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If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

Richard Stallman

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Richard Stallman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: March 16
Activist
Blogger
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Free Sofware Activist
Inventor
Programmer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Richard M. Stallman
rms
Richard Matthew Stallman
St. iGNUcius
Chief GNUisance
Creating
Tokens
Use
Rewarded
Punished
Programmers
Innovative
Programs
Program
Restrict
Deserve
Token

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Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.
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Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.
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To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master.
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Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users dont have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware.
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Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.
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Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
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The GNU GPL was not designed to be open source.
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The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages.
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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.
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The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere extension language. It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
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Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.
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Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance.
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The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.
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Would a dating service for people on the net be frowned upon by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.
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Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.
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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.
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Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.
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Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
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You can use any editor you want, but remember that vi vi vi is the text editor of the beast.
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My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.
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