend who got mugged waiting for the bus on their first trip to BA. It wan't just her though; it was the entire line of people waiting for the bus. Inside the main Terminal in Retiro, Buenos Aires.
It's a mix... you have a small area that's first-world-ish, and the area next to it is almost third-world-ish.
Indeed. 20km out of Buenos Aires City, it's still a pretty densely populated area, yet there's no running water, or gas. People have their own water pump and bug cannisters of gas (not sure if cannister is the proper word in english).
And I'm not talking about the poor areas.
I earn my paycheck writing free software. Business model? My company lives out of donations and contributions made to us.
I even earn more than my last job; where we wrote non-free software.
Why would he use truecrypt if the linux kernel which he runs around promoting supports LUKS for FS encryption?
Where ever they film "Jersey shore" certainly seems to be a complete nightmare to most people...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Doesn't help for missing passport and notebook.
;).
As for his work, I'm sure much of it is already on the Internet
I agreed with you at first, but eventually I noticed your lack of knowledge.
Today, it is much more akin to an African nation than it is to a Western nation.
Wow, what the hell *that* means? There's a reason Buenos Aires is called the Paris of Latin America. Argentina is You also say "an African nation". Do you mean like Seychelles, Libya, South Africa or CAR? Do you even know Africa is a continent?
When traveling in foreign nations, it is a good practice...
Agreed, but losing your passport is more probable that way.
Indeed, a good way of avoiding incidents like this is to not travel to countries where incidents like this are more probable. This is just common sense.
So... you agree that there are places even in the USA that may be risky, essentially admitting that countries are not a good generalization, and then you go on and generalize for entire countries once again? Charming.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Hm, how is that solved when you buy an Android phone? When I bought my Asus router running Linux, they delivered the source code on a CD.
c++;
Someone from a civilized country.
I don't care whether you're travelling to San Francisco or Santiago - The same rules apply (in fact in some cases your stuff is safer in a police state). If this was the Kettles from Topeka travelling to Paris for the first time I think I would catch them some slack - But this guy is supposedly very bright and travels all over the place, so he should know better. I'm sorry, but there's no excuse for this sort of thing.
Ché, the problem of your comment was the generalization. In every city where an important conference takes place there's a chance to have stuff stolen. I usually visit the US every year for SIGGRAPH, and one year a friend of mine was robbed, asaulted and almost killed in his own hotel room in Boston, in a 4 stars hotel. It's clearly that someone randomly saw an opportunity.
I'm pretty sure that the parent poster was well aware that Buenos Aires was comparable to many US cities since he specifically listed three of them, and you even quoted that.
Not to mention that Argentina is hardly third world.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Tell me something...
Why is Richard Stallman's religious fervour around free software any less extreme than Apple's religious fervour over their commercial-software based walled garden approach?
I'm not saying you're an Apple fanboi and whilst I myself use and work with Linux and free software, even I believe Stallman's views are somewhat extreme, and that harmony exists somewhere along the line that joins Stallman to Apple - namely that there's a place for both free and commercial software.
It's very easy to sit back and sneer at the man but the fact is that someone of his software programming talents could have chosen to make himself very rich had he chosen the commercial software path, whereupon the loss of his laptop would have probably been not so much of a biggie to him.
Even if you don't agree with someone's ideals (and, again, I don't agree with all of what Stallman says), sometimes the humane and adult thing to do is just to keep your mouth shut and perhaps demonstrate at least a little sympathy.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
"His presentation back then was followed by a ritual that was repeated yesterday: anyone in the audience could walk up to him, exchange a few words, get a sticker and a picture. Unfortunately, on this occasion someone decided to take advantage of the ruckus and take his bag."
Mundus Vult Decipi
Do you earn you money writing free software. Or do you earn your money writing software to support an other business model for your company?
Both. Companies pay us to write the code and to provide other services.
You see, if the code doesn't exist, it can't be used for free; the company has to pay to get it developed. The GPL doesn't change that.
