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Richard Stallman
125 quotes
“Well, Geoff forwarded me a copy of the DEC message, and I eat my words. I sure would have minded it! Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reaction to the first spam, after receiving a copy of it (9 May 1978) as quoted in "Reaction to the DEC Spam of 1978
“What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Hackers — Wizards of the Electronic Age (1985)
“GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the G in the word GNU when it is the name of this project.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users who benefit from the advertising pay for it. On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide this?”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. 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 (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today are based on destruction.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software. It is the most common basis because it brings in the most money. If it were prohibited, or rejected by the customer, software business would move to other bases of organization which are now used less often. There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. The copyright system was created expressly for the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was invented — books, which could be copied economically only on a printing press — it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals who read the books.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole would benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we have to ask: are we really better off granting such license? What kind of act are we licensing a person to do?”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The case of programs today is very different from that of books a hundred years ago. The fact that the easiest way to copy a program is from one neighbor to another, the fact that a program has both source code and object code which are distinct, and the fact that a program is used rather than read and enjoyed, combine to create a situation in which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society as a whole both materially and spiritually; in which a person should not do so regardless of whether the law enables him to.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies — such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late. Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this has translated itself into leisure for workers because much nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity. The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical gains in productivity to translate into less work for us.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program. They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it. In any intellectual field, one can reach greater heights by standing on the shoulders of others. But that is no longer generally allowed in the software field—you can only stand on the shoulders of the other people in your own company.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why Software Should Be Free (1991)
“Hundreds of thousands of babies are born every day. While the whole phenomenon is menacing, one of them by itself is not newsworthy. Nor is it a difficult achievement — even some fish can do it. (Now, if you were a seahorse, it would be more interesting, since it would be the male that gave birth.) ...These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: His reaction to a baby announcement on a SFBA social mailing list (21 February 1993), as quoted in "RMS -vs- Doctor, on the evils of Natalism" at Art.net
“People could no longer learn hacking the way I did, by starting to work on a real operating system, making real improvements. In fact, in the 1980s I often came across newly graduated computer science majors who had never seen a real program in their lives. They had only seen toy exercises, school exercises, because every real program was a trade secret. They never had the experience of writing features for users to really use, and fixing the bugs that real users came across. The things you need to know to do real work.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: MEME 2.04", an interview with David S. Bennahum (1996)
“A hacker is someone who enjoys playful cleverness — not necessarily with computers. The programmers in the old MIT free software community of the 60s and 70s referred to themselves as hackers. Around 1980, journalists who discovered the hacker community mistakenly took the term to mean “security breaker.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing (1996)
“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 (born 1953) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the kde-licensing mailing list, (April 13, 1998)
“The use of “hacker” to mean “security breaker” is a confusion on the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that meaning, and continue using the word to mean someone who loves to program, someone who enjoys playful cleverness, or the combination of the two.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The GNU Project", originally published in Open Sources (1998)
“If we are content with knowledge as a commodity, accessible only through a computerized bureaucracy, we can simply let companies provide it. But if we want to keep human knowledge open and freely available to humanity, we have to do the work to make it available that way. We have to write a free encyclopedia.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource" (1999)
“Very ironic things have happened, but nothing to match this — giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is sort of like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Fleet.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Upon receiving the Linus Torvalds Award at Linuxworld, (1999)
“Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism. 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.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough — you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal. In other words, you need to be pragmatic.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you focus your mind on the freedom and community that you can build by staying firm, you will find the strength to do it. "Stand for something, or you will fall for nothing." And if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community...if "hard nosed realists" say that profit is the only ideal...just ignore them, and use copyleft all the same.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word "open" to describe free software, or its contrary, "closed", in talking about non-free software.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The term "free software" has an ambiguity problem: an unintended meaning, "Software you can get for zero price," fits the term just as well as the intended meaning, "software which gives the user certain freedoms." We address this problem by publishing a more precise definition of free software, but this is not a perfect solution; it cannot completely eliminate the problem. An unambiguously correct term would be better, if it didn't have other problems.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The official definition of "open source software," as published by the Open Source Initiative, is very close to our definition of free software; however, it is a little looser in some respects, and they have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The explanation for "free software" is simple — a person who has grasped the idea of "free speech, not free beer" will not get it wrong again.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'The main argument for the term "open source software" is that "free software" makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if we stop talking about these things.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At present, we have plenty of "keep quiet", but not enough freedom talk. Most people involved with free software say little about freedom — usually because they seek to be "more acceptable to business." Software distributors especially show this pattern. Some GNU/Linux operating system distributions add proprietary packages to the basic free system, and they invite users to consider this an advantage, rather than a step backwards from freedom.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To stop using the word "free" now would be a mistake; we need more, not less, talk about freedom. If those using the term "open source" draw more users into our community, that is a contribution, but the rest of us will have to work even harder to bring the issue of freedom to those users' attention. We have to say, "It's free software and it gives you freedom!" — more and louder than ever before.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Open Source Definition is clear enough, and it is quite clear that the typical non-free program does not qualify. So you would think that "Open Source company" would mean one whose products are free software (or close to it), right? Alas, many companies are trying to give it a different meaning.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Spreading the idea of freedom is a big job — it needs your help. That's why we stick to the term "free software" in the GNU Project, so we can help do that job. If you feel that freedom and community are important for their own sake — not just for the convenience they bring — please join us in using the term "free software".”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I released GNU Emacs and people started using it, they started sending me improvements in the mail. So I would get a message with a bug fix, and a message with a new feature, and another bug fix, and another new feature, and another... and another... until they were pouring in on me so fast that just taking advantage of all of the help people were giving me was a big job. Microsoft doesn't have this problem.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System", address at LinuxTag (July 2000)
“People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sayings" at Richard Stallman's personal site (c. 2001)
“Odious ideas are not entitled to hide from criticism behind the human shield of their believers' feelings.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sayings" at Richard Stallman's personal site (c. 2001)
“Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. "Don't bother us with politics," respond those who don't want to learn.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Linux, GNU, and freedom" in LinuxWorld (May 2002)
“Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: O'Reilly Open Source Conference: Day 3" by Paul Weinstein, in Apache Week (26 July 2002)
“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.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On why he decided against writing proprietary software; quoted in Free as in Freedom : Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software (2002) by Sam Williams
“People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Free as in Freedom : Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software (2002) by Sam Williams; Ch. 8 : St. Ignucius
“It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value".”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Hacking (2002)
“Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How to fight software patents - singly and together", Newsforge (9 September 2004)
“Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know...”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a talk on Software Patents; Frankfurt am Main, Germany, (26 September 2004)