Richard Stallman Quotes - Page 2

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Now that corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users.

Richard Stallman

Writing, Technology, Law

"Stallman's Law". www.gnu.org. 2012.

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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

Writing, Mean, Simple

"On Hacking". stallman.org. 2002.

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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.

Richard Stallman

Goal, Needs, World

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.75, Lulu.com

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No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs.

Richard Stallman

Ideas, Church, Insult

"Political notes from 2007: January - April". Personal Website, www.stallman.org. March 01, 2007.

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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

Wall, Writing, Years

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.14, Lulu.com

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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

Writing, Names, Giving

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.27, Lulu.com

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Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.

Richard Stallman

Creativity, Society, Use

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.30, Lulu.com

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I'm the last survivor of a dead culture. And I don't really belong in the world anymore. And in some ways I feel I ought to be dead.

Richard Stallman

Lasts, Survivor, Culture

"Geek Power: Steven Levy Revisits Tech Titans, Hackers, Idealists". Interview with Steven Levy, www.wired.com. April 19, 2010.

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To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master.

Richard Stallman

Mean, Able, Masters

"The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom". Richard Stallman's lecture in Zagreb, Croatia, fsfe.org. March 9, 2006.

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Think 'free speech,' not 'free beer.'

Richard Stallman

Beer, Thinking, Speech

"Second sight" by Richard Stallman, www.theguardian.com. March 2, 2005.

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Talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might prefer to ignore, such as whether their conduct is ethical. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may simply close their minds to it. It does not follow that we ought to stop talking about these things.

Richard Stallman

Responsibility, Thinking, Ethical Issues

"Why 'Free Software' Is Better Than 'Open Source'". www.gnu.org. 1998.

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For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.

Richard Stallman

Running, Real, Use

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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

Fun, Helping Others, People

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.75, Lulu.com

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By the way, I hope you all know about the worldwide boycott of Coca Cola company for things like murdering union organizers in Colombia. See the site killercoke.org.

Richard Stallman

Unions, Way, Coca Cola

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The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages.

Richard Stallman

Trust, Powerful, Appreciate

"How I Do My Computing". Personal Website, www.stallman.org.

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Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance.

Richard Stallman

Learning, Awards, Giving

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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

Creativity, Desire, Doe

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.31, Lulu.com

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The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.

Richard Stallman

Law, Ideas, Justice

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.157, Lulu.com

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Paying isn’t wrong, and being paid isn’t wrong. Trampling other people’s freedom and community is wrong, so the free software movement aims to put an end to it, at least in the area of software.

Richard Stallman

People, Community, Movement

Interview with Colin McGregor, freesoftwaremagazine.com. January 23, 2008.

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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.

Richard Stallman

Running, Jobs, Race

Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.32, Lulu.com

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People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.

Richard Stallman

Government, People, Deserve Better

"Sayings" at Richard Stallman's personal site, www.stallman.org. October 24, 2001.

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A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth.

Richard Stallman

People, Together, Wealth

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The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.

Richard Stallman

Clouds, Interesting, Cloud Computing

"Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman". Interview with Bobbie Johnson, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2008.

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Odious ideas are not entitled to hide from criticism behind the human shield of their believers feelings.

Richard Stallman

Ideas, Feelings, Criticism

Personal Website, www.stallman.org. October 24, 2001.

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Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel.

Richard Stallman

Different, Littles, Androids

"Is Android really free software?" by Richard Stallman, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2011.

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Born: March 16, 1953
Occupation: Activist
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