The New Yorker is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the GNU manifesto with a nice article on RMS and his work on Free Software. All-in-all it’s a pretty good article considering that it’s appearing in a non-technical venue. They get some details wrong but are mostly accurate.
My main complaint is that their description of Stallman and his foibles sometimes borders on a characterization. For example, in speaking of the advice that gets sent to those hosting a Stallman talk, they mention without comment that one of the items is “don’t give him a parrot.” That makes RMS seem a little loony but in fact the advice comes because he really enjoys parrots and this causes some people to want to give him one. Parrots are long lived and RMS doesn’t want to take on a pet that may outlive him. It’s perfectly reasonable when put in context.
My other complaint is that they attempt to cast him as a left-wing warrior rather than the hacker and free software advocate that he is. To be sure, Stallman does have beliefs that could be characterized as “left-wing” but I don’t think anyone who’s familiar with him and his work think of him in those terms.
Those nits aside, it’s a nice article and especially useful for our younger colleagues who may not know the story about the GNU manifesto and how it came about.