From his website stallman.org:

Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.

Recent video of him speaking at GNU 40 Hacker Meeting. Screenshots of video stream.

  • electromage
    21•9 months ago

    Is he accepting medical treatments that require non-free software? Serious question, from what I know of him he would rather die. I don’t know if that changes when you’re actually faced with it though.

    • Captain Beyond
      82•9 months ago

      Software freedom applies only to hardware you personally own. It wouldn’t even apply to machines you interact with but do not own (such as ATMs or kiosks) since you aren’t the one who agrees to the proprietary software license.

      Stallman himself explains it in his computing FAQ.

      • @[email protected]
        2•9 months ago

        If you would like to put my speech on the Internet, or distribute it in digital form, I insist on using the formats of the free software community: Ogg Vorbis or Ogg Speex

        Streaming is a kind of Internet distribution, so everything in the previous section applies. In particular, you must use only Ogg format or Matroska VP8 (Webm).

        http://xahlee.info/emacs/misc/rms_speech_requirement.html

        It seems reasonable to wonder if he’ll allow an MRI image of his cancer if that image isn’t saved in a Free format. I don’t know where he draws the line, but his requirements seem to go quite a bit beyond what he owns or interacts with.

    • @[email protected]
      32•9 months ago

      He mentioned once that he can use a bank that doesn’t use free software because he’s not logging in to it to do general purpose computing. I think the same would probably apply to medical treatments.

      • @[email protected]
        9•9 months ago

        I believe he does extend it to JavaScript however, so if he were required to run unfree javascript on a webpage relating to his treatment that could be a problem.

        • Captain Beyond
          14•9 months ago

          Yes, if the JavaScript is running on a computer he owns. JavaScript programs running in a browser are just as much software as any other type of program.

          See The JavaScript Trap

        • 520
          2•9 months ago

          It’s embedded JavaScript though … The code is available by design.

          • Captain Beyond
            14•9 months ago

            The code merely being “available” isn’t the same thing as the user having the legal freedom to modify and share it. Besides, that’s not always the case; sometimes JavaScript is minified, obfuscated, and packed in ways that make it effectively no different than any other compiled program.

            Note that source code is “the preferred form for making modifications” so obfuscated code is by definition not “source.”