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Another view of Richard Stallman
2 comments- TAGS:Asperger's syndrome, Richard Stallman
- IT TOPICS:Open Source
I received an interesting e-mail a couple of days ago from Katie Graunke Stone, who handles public relations for Stone Design, a Mac OS application development company founded by her husband Andrew Stone in 1984. Katie wrote in response to my column "Asperger's Oxymoron," in which I mentioned that in my July interview with free software pioneer Richard Stallman, Stallman indicated that he suspected he had a "shadow" form of Asperger's syndrome.
Katie related a story about an encounter she and her husband had with Stallman 15 years ago that left this impression: "Even though he was the strangest person I'd ever met until that point in my life, he was likely the most brilliant."
The full text of the e-mail follows:
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My husband Andrew Stone and I had the interesting experience of hosting Richard Stallman some 15 years ago when he came to visit New Mexico with [Electronic Frontier Foundation founding members] John Gilmore and John Barlow. We took them to our favorite local grill, just a short walk from our house, and Richard's behavior was beyond strange. Now that I have a son with Asperger's I am a lot more understanding, but at the time I found it incredibly odd that he ordered to drink "one glass of hot water, and one glass of cold water." When the hot water came to him in a cup, he told the waitress, with an edge in his voice, "one glass of hot water, one glass of cold water."
My own Aspie son has informed me about fixed interests, the inability to grasp another person's point of view, and social ineptitude. But Richard Stallman introduced me to success coupled with all these traits. I remembered at the time thinking he must hate women, because he would not look at or talk to me. Now I think maybe he either didn't notice me at all, or maybe he was a wee bit jealous of my obviously affectionate and compatible relationship with my nerdy husband. In any event, he's done a world of good for computer users and his philosophy of free software has benefitted most of us at one time or another. Even though he was the strangest person I'd ever met until that point in my life, he was likely the most brilliant.
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