RMS views on Open Source creates an environment where there are a lot less business models to profit off of software.
You can make money off of open source, that part is proven. But what it does is remove business models.
It removes the business model where companies are forced to pay you to reinvent the wheel. It removes wasteful business models. It does not remove the model of charging for the development of actual new code.
I never connected Code with ethics.
Every interpersonal human activity is connected with ethics.
Code is just a bunch of instructions that the computer follows, I am a bigger fan of open specifications, where you can write your own compatible code if you need to. Code itself isn't that helpful.
Both are important.
Dilbert RSS feed
I don't have one, but supposedly there's a menu in "Market - Menu - Settings - Open source licenses" that displays the license.
Dilbert RSS feed
It's simple: there's no oil wells or mineral deposits underneath that neighborhood, nor do any 1%ers live there, so the government doesn't care about what goes on there.
The same thing could happen in any middle-class neighborhood in the USA, and the police/government wouldn't do much about it. The only reason it doesn't happen is because middle-class people tend not to engage in crime much as they have more to lose, and also because they don't have the impulse control problems that many (but still a minority of) poor people have, or else they wouldn't be middle class.
Not all African nations are as horrible as Somalia; many are probably doing better actually than many central and south American countries as far as crime rates and standards of living. I seriously doubt that most of subsaharan Africa has problems as bad as what Mexico is experiencing these days. In general, Africa seems to be getting better, albeit slowly.
I've been to Orange County recently, and it's quite nice. San Diego is also quite nice in most of the places I visited. I'll take either of those places over Phoenix, Arizona where I unfortunately currently live.
I'm a little surprised to hear about problems with Petersburg, but it's right outside Richmond. If he was a teenager in the 80s, Richmond VA was the murder capital of the USA during that time. Interestingly, I lived there at the time (or more accurately, right outside it, in Henrico County), and even though I was ~10 years old, I walked around by myself all the time, and didn't feel nervous. Of course, that was one of the richer parts of the metro area. Other parts, like The Fan and Broad Street, weren't very safe at night.
These days, China isn't really a "third world" nation (and really never was, technically it was probably more like "second world" since it was aligned with the USSR and practiced communism). These days, it's a lot like the USA: it has lots of really poor people (a lot more than the USA, and a lot poorer, but we're trending that way), there's a growing number of middle class, and also a growing number of super-rich people (again, like the USA).
As for Argentina, there's Argentinian posters above saying things are quite bad there, and that they don't even have water or electricity in many places. That's nothing like an industrialized nation, and resembles Africa a lot. Japan has running water and electricity everywhere (except maybe the Fukushima site), so their financial meltdown is a little different.
Even so, I don't believe Argentina is allied with any superpowers, so they're still 3rd-world according to that definition.
Well, Mexico is technically in North America. Nevertheless, what's happening in mexico (drug killings) isn't new.
I'm not saying Argenina is a great economy, but I hate being compared to Somalia or whatever. Whenever someone mentions that living in Argentina is "bad" I just let pictures talk:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1020/catalinas2.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3406/096catalinasnorte.jpg
https://ayudabuenosaires.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/obelisco-av-9-de-julio.jpg
I know that's just the capital, and things are MUCH better there. But I'll start to worry the day it stops looking as shiny as now.
That doesn't make it any more GNU/Linux than it made my old spam-tracker "BSD/Mjolnir"
The "GNU" part of the claim that it should be called GNU/Linux has nothing to do with the license. It's the (very arguable) claim that the GNU userland warrants inclusion in the title.
It would not have mattered if his speeches were in Google Docs or one of the other cloud services. Borrow any computer and log in.
Your description is a little inaccurate, at least in my experience. Outside of the parks, I've never seen a rattlesnake here. However, there's tons of scorpions, and we have a pack of coyotes living in our alley somewhere here in Tempe, howling every night.
