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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.

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
Able
Packages
Mean
Software
Master
Areas
Masters
Choose
Freedom
Proprietary
Means
Computing

More quotes by Richard Stallman

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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.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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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.
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.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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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!
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman
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Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.
Richard Stallman
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No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs.
Richard Stallman
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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.
Richard Stallman