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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.

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
Ought
Legitimate
Trouble
Businesses
Free
Sooner
Running
Software
Better
Fail
Writing
Based
Good
Activity
People
Failing
Ethically

More quotes by Richard Stallman

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If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.
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Laws that oppress people have no moral authority.
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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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Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go.
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There is no system but GNU and Linux is one of it's kernels
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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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I'm the last survivor of a dead culture. And I don't really belong in the world anymore. And in some ways I feel I ought to be dead.
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The desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.
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Snow is so beautiful, it doesn't have to be useful.
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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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Now that corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users.
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So, make a real effort to avoid getting sucked into all the expensive lifestyle habits of typical Americans. Because if you do that, then people with the money will dictate what you do with your life.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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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Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
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All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.
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Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.
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