Illegal immigrants, 118-degree heat in the summer, and meth are rife, however, plus freaks riding super-loud motorcycles and covered in tattoos. I don't know what the deal is with tattoos, but the men in this city are absolutely covered in them, even when (or maybe especially when) they look like they can barely afford to pay their rent. I have a feeling a lot of these weren't purchased at tattoo parlors, but rather applied in prison.
Because the people there are Brits, and not Argentines. This isn't something like British colonization of already populated countries, such as India, Nigeria, Kenya, Belize, or other countries now members of the British Commonwealth. The people of Falklands are Brits, just like people on Isle of Man, Guerney, Shetland Islands and so on. Just because they are nearer to Argentina doesn't make them Argentine. Should Sakhalin Island be considered a part of Japan, since it's closer to Tokyo than to Moscow?
Argentina's dictator Leopoldo Galtieri in order to divert the attention of his people from his repressive regime tried to militarily snatch the Falklands from Britain, and got humiliated by a military defeat, which caused the end of his Junta and democracy to get established in Argentina.
No one should travel to 2nd or 3rd world godless countries. Fix your frigging country or say good bye to tourist dollars.
If all one needs is Emacs, all one needs to do is have the basic Minix or Tiny Core Linux installed - w/o X, and then have Emacs start up automatically after login. Hopefully, network connectivity is set up as well. Yeah, I know that Minix's BSD licensing would probably make it unacceptable in Stallman's case, but other than that, if all one is doing is typing e-mails and visiting text versions of websites, one doesn't even need a DE.
What he'll have to do is port it to his Loongson based laptop, and and he can get going again.
Whenever someone mentions that living in Argentina is "bad" I just let pictures talk:
...https://ayudabuenosaires.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/obelisco-av-9-de-julio.jpg
...
OMG you bastards! You stole the Washington Monument!! Have you no decency?!!
The Admin and the Engineer
For a soccer mom to avoid nations with shaky economies? Fine, if a bit wimpy
Obviously, you are unaware of how relentless and dangerous the competitive parents of athletic children really are here. With the wrong mother behind the wheel, even a minivan can ruin your whole week. Avoid at all costs.
The Admin and the Engineer
Because i do live there. Argentinas' GDP has doubled sure enough, but his government expenditure went through the roof as well, reaching US$150,000 millions in 2011. Thats almost 40% of the GDP. If properly executed, on paper this should mean that Argentina has a better quality of life than Switzerland. Rest assured, it is not.
Ah, and an unemployment rate of 25% is atrocious. It's akin to third world countries, or countries undergoing deep recession like Spain... or Argentina in 2002, which you're comparing against. Not only that, 2,500,000 citizens in Argentina are employed directly by the government, in jobs which generate little to no real value. This means that half of the working population is on the public sector. See the number i quoted in the paragraph above to get a clue on how this is funded.
Beautiful landmarks of Buenos Aires. And then, you got the other side of the coin, less than 5km away, and in the middle of the same city.
That last one is the first thing a tourist arriving to BA by bus will see.
Ubuntu provides specific repositories of nonfree software, and Canonical expressly promotes and recommends nonfree software under the Ubuntu name in some of their distribution channels. Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too. In addition, the version of Linux, the kernel, included in Ubuntu contains firmware blobs.
Ubuntu's trademark policy prohibits commercial redistribution of exact copies of Ubuntu, denying an important freedom.
Instead, just send him a laptop. In fact, why even send him an expensive MacBook - he may not like it if it has an UEFI BIOS. If you can, mail-order a Lemote Yeeloong. It is not all that lackluster, and it has everything he wants - 'system source files(BIOS, kernel, drivers etc.) are free software, no close (sic) firmware needed.'. Heck, it even calls the OS GNU/Linux. Ask them to preload it w/ GNewSense, and arrange to have it sent to rms.
Only question - do you want to send him the laptop while he's still in Argentina1, or do you want to wait for him to get back? ;-)
Wow, what the hell *that* means? There's a reason Buenos Aires is called the Paris of Latin America.
And there's a reason we're discussing Argentina and not only its major city. Take a trip to Formosa some day, you'll witness a reality close to some African countries.
