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The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.

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
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Ancient
Many
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Copyright
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More quotes by Richard Stallman

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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.
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There is no system but GNU and Linux is one of it's kernels
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No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs.
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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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Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.
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Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something.
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I'm always happy when I'm protesting.
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I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute.
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All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.
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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.
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If ebooks mean that readers' freedom must either increase or decrease, we must demand the increase.
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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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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.
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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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Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.
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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.
Richard Stallman
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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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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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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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I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.
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