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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
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.
Today many people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons. That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do! Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first step.
Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source (1998)
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today are based on destruction.
GNU Manifesto (1985)
We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this.
Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source (1998)
It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value".
On Hacking (2002)
I didn't single out Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft had nothing to do with it in the beginning. Microsoft in 1983 made a toy operating system for toy computers, and I hardly paid any attention to it.
Sometimes you can justify doing something that hurts other people by saying otherwise something worse is going to happen to me. You know, if you were *really* going to starve, you'd be justified in writing proprietary software.
Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation (2001)
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