Yes, I know, I didn't say anything about "GNU/", just that GNU is irrevocably connected to Linux.
Dilbert RSS feed
And you implied that it's because of the GNU GPL, which doesn't make any sense.
I do seem to remember someone mentioning porting the FreeBSD userland to linux, which would effectively gut most of the "GNU/" claim anyway...
Under the old classical definitions, the first world was Europe, the second world was the Americas - the ones colonized by the Brits and the Spaniards. The third world was everyone else - Africa, India, Indochina, East Indies, etc. It wasn't about the NATO vs the Soviets, or anything of that sort. So Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, et al are all second world countries, just like the US and Canada.
asaulted and almost killed in his own hotel room
Be careful who you take to your room. Worse could have happened: wrongly accused of rape...
This particular case is strange, it is not common to be robbed in an academic institution.
What's strange is that it is the speaker who gets robbed, rather than some random guy in the audience. I'd imagine all eyes would be on the speaker, and such a theft couldn't go unnoticed. Or maybe the thief considered it as a challenge, as some strange kind of trophy, and deliberately chose to pull off a difficult and risky heist?
I just got back from a trip to Paris. Within 10 seconds of entering the Metro at the airport, a pickpocket was trying to steal my wife's wallet. On each of the next two days, we were also targeted by pickpockets. The third time, I got the little fucker by the neck and had to restrain myself from killing him.
So, no, I'm not planning to go back to Paris any time soon, Third world places like Paris are best shunned.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
That depends on your definition of better off. He's one of the smartest programmers ever, and had becoming rich been his life's ambition, I'm sure he would have succeeded. He probably could have had anything he wanted. Instead he gave up most of the good things in life in order to give the world free software.
Unlike so many religious leaders who give up so much to promote their faith, RMS has made an impact with results you can point to and say, "Yep. The world is a better place because this guy lived." I doubt he has many serious regrets. I sometimes second guess my whole life, and wonder if perhaps I should have devoted my life to improving the world, without regard to how much I could get paid to do it.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Leaving his passport and money in an unsecured location was a stupid and idiotic move on *his* part (although I bet that that is probably somewhat offset by him being distracted for a moment). And yes I know that this sounds like blaming the victim, but there is a point where you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
If you just change a few specifics, but not the tenor, in your argument, you'll get a drastically different result. To wit:
"Leaving her hotel room dressed like such a slut was a stupid and idiotic move on *her* part. And yes, I know that this sounds like blaming the victim, but there is a point where you have to take responsibility for your own actions."
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
If I do something stupid, even my best friends will call me out on it.
That's WHY they are my best friends.
If you do something stupid, such as leave your laptop in an unsecured location, then will your best friends steal it?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The only thing there is no excuse for is stealing someone else's property.
I know. I live in Resistencia, Chaco, so this is a common sight for me: http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/15908735.jpg
The point wasn't about pretty landmarks tho, it was about the fact that, if there *ARE* buildings like that, then the economy can't be that bad. If there are cars filling the streets, and if the roads are nice to drive on, then the economy isn't that terrible (again: "yet"). I can see we're going straight to hell if Cristina doesn't react soon - it's going the same way as De La Rua: refusing to admit the economy is going down and do something about it.
As I said: I'm completely against Cristina's policies (I don't buy that "we have to close imports and make everything here" bullshit). But saying the economy is as terrible as the poorest countries is just plain typical Porteño exaggeration (well, those skyscrapers are in fact typical megalomaniac Porteño exaggeration too. The good kind of exaggeration, tho - don't get mad, porteños, I'm not hatin'! ).
The worst part? I constantly hear porteños (of middle class!) whining about the economy, and yet Roger Waters fills stadiums 10 times in a row.
Thats BS! i live in Tucuman (north of Argentina) and i can tell you, we have water, electricity and sewers and top notch internet! So, stop showing your ignorance.
Good for you. I've recently been to both Formosa and Jujuy, and this is a harsh reality once you move out their capitals. Perhaps you need to step outside your house once in a while.
