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Richard Stallman Quotes
born 1953 United States
Richard Matthew Stallman (born 16 March 1953), often known as rms or RMS, is the founder of the Free Software movement, the GNU project, the Free Software Foundation, and the League for Programming Freedom. He also invented the concept of copyleft to protect the ideals of this movement, and enshrined this concept in the widely-used GPL (General Public License) for software.
United States Academics Activists Bloggers Programmers Also known as: Richard M. Stallman, Stallman, Richard, Stallman, Richard M., RMS, Rms
Random Richard Stallman quote
88 quotes
It is unfortunate that he still has nonfree software in his computer. He needs to defenestrate it (which means, either throw Windows out of the computer or throw the computer out of the window).
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.
Free as in Freedom : Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software (2002)
Isn't it ironic that the proprietary software developers call us communists? We are the ones who have provided for a free market, where they allow only monopoly.
A lot of people think of a computer as just a tool, and they don't ask themselves who decides what they can do with the tool and what they can't do with the tool.
I didn't receive the DEC message, but I can't imagine I would have been bothered if I have. I get tons of uninteresting mail, and system announcements about babies born, etc.
I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it.
GNU Manifesto (1985)
Rho, rho, rho of X
Richard M. Stallman (1969)
Freedom and community are important.
To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the G in the word GNU when it is the name of this project.
GNU Manifesto (1985)
People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.
If I'm the father of Open Source, it was conceived through artificial insemination using stolen sperm without my knowledge or consent.
Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.
GNU Manifesto (1985)
We need to teach people to refuse to install non-free plug-ins; we need to teach people to care more about their long-term interest of freedom than their immediate desire to view a particular site.
Globalizing a bad thing makes it worse. But globalizing a good thing is usually good.
Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense.
Paying isn't wrong, and being paid isn't wrong. Trampling other people's freedom and community is wrong, so the free software movement aims to put an end to it, at least in the area of software.
To have the choice between proprietary software packages, is being able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master. And in the area of computing, freedom means not using proprietary software.
While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas.
Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source (1998)
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...
In 1971 when I joined the staff of the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab, all of us who helped develop the operating system software, we called ourselves hackers.
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