A biography for Richard Stallmanhasn’t been written yet.
“In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything.”
“CD stores have the disadvantage of an expensive inventory, but digital bookshops would need no such thing: they could write copies at the time of sale on to memory sticks, and sell you one if you forgot your own.”
“With paper printed books, you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash, which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.”
“Officially, MPAA stands for Motion Picture Association of America, but I suggest that MPAA stands for Malicious Power Attacking All.”
“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.”
“Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.”
“Many users of the GNU/Linux system will not have heard the ideas of free software. They will not be aware that we have ideas, that a system exists because of ethical ideals, which were omitted from ideas associated with the term 'open source.'”
“Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.”
“All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.”
“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control.”
“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.”
“In essence, Chrome OS is the GNU/Linux operating system. However, it is delivered without the usual applications, and rigged up to impede and discourage installing applications.”
“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.”
“A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smart phones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.”
“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.”
“Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.”
“Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy.”
“Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware.”
“If there is a Like button in a page, Facebook knows who visited that page. And it can get IP address of the computer visiting the page even if the person is not a Facebook user.”
“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.”