Richard Stallman — "Proprietary software is a tool of oppression."
Proprietary software is a tool of oppression.
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More from Richard Stallman
"'Breakfast'? Is that the thing some people eat in the 'morning'?"
"Proprietary software is a moral wrong."
"The proprietary software industry wants to turn you into a docile consumer."
"The idea that music is private property took hold in the digital age, but it is an absurd and unjust idea."
"I don't own a car. I don't own a television. I don't own a microwave oven."
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'.