Richard Stallman
Founder of the free software movement and the GNU Project.
Most quoted
"Calling it 'intellectual property' is a propaganda term designed to confuse people into thinking that the various different laws that restrict what you can do with information are all one thing, and that they all have the same moral basis."
— from Various speeches
"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."
— from The GNU Project
"My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better."
— from Essays
All quotes by Richard Stallman (373)
If you don't have freedom, you don't have control.
The user should be in control of the program, not the other way around.
We should not be forced to choose between convenience and freedom.
The problem with proprietary software is that it divides and conquers the users.
The free software movement is a social movement for freedom and justice in the digital world.
If you give up your freedom for convenience, you will have neither.
The word 'open source' was coined to avoid the ethical issues of 'free software'.
I'm not against making money. I'm against making money by taking away people's freedom.
The four essential freedoms are the freedom to run the program, to study and change the program, to redistribute copies, and to distribute copies of your modified versions.
Using proprietary software is like letting someone else decide what you can do with your own property.
The free software movement is about human rights.
Don't just use free software, participate in the free software movement.
The biggest threat to freedom is apathy.
I am a software developer, and I believe in freedom.
If you value your freedom, you must reject proprietary software.
The purpose of technology should be to serve humanity, not to control it.
The only way to ensure that software respects your freedom is for it to be free software.
The free software movement is about empowering users.
Proprietary software is a system of feudalism in the digital age.
The greatest danger is not that we will fail, but that we will succeed in doing the wrong thing.
Contemporaries of Richard Stallman
Other Computer Sciences born within 50 years of Richard Stallman (1953).