alt Hacker NewsI met RMS at the Atlanta Linux Showcase in 1998. In the area with vendor booths in the lobby area of the show, he had laid down a blanket and was sitting in the middle with his legs crossed. He had printed copies of man pages printed and stapled together with covers laid out in front of him.
I walked up and introduced myself and said that I was a big fan, appreciated his hard work, etc. He looked at me coldly and just said "so are you going to buy something?" and motioned toward the booklets. I didn't need a printed copy of the `sed` man page so I shrugged and he seemed quite annoyed, turned to his assistant with a notebook computer and started dictating something to them, as almost to make it clear that our interaction was over.
I'm not sure what the point of posting this is, but that's my RMS story - it was my first "never meet your heroes" moment, I guess.
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For what it's worth, I've never met the guy but I wrote to him once regarding the image of free software that people who are selling unsupported LibreOffice CDs are causing.
He was willing to civilly discuss and listen to a different point of view. We never reached agreement, but I felt that so long as an interesting twist on something dear to him is being discussed, he is patient for discourse.
Unsure why this is a reply to the OP, the only thing common is RMS and nothing else.
But, RMS is known to be socially awkward, the same goes for many autistic individuals. It's just that he doesn't mask and comes out as “rude”. If send an e-mail, he will usually take his time to write down a succinct response.
YMMV I guess, he was cool with signing my laptop at FOSDEM in 2013 and even exchanged a couple of jokes. Humans be humans.
Some people don’t want to be your hero. Until you meet them, you can pretend they do want to be.
You sucked up to an autist, what did you think was going to happen? That's like trying to use Disney Dollars at Universal.
Dang, until I read your story I thought he was a totally normal guy!
Did he print those out on a printer with closed source software? (;->
I feel like rms just doesn't like human interaction generally. I've noticed that a lot of visionaries are that way.
I guess if you are popular and an introvert who likes to be left alone, then being nice and personable is not an option :)
He's gotta have a weird thing with his feet. My old boss saw him at a talking event here in Orlando, and he said he was picking skin off his toes or something weird the entire time he was talking. He's the hero we needed but probably deserve (as punishment for being bad humans).
I met RMS at a lunch in his honor at an Edinburgh vegetarian restaurant with very high ranking scholars/academics present, after an invited talk of his. Everyone was talking, eating, drinking and having a good time, whereas he was sitting at the head of the table doing email on his ThinkPad (yes, in text mode).
So I walked up, I introduced myself and asked a question about the freedom of _data_ versus the freedom of _software_, and without looking up to me he said "I don't do smalltalk". So I got back to my seat and told my "story" to my immediate neighbors, who were keen to learn what he'd said.
(He is much more constructive by email.)