RMS (Richard Matthew Stallman)
The letters "RMS" will be very familiar to anyone who has so much as glimpsed into the FOSS community. For many people, Richard Matthew Stallman may indeed be the first person that they learn of in the entire space.
His free software absolutism is funny. The lengths to which he will bend so that he doesn't have a single line of blasphemous nonfree code running on any machine he's used in the past ten years are objectively hilarious. At the same time, because of how ardent he is in this, it is easy to view this as a kind of purity to which us mortals could only aspire because we enjoy getting things done.
Stallman is a spectacle. He has done a lot for the free software movement and I firmly believe that we would be in a much worse place without his contributions. He is to be commended for that.
Commended, but not venerated.
Nowadays, RMS is a figure who can't seem to escape controversy. Underneath the natural fascination with these kinds of quacks, it's easy to forget that the people themselves can actually be pretty crummy. Stallman fits into this category. Read this blog post or this article (extreme content warning for both) to learn a bit more about Stallman the man. It doesn't matter which; they cover similar points.
But I don't just want to complain about a person I find to be a thorn in the side of the free software community. I'm offering a solution of my own, you see. Others have petitioned the FSF to boot him out of leadership again to no avail. My solution is to become the new RMS.
RMS (Richard Michael Snider)
That's me.
My first name, Richard, is the same as Stallman's. Additionally, all three of my initials are the same as his initials. Simply put, I want to become the Richard that people think of when they say RMS.
To clarify: I do not want to replace him as the leader of the FSF. My goal is simply to supplant him as the owner of the initialism RMS.
Is this a plausible goal? Of course not. Is it funny to pretend that I actually want to try? It sure is! So here we go.
The Plan
The plan is simple: I must make myself the subject of mass fascination within the FOSS space to the extent that Stallman's name is forgotten to time.
The plan will be split into two parts. First, I will make some commitments to you, dear reader. Second, I will ask you to help me.
My Part
I already have a website which is clandestine in appearance and which exists almost exclusively to hold the canonical versions of my opinions. I will be writing posts on this blog every month of this year. With enough eyes here, I will develop a following of people who are endeared to me on account of my silly anecdotes and highly specific opinions on tech.
This is the functional purpose of https://stallman.org these days, so I consider this to be vital to my plan.
The point where this diverges from Stallman's approach is that I will not say anything terrible or heinous that will make everyone hate me. Nope, just good old silly tech takes from this RMS.
I will also be modifying the language on this site to explicitly emphasize that I am RMS (but not that RMS).
Your Part
Your part is simple: spread the knowledge that there is a new RMS in town and that he's someone you can feel good about liking. Link this blog everywhere. Make sure people know that I am coming for Stallman's title of RMS.
But, I wouldn't be a true RMS without a copypasta of my own. Whenever someone is acting excessively Stallman-esque, post the following:
Richard Stallman's achievements and leadership of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation have done an impressive amount for the world of open source and those achievements should be recognized. He has serious issues, however, and should not be seen as incorruptible, which is a common sentiment in many newer entrants into the Free Software movement.
I do believe that opinionated and uncompromising people are necessary to push the FOSS community even further; however, people who are rude, provocative, and insulting to other members of the FOSS community -- people that ought to be allies instead of enemies -- are dangerous and have more potential to cause harm than good.
And then if you plugged my blog at the end that would also be nice.