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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.
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
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.
> 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.
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 think we have a suspect
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
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.
It is a unique laptop - one of the few in the US from Lemote Yeedong, and based on the Loongson CPU. But it's not running Hurd - Stallman has pretty much abandoned that in favor of his favorite GNewSense. But yeah, the user will have to be an Emacs expert to find it of any use.