On Wed, Jan 08, 2003, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote about "RMS Dinner": >... > He told me that he always plans his trips to have 24 hours spare > before his scheduled appearance. This was the first time he had about > 20 hours or so, and just about everything that could go wrong did. He > came to the dinner practically straight from the airport. >...
Oleg (and Muli, and whoever was in charge of organizing this dinner) - thanks! But I hope Stallman was not too offended from how us Israelis manhandled him ;) To me it appeared that some of us could not respect the troubles that he has gone through to be at that dinner. This guy goes to a dinner right out of the airport, and instead of letting him relax and eat, and chat a bit, he gets accosted (and in some moments, ganged-up on). At some moments I was even afraid he'll suffocate from all the people who were leaning on his table... With all due respect, Stallman is not our equal, he's our mentor/idol/hero. We all knew him but he knew (almost) none of us. A little more humility was in order, in my opinion. When 30-40 gather in a very small room to honor one very tired guy, he does not really need to shake every one of these people's hands, or pretend like he is trying to learn their name. He does not have to spend 10 minutes on each person answering questions this person might have, especially not questions that offend him, i.e., any question that includes the words "open source" or "linux" :) All in all, personally it was very nice for me to see Stallman in person, talking and eating Chumus. I just hope that Stallman was ok with the whole ordeal. > One amusing question RMS asked me - and asked me to ask the gang - is > as follows. Before the trip he was contacted by two women who asked > him out, and he is going to go out with both (separately) during his > stay here. At least one of the ladies, possibly both, learned of his > existence from a recent article in Ha'aretz. RMS says it is the first > time this happens to him, and he is very curious *what* was written in > that article. If anyone has read the article, do share it with him. I don't have the link right now, but it was given on linux-il a few days ago; The same article appeared on both haaretz and walla. This was one of the best articles on free software I've seen in a long time in the Israeli media. I think it portrayed Stallman in a very heroic manner, an idealist only after the common good. On the other hand, the article did not white-wash anything, an portrayed Stallman as a man of conviction, who will not sell-out even at the cost of boycotting all proprietary software and fighting every windmill in sight. I heard from some people that Haaretz's depiction of Stallman made them decide that he was a dangerous fundementalist, a pipe dreamer or a raving lunatic, or "worse", a communist. For me (and I guess a lot of other people, and probably those two women), it did the exact opposite, and made me think very highly of him (as if I didn't think highly enough of him as it is...). If I remember correctly, the article also mentioned that he was looking for a woman. -- Nadav Har'El | Thursday, Jan 9 2003, 6 Shevat 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |An error? Impossible! My modem is error http://nadav.harel.org.il |correcting. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
