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RMS' Bio | The GNU Project

For the second half of the 80s, I made a living through free software consulting and teaching, while spending most of my time writing GNU software.

In 1988 or so, when MCC, the research consortium in Austin, Texas, invited me to teach a class in Emacs Lisp programming, I felt a moral obligation to warn them before accepting the offer. I sent them the following message (well, yes, I have tightened it up a little):

I have to warn you that Texans have been known to have an adverse reaction to my personality.

A few years ago I went to Texas Instruments in Dallas to teach courses on how the Lisp machine software works. At lunch on the second day, the boss of the group came to me, chatted for a while in a way that seemed strangely aimless, and then told me that a design review of the entire project had been scheduled for the following day. "No one will be able to come to your classes."

"Well, I had better work out now which topics are the most important to cover today."

"It's worse than that. No one will be available to take you to the airport either, so we have to switch your flight to this afternoon." My dismay was quieted with a check larger than I had expected for the whole time originally planned.

The next week I phoned to arrange my next visit. Before my trip, they had already been eager for more lectures later. Having missed part of the first series, they would naturally want them sooner than planned. But then the boss said that he would have to think about it.

"What's the matter," I asked. "Did the design review cancel the project?"

"No, the project is still on, but as things stand now I'm not sure when we would have time for you."

I thought about this, and the unexpected size of the check. "I think that you have some other reason, that you aren't telling me, why you don't want to do business with me. Were my lectures unsatisfactory?"

"No, your lectures were good. It was the people who had dinner with you. Both evenings they were very uncomfortable with you. They said they didn't want to have you around any more."

"Uncomfortable? But they didn't say so. Did they say why?"

"One of them said he was upset when you talked about nasal sex with plants." I had actually demonstrated this perverse act with the bouquet on the table, at dinner the night before I was sent home. The plants were dead, although well preserved, so I was performing rhinophytonecrophilia on them.

That was the end of the conversation, but I never forgot that the worst bunch of cowards I ever met were Texans. I can just imagine them: "Chief, you gotta get that guy away from here! All his crazy ideas are making my head feel strange. Is he a hippy?"

I have a suspicion that I didn't put them any more at ease when I started the first lecture by leading everyone in a Bulgarian folk dance. Perhaps this raised questions in their minds about my affiliation with foreign powers.

I have another suspicion. It's hard for me to believe even a Texan would be that worried about preserving the innocence of plants. Perhaps his pious concern was yet another front. But for what? Alas, in the study of alien civilizations, we find many clues but few answers.