If it makes you feel better, the U.S. where I live is becoming more and more like an African country too, and I don't mean South Africa or even Egypt; I mean like a third-world tin-pot kleptocracy or military dictatorship. Our "president" claims the authority to kill anyone he wishes anywhere in the world, and routinely does so. We abandoned both free enterprise and rule of law long ago . . . mostly covertly until around 9/11, but increasingly overtly since that time. Less than half the people of this country produce anything at all, and more than half live at their expense. Every kind of corruption is accepted as normal at every level of business, government, and even private organizations such as churches. Many of our largest cities are (or have recently been) run by convicted felons. We imprison more people, and murder more people overseas, than the rest of the world combined. Only a great deal of inherited wealth has prevented our living standards from falling below those of the average sub-Saharan African, and we are moving in that direction far more rapidly than they are moving in this one. On many non-financial measures of well-being, such as maternal and infant mortality, literacy, and education, we are near (or below) the bottom of the developed world. I am sorry to see Argentina rapidly reverting back to collectivism, tyranny and lawlessness, and quite concerned about the things that probably will have to happen to pull it back from that abyss, but Argentinians have always been proud, resourceful people, and you will survive this. Americans once were as well, but it remains to be seen whether we will muster the collective courage and backbone to fight back against what is really happening here (which is much different, and much worse, than either Occupy or the Tea Party people are generally inclined to realize).
Nonaggression works!
Nice troll, but I would also feel safer in a rural town in Argentina than in New York.
Hasn't he installed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(software)
Casteism
No shit. Something like this happened to me -- in my first visit to the USA. Yes, United States of America. Third-world places, indeed?
:-/
I didn't have a laptop then, and they didn't take my passport -- I was showing it at the car rental desk in Phoenix "International" Airport (that's why I had to put the bag down). I got to keep the clothes I had on, also. Yay.
But they did take everything else. Conference presentation, money, tickets...
Fortunately, I was travelling with colleagues going to the same conference. Otherwise, I'd be in a difficult spot, 2500miles from the nearest Consulate, without a penny.
It was, so far, my first and last time I travelled to the USofA.
Frankly, I find the naming issue irrelevant; my point is that Linux is forever tied to GNU regardless of what you call it.
By the way, I haven't seen FreeBSD on Linux, but I'd like to try Plan9/Linux: http://www.glendix.org/
Dilbert RSS feed
Where ever they film "Jersey shore" certainly seems to be a complete nightmare to most people...
Because it's filled with loud, obnoxious, big-haired people with more money than brains, not because it's poor or dangerous.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Under the old classical definitions, the first world was Europe...
What "old classical definitions"? The terms "first/second/third world" were first used in the late 1940s at the UN, to describe the alignment of the world's nations under either the US/Euro sphere (1st), the Soviet sphere (2nd), or the non-aligned nations (3rd). They have nothing to do with economic standing, nor (specifically) with geography (e.g. Australia is closer to China and the Asian Third World geographically, but it's still considered First World). To be fair, there is also the "Three Worlds Theory" put forth by Mao somewhere around the same time or slightly later, that grouped nations as 1st World = superpowers, 2nd World = allies of superpowers, and 3rd World = non-aligned. In either case, though, 3rd World = non-aligned nations.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
The theft does not help Argentinian Tourism. Imagine what all software developers who have heard or read the news are thinking....
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Very true. Camden is a nightmare; Seaside Park is a dream compared to Camden. Also, the Jersey Shore morons are from Staten Island, so blame New York.
I'm sorry, but what kind of moron keeps all this stuff together in *one* bag? Your passport should always be on your person when possible. You should have backup credit and ATM cards separate from your regular cards, along with some emergency cash. This stuff is 'Travelling 101' for god's sake.
I'm sorry, but what kind of moron keeps all this stuff together in *one* bag?
The kind with a clue. One bag is far easier to keep track of than multiple bags. One bag that never leaves your person.
In other words wear your backpack all the time.
