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
applies built computer computers insist job likewise phones run software using
A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smart phones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.
running writing people
Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better.
running real looks
For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.
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.
nasty sprung threats
The world has sprung very nasty threats on us and our software.
book british owns plan publishers record
British book publishers plan to put a microchip into every book to record who owns it - an unprecedented surveillance measure.
allow computing control deserve free freedom particular software users
The idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing.
american-musician citizen good means mutual poorer reason
The reason that a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.
developers impose monopolies patents
Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.
change divided forbidden helpless keeps power program since source study system unjust users
Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does. So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power.
browse button facebook knows machine page site visited web
Facebook mistreats its users. Facebook is not your friend; it is a surveillance engine. For instance, if you browse the Web and you see a 'like' button in some page or some other site that has been displayed from Facebook. Therefore, Facebook knows that your machine visited that page.
acquire amazon buy certain database freedom identify paper paying printed takes
With paper printed books, you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash, which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.
code computers developing explicitly free freedom instead popularity purpose success system thus
When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.
brain dead found kids
I found it tremendously humiliating to be there because most of the kids there were brain dead or psychotic.