Richard Stallman

“If ebooks mean that readers' freedom must either increase or decrease, we must demand the increase.”

“Facebook collects a lot of data from people and admits it. And it also collects data which isn't admitted. And Google does too. As for Microsoft, I don't know. But I do know that Windows has features that send data about the user.”

“In the free/libre software movement, we develop software that respects users' freedom, so we and you can escape from software that doesn't.”

“Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.”

“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 idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing.”

“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.”

“In practice, the copyright system does a bad job of supporting authors, aside from the most popular ones. Other authors' principal interest is to be better known, so sharing their work benefits them as well as readers.”

“The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.”

“If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

“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.”

“When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.”

“Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.”

“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.”

“The reason that 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.”

“Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go.”

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

“Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine.”

“Proprietary software is an injustice.”

“Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.”