1) Grownups mostly don't wear backpacks, modulo the fraction of photographers who prefer them to shoulder bags 2) A backpack is pretty much the *worst* idea. A pickpocket could readily unzip (or even cut) and pilfer from behind.
RMS has traveled the world for years, and I would have thought he knew better about he risks of theft.
See above under "medicine". People accused Jobs of an RDF, but RMS is the poster child for it.
Maybe that's why he was reported to repeatedly hit his head afterwards.
Maybe it was also due to his mental illness and long-term drug abuse.
Carry your passport/docs ON YOU, separate from your wallet, end of story.
So, what, stitched to one's skin?
On top of it, the canera on which the whole conference (and probably the robbers) was filmed got stolen too.
A *film* camera, in 2012? Even in Argentina that's surprising.
Honestly, if the USA were to declare war on all countries below texas and did a hardline sweep from top to bottom, we would fix it. Then annex each country as a new state of the union
That worked out so well for us in Cuba, after all.
You're making the assumption that students are not thieves. I doubt that the entrance requirements for this university include the question: "Are you a thief? yes/no".
It's a Spanish-speaking country, so that would add another 5 pages to the application.
no hablo espaniol...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
As for his work, I'm sure much of it is already on the Internet ;).
As for his work, I'm sure much of it is already the Internet ;).
There, fixed that for ya.
Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman
I live in Argentina too, but I dont have to live here to tell your numbers are bullshit.
- The 25% figure the GP quoted is "people below the poverty line", not unemployment. Unemployment is around 8% nowadays, so youre hugely off base.
- There are more like 3M people employed in public jobs. The total working force is around 17M, so its hardly half the working population. More like 18%.
- Finally, public spending is around 500M pesos with a GDP north of $2200M, so again around half of what you quoted.
All in all, there is 0 real information in your post. All the numbers you quote are off by 100%. Just the fact that 54% voted to reelect the president should tell you that the situation is not as clear cut horrible as you appear to think. So much for living here.
My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?
Oh for Christs' sake. These are all official numbers; Argentinas government spending rose over 41% of its US$ 370.000 million GDP this past 2011. Yes, that's a tad over US$150,000 millions. Feel free to look up the source yourself if you don't beleive me. You can look up the official numbers of government employment, unemployment compensations, and family assignations while you're at it aswell.
I'm sick and tired of replying to people accusing me of laying bullshit when this information is readly available online. Doze the fuck off already.
If you are so sick and tired of people accusing you, maybe you should stop laying bullshit. Link to real information instead of spewing crap. Let me show you how.
For example, here's a real newspaper saying there are around 3M people in public jobs, and here's the INDEC data saying that 46% of the population is in the active workforce. Hence you are 100% off on public jobs (hopefully you can figure out that the total population is around 40M without my assistance).
One more time, so you get the gist. In the same INDEC table linked above you can see that unemployment is around 8%. The fact that you would spit out a number like 25% shows you have no clue what you are talking about.
So stop acting like 10 year old and provide some real information. You just have to come up with a source on the single item I did not figure out for you. Try it.
Or at the very least give the insults a rest. They make you look even more stupid.
My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?
You should work on your reading comprehension, since you're quoting a newspaper saying that 21% percent of the active workforce in Argentina is employed by the Government. Which amounts to... tadahh... roughly 4,153,000 jobs, or 9% of the population. Add to that a minimum of 2,500,000 citizens living directly off the state (unemployment pensions, "social" plans) and see how close you are to that 50% of the working population i mentioned on my first post.
Again, these are straight, unadultered INDEC figures. The same INDEC that considers subemployed (less than a day a week) citizens outside that "unemployment" figure. Even with highly doctored figures (what's the real annual inflation in Argentina?) these are horrid indicators.
Grab a calculator. And, again. Doze. The. Fuck. Off.
So you think people that get an unemployment pension are counted among the "employed"? Wow.
Like I said, [citation needed]. You don't know squat.
Good riddance.
My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?