Richard Stallman: Program

“I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.”

Richard Stallman

Internet meme commonly attributed to Stallman made by an unknown source.
Misattributed

People , Parting

“The hard part of programming is the same regardless of the language.”

Richard Stallman

"You broke the Internet. We're making ourselves a GNU one." (August 2013) https://gnunet.org/internetistschuld (around 02:16)
2010s
Context: Programming is programming. If you get good at programming, it doesn't matter which language you learned it in, because you'll be able to do programming in any language. The hard part of programming is the same regardless of the language. And if you have a talent for that, and you learned it here, you can take it over there. Oh, one thing: if you want to get a picture of a programming at its most powerful, you should learn Lisp or Scheme because they are more elegant and powerful than other languages.

Parting

“I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it.”

Richard Stallman

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)
Context: I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.
So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away.

People

“What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming.”

Richard Stallman

Interview in Hackers — Wizards of the Electronic Age (1985)
1980s
Context: 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."

Love

“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

Why Software Should Be Free (1991) http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
1990s

People , Learning , Science

“The programmers who write improvements to GCC (or Emacs, or Bash, or Linŭ, or any GPL-covered program) are often employed by companies or universities. When the programmer wants to return his improvements to the community, and see his code in the next release, the boss may say, "Hold on there — your code belongs to us! We don't want to share it; we have decided to turn your improved version into a proprietary software product."
Here the GNU GPL comes to the rescue. The programmer shows the boss that this proprietary software product would be copyright infringement, and the boss realizes that he has only two choices: release the new code as free software, or not at all. Almost always he lets the programmer do as he intended all along, and the code goes into the next release.”

Richard Stallman

1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)

Communication , Universe

“Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.
The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.”

Richard Stallman

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Money , World , Way , Parting

“Why is it bad to use an unauthorized copy of a proprietary program? Because it’s proprietary! So an unauthorized copy is almost as nasty as an authorized copy of the same program. They are both nasty because they are proprietary. The users don’t have control over them. If they pay developer – that makes it worse, because they are rewarding this delinquency. That’s why the authorized copy is worse. But they are both bad because they are both proprietary software. If you want freedom, you have to get rid of them both, because they both control you.”

Richard Stallman

"Richard Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance", RT (2 December 2011) http://rt.com/news/richard-stallman-free-software-875/
2010s

Freedom

“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

"MEME 2.04", an interview with David S. Bennahum (1996)
1990s

People , Secret , School , Way

“The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't know what it means for a programming language to be powerful and elegant. Once you learn Lisp, you will understand what is lacking in most other languages.
When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. Most other languages have nothing comparable to read, nothing comparable to eval, and nothing comparable to print. What gaping deficiencies!”

Richard Stallman

How I do my computing (2006)
2000s

Understanding , Learning , Reading

“If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power.”

Richard Stallman

Free Software Is Even More Important Now (September 2013) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html
2010s

Exercises

“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

"The GNU Project", originally published in Open Sources (1998) http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html
1990s

Love , Parting

“The GNU GPL was not designed to be ""open source"". I wrote it for the free software movement, and its purpose is to ensure every user of every version of the program gets the essential freedoms.”

Richard Stallman

""Re: GPL version 4"" on NetBSD mailing list (17 July 2008) http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2008/07/17/msg001546.html
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source.
2000s

Freedom

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People , Way , Idea

“It doesn't take special talents to reproduce — even plants can do it. On the other hand, contributing to a program like Emacs takes real skill. That is really something to be proud of. It helps more people, too.”

Richard Stallman

In response to the news that a colleague would not have as much time to devote to Emacs since the birth of his daughter, in Gmane (27 April 2005) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/36460
2000s

People , Help

“Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including licensing of copies, always incur a tremendous cost to society through the cumbersome mechanisms necessary to figure out how much (that is, which programs) a person must pay for. And only a police state can force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air may be fair, but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is intolerable even if everyone can afford to pay the air bill. And the TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take the mask off are outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and chuck the masks.
Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.”

Richard Stallman

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People , Support , Nature , Parting

“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

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Thinking

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)