Richard Stallman: Use (page 2)

“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 GNU GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy. It says "no" to some of the things that people sometimes want to do. There are users who say that this is a bad thing — that the GPL "excludes" some proprietary software developers who "need to be brought into the free software community."
But we are not excluding them from our community; they are choosing not to enter. Their decision to make software proprietary is a decision to stay out of our community. Being in our community means joining in cooperation with us; we cannot "bring them into our community" if they don't want to join.
What we can do is offer them an inducement to join. The GNU GPL is designed to make an inducement from our existing software: "If you will make your software free, you can use this code."”

Richard Stallman

Of course, it won't win 'em all, but it wins some of the time.
1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)

People , Guy , Communication , Decision

“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

“C++ is a badly designed and ugly language. It would be a shame to use it in Emacs.”

Richard Stallman

Re: Efforts to attract more users? http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/rms" emacs-devel (12 July 2010)
2010s

“The part of these immigration bills that I hate most is the requirement for new forms of identification and surveillance of US citizens. I gather this is supported by nearly everyone in Congress. Orwellian surveillance is not controversial in the US, where "Land of the Free" has been replaced with "Let me see your papers."
When the US adopted a requirement for US citizens to prove their citizenship in order to get a job, I vowed I would never do so. I will never again be an employee in the US.”

Richard Stallman

"Border Patrol" (26 May 2006) http://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#26%20May%202006%20(Border%20Patrol)
2000s

Hate , Support , Parting

“Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense.”

Richard Stallman

"Bill Gates and other communists ", op-ed at ZDNet (15 February 2005) http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=38018
2000s

Communication

“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

In a talk on Software Patents; Frankfurt am Main, Germany, (26 September 2004)
2000s

Art

“Using GPL
is encroaching on our rights
to encroach on yours.”

Richard Stallman

Poem on opponents of the GPL’s sharing requirements, as quoted in "Stallman joins the Internet, talks net neutrality, patents and more" at NetworkWorld (23 March 2015)
2010s

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Money , Way , Business

“Snow is so beautiful, it doesn't have to be useful.”

Richard Stallman

Parliament Hill Speech, Ottawa, Canada, (2 June 2009)
2000s

Beauty

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Life , Art , Effort , Time

“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 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)

Books , Law , Way , Reading

“He [somebody at Carnegie Mellon University] had betrayed us. But he didn't just do it to us. Chances are he did it to you too. [Pointing at member of audience. ] And I think, mostly likely, he did it to you too. [Pointing at another member of audience. ][Laughter] And he probably did it to you as well. [Pointing to third member of audience. ] He probably did it to most of the people here in this room — except a few, maybe, who weren't born yet in 1980. Because he had promised to refuse to cooperate with just about the entire population of the Planet Earth. He had signed a non-disclosure agreement.”

Richard Stallman

2000s, Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation (2001)

People , Thinking , Laughter , Universe

“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!"”

Richard Stallman

more and louder than ever before.
1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Communication , Freedom , Drawing

“If I'm the father of Open Source, it was conceived through artificial insemination using stolen sperm without my knowledge or consent.”

Richard Stallman

Reclaim Your Freedom with Free (Libre) Software (Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal), Stallman, Richard, 2016-11-10, 2019-04-07, Web Summit https://youtube.com/watch?v=n9YDz-Iwgyw&t=1764,
2016

Knowledge

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

“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

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

“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

As quoted in Free as in Freedom : Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch08.html (2002) by Sam Williams; Ch. 8 : St. Ignucius
2000s

People , Happiness

“We want to replace proprietary software, with its unjust social system with Free Software and its ethical social system. And so we develop free replacements for proprietary software, and other free programs whenever we get an idea, so that the world can live in freedom. The part that uses computers, at least, in that one area of life. Because winning and maintaining freedom in general is a much bigger, much broader and harder activity, but this is one part of it.”

Richard Stallman

2000s, What is free software? (2006)

Life , World , Idea , Freedom