Richard Stallman's 22-Page Rider (2011) | Hacker News Reader

Richard Stallman's 22-Page Rider (2011)

waronpants.net

22 pointsspeps17 comments

As someone who's hosted RMS for a week, i appreciated having this information available.

I find websites that call out Richards eccentricities to be in extremely poor taste. It's no-ones business but Richards, and the people who choose to host him. To put it delicately, having a clear user manual for a non-neurotypical person helps immensely.

Is Richard Stallman known to be 'non-neurotypical'? Can anyone be described as neurotypical?

Everything quoted in the article seemed perfectly reasonable to me, even if I wouldn't make the same requests myself.

I'd love to be able to give a 'rider' to everyone I work with.

Hasn't this been round loads of times? Shouldn't we have the video of him eating something off his shoe too?

Even though the rider is incredibly extensive, I don't think any of it is particularly unreasonable. He's just specifying exactly how he wants things to work, just like you might other kinds of protocol.

Friend of mine looked after RMS at an event. RMS was one of his heroes, he said it was very humbling to discover that they didn't get along at all.

Sometimes high profile presenters and event coordinators put rather odd things in riders as a quality control check to make sure the sponsor is being thorough. I'm not sure if this is Stallman's intent but it sure sounds like it.

There is a famous rider meme concerning Van Halen. When they toured they required M&M's in their dressing room with the brown ones taken out. They didn't particularly care about M&M's. They just wanted to make sure the organizer was reading the rider.

I don't think that's the case with Stallman. That makes sense when you put in one thing as a quality control check, but he seems to genuinely just be very, very particular about lots of things.

I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

It's one thing not to want to eat breakfast, but making it a taboo subject seems extreme.

I'm guessing that was added the 1000th time he was asked about breakfast, this one last host being very pushy about it.

There's so much in there that I can't help thinking got added because it happened at some point in the past, like his demand that you not buy a parrot just because he's visiting and like parrots.

Yea but you have to give Stallman the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps he just knows that Parrots live long, bonding lives and that an unknowing person should never buy one.

We have a parrot; they are really amazing animals and we've had people ask us about getting one after they've visited ours. People really underestimate how much work and knowledge is required to take care of one. The longer lived species can live 60+ years, and they require an enormous amount of attention and enrichment to help keep the mentally and emotionally healthy. He may just want to spare a bird from the harm of being bought by someone who is unprepared to properly care for it.

> making it a taboo subject seems extreme

We're talking about Stallman here, the guy doesn't do things by halves.

Exactly. If you can't handle being asked about breakfast, the problem is with you, not the host.

If I ever meet him I don't think I would be unable to ask him what he is having breakfast even out of context.

> In some places, my hosts act as if my every wish were their command. By catering to my every whim, in effect they make me a tyrant over them, which is not a role I like. I start to worry that I might subject them to great burdens without even realizing.

Then:

> I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

> By catering to my every whim, in effect they make me a tyrant over them, which is not a role I like.

Exactly - so by this logical path, should we just ignore the rider, if he doesn't want us catering to him?

>Please call the hotel and ask whether they will demand to see my passport

I've yet to stay in any hotel that wouldn't demand to see my passport. I think in many places they're required to by law.

These are some of the blandest, most routine requests someone can make. There isn't a single one that's weird, especially given Stallman's background. If this is the most "weird" the OP could find out of 22 pages, those are some boring-ass 22 pages.

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