Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman, often known by his initials, rms, is an American software freedom activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a manner such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute and modify that software. Software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License...
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth16 March 1953
law people moral
Laws that oppress people have no moral authority
lists purpose computer
Our mailing lists (and their repeater newsgroups) are only for the purpose of promoting proprietary software.
movement development social
Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.
fighting malaria mosquitoes
Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.
giving use figures
I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.
government people deserve-better
People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.
running jobs race
The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
creativity use social
Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
thinking people alternatives
I never imagined that the Free Software Movement would spawn a watered-down alternative, the Open Source Movement, which would become so well-known that people would ask me questions about 'open source' thinking that I work under that banner.
exercise yoke unjust
If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power.
use reason should
One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control.
goal needs world
If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.
art iraq soldier
Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know...
people church use
People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.