Richard Stallman — "Software patents are an attack on innovation and freedom."
Software patents are an attack on innovation and freedom.
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More from Richard Stallman
"We need to reclaim our digital freedom."
"If a program is useful, people will want to use it; if a program is useful and free, people will want to use it more."
"The fight for free software is a fight for human rights."
"No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs — and certainly not Islam."
"When I do this, some people think that it's because I want my ego to be fed, right? Of course, I'm not asking you to call it 'Stallmanix'!"
About Richard Stallman (born 1953)
American programmer who founded the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project, whose copyleft GPL licensing made the modern Linux ecosystem possible. Closely associated with Linus Torvalds (Linux kernel creator who builds on GNU userland) and Eric S. Raymond (open-source advocate (The Cathedral and the Bazaar)). For an intellectual contrast, see Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder — Gates's 1976 Open Letter to Hobbyists arguing for software-as-property is the foundational document Stallman's GPL was specifically written to refute — the two opposing answers to 'who owns the code'.