Richard Stallman

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Richard Stallman giving a speech at WSIS-2005 ... Stallman, Richard M (1981) ... a b c "Richard Stallman's homepage" ...
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Richard Stallman
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Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. ... Richard Stallman: They were pretty trivial, like things to add ...
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Richard Stallman
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Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS; born 16 March, 1953) is the ... Richard Stallman on ... Interview with Richard Stallman: Four Essential Freedoms, ...
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Open and Shut?: Interview with Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement, speaks to Richard Poynder. Richard Stallman was born in Manhattan, NY, in 1953. ...
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{{ infobox celebrity| name = Richard Matthew Stallman| other_names = rms| image = Portrait - Denmark DTU 2007-3-31.jpg| caption = Richard Stallman at Technical University of Denmark in Denmark 2007], New York, United States| occupation = President, Free Software Foundation| website = www.stallman.org-->

Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms",{{cite web] activism, hacker,{{cite web]. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project{{cite web] operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project he started the free software movement, and in October 1985 set up the Free Software Foundation.

Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license.{{cite web], as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989.

Early years Stallman was born to Jewish parents Alice Lippman and Daniel Stallman in 1953 in New York City, New York. Hired by the IBM New York Scientific Center, Stallman spent the summer after his high-school graduation writing his first program, a preprocessor for the PL/I programming language on the IBM 360.

During this time, Stallman was also a volunteer Laboratory Assistant in the biology department at Rockefeller University. Although he was already moving toward a career in mathematics or physics, his teaching professor at Rockefeller thought he would have a future as a biologist. Chapter 3. Available under the GFDL in both the initial O'Reilly edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006) and the updated FAIFzilla edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006)

In June 1971, as a first year student at Harvard University, Stallman became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There he became a regular in the hacker community, where he was usually known by his initials, "RMS" (which was the name of his computer accounts). In the first edition of the Hacker's Dictionary, he wrote, "'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'." Stallman graduated from Harvard magna cum laude earning a BA in Physics in 1974. He then enrolled at MIT as a graduate student, but abandoned his pursuit of graduate degrees while remaining a programmer at the MIT AI Laboratory. In 1977, Stallman published an AI truth maintenance system called dependency-directed backtracking with Gerald Jay Sussman.

As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects like Text Editor and Corrector, Emacs, and the Lisp Machine Operating System. He would become an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab. When Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC (LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password (to demonstrate that they were not increasing security, but only hindering free access to each other's software and discouraging sharing it), with a suggestion to change it to the empty string instead, to restore this free access. Around 20% of the users followed his advice. Although Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward, passwords ultimately prevailed.Levy,S: Hackers, page 417. Penguin USA, 1984

MIT's hacker culture declines In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the hacker culture that Stallman thrived in began to fragment. To prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing source code and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such proprietary software had existed before, and it became apparent that it would become the norm. This shift in the legal characteristics of software can be regarded as a consequence triggered by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, as stated by Stallman's MIT fellow Brewster Kahle.Robert X. Cringely's interview with Brewster Kahle, around the 46th minute

When Brian Reid (computer scientist) in 1979 placed "Time bomb (Software)" in Scribe (word processing) to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed that "the prospect of charging money for software was a crime against humanity."{{cite book|author=Williams, Sam|title=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software|publisher=O'Reilly Media|year=2002|id=ISBN 0-596-00287-4--> Chapter 6. Available under the GFDL in both the initial O'Reilly edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006) and the updated FAIFzilla edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006)

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused the software's source code for the Xerox 9700 laser printer (code-named "Dover"), the industry's first. Stallman had modified the software on an older printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users when a printer was jammed. Not being able to add this feature to the Dover printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This one experience convinced Stallman of the ethical need to require free software. At that time, it became clear that he wanted people to discard proprietary software.{{cite book] in both the initial O'Reilly edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006) and the updated FAIFzilla edition (accessed on 27 October, 2006)

In 1980, Richard Greenblatt (programmer), a fellow AI Lab hacker, founded Lisp Machines (LMI) to market Lisp machines, which he and Tom Knight designed at the lab. Greenblatt rejected outside investment, believing that the proceeds from the construction and sale of a few machines could be profitably reinvested in the growth of the company. In contrast, the other hackers felt that the venture capital-funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, they founded Symbolics, with the aid of Russ Noftsker, an AI Lab administrator. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers including notable hacker Bill Gosper, who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics forced Greenblatt to also resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman singlehandedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers, in order to prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.Levy,S: Hackers. Penguin USA, 1984

However, he was the last of his generation of hackers at the lab. He rejected a future where he would have to sign non-disclosure agreements not to share source code or technical information with other software developers and perform other actions he considered betrayals of his principles. He chose instead to share his work with others in what he regarded as a classical spirit of collaboration. While Stallman did not participate in the 1960s era counterculture, he was inspired by its rejection of the pursuit of wealth as the primary goal of living.

Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to "share with their neighbor" and to be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He has repeatedly said that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are "antisocial" and "unethical".. Stallman chapter available online, accessed on 18 February, 2005 The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy. The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin by Peter H. Salus, accessed on 18 February, 2005. He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral value, and not merely for pragmatic reasons — pragmatic for example: because it may lead to improved software.

In January 1984, Stallman quit his job at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. He did not complete a Ph.D. but has been awarded six honorary degrees (#Recognition).

GNU project Stallman announced the plan for the GNU operating system in September 1983 on several ARPAnet mailing lists and USENET. new UNIX implementation

In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix. The name GNU is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix. Soon after, he started a non-profit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman is the unsalaried president of the FSF, which is a 501(c)#501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in Massachusetts.

In 1985, Stallman invented and popularized the concept of copyleft, a legal mechanism to protect the modification and redistribution rights for free software. It was first implemented in the GNU Emacs General Public License, and in 1989 the first program-independent GNU General Public License (GPL) was released. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed. Stallman was responsible for contributing many necessary tools, including a text editor, compiler, debugger, and a Build automation. The notable exception was a Kernel (computer science). In 1990, members of the GNU project began a kernel called GNU Hurd, which has yet to achieve the maturity level required for widespread usage.

In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finland student, used such tools to produce the Linux kernel. This could be combined with the GNU system to make a complete operating system. Most people use the name "Linux" to refer not only to the kernel, but to the combination of the Linux kernel itself plus the GNU system, which Stallman claims unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project.

Stallman's influences on hacker culture include the name POSIX{{cite web]| title = POSIX® 1003.1 FAQ Version 1.12| url = http://www.opengroup.org/austin/papers/posix_faq.html| accessdate = 2006-07-16 -->and the Emacs editor. On Unix systems, GNU Emacs's popularity rivaled that of another editor vi, spawning an editor war. Stallman's humorous take on this was to jokingly canonize himself as "St. Ignucius" / "St. IGNUcius" of the Church of Emacs Richard Stallman: GNU/Linux and a free society article by Takver Sunday October 10, 2004 at 08:06 AM on Melbourne Indymedia web site.] St IGNUcius web page at www.stallman.org and acknowledge that "vi vi vi is the Number of the Beast."

A number of developers view Stallman as being difficult to work with from a political, interpersonal, or technical standpoint. Around 1992, developers at Lucid Inc. doing their own work on Emacs clashed with Stallman and ultimately fork (software engineering) the software, into what later became XEmacs. An email archive published by Jamie Zawinski documents their criticisms and Stallman's response. Ulrich Drepper, whom Stallman had appointed to work on GNU libc for the GNU Project, published complaints against Stallman in the release notes for glibc 2.2.4{{cite web]| accessdate = 2006-07-16| publisher = libc-announce@sources.redhat.com mailing list| date = 2001-08-15, who sometimes speaks for parts of the [open source movement, has written many pieces laying out that movement's disagreement with Stallman and the free software movement, often in terms sharply critical of Stallman.{{cite web]| url = http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-08-17-016-20-OP-CY| date = 2001-08-17| title = Freedom, Power, or Confusion?| publisher = Linux Today| accessdate = 2006-07-16 -->

Activism (2005) at Marlboro CollegeStallman has written many essays on software freedom and since the early 1990s has been an outspoken political campaigner for the free software movement. The speeches he has regularly given are titled "The GNU project and the Free Software movement"http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html, "The Dangers of Software Patents"http://www.ifso.ie/documents/rms-2004-05-24.html, and "Copyright and Community in the age of computer networks".http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html

In 2006, during the year-long public consultation for the drafting of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, he added a fourth topic explaining the proposed changes.http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/#transcripts

Stallman's staunch advocacy for free software inspired "Virtual Richard M. Stallman" (vrms), software that analyzes the packages currently installed on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and report those that are from the non-free tree.http://vrms.alioth.debian.org/ Stallman would disagree with parts of Debian's definition of free software.{{cite web].{{cite web| url = http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html| accessdate = 2006-10-15| title = The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource| author = Richard Stallman -->

In Venezuela, Stallman has delivered public speeches and promoted the adoption of free software in the state's oil company (PDVSA), in municipal government, and in the nation's military. Although generally supportive of Hugo Chávez, Stallman has criticised some policies on television broadcasting, free speech rights, and privacy in meetings with Chávez and in public speeches in Venezuela.Stallman, Richard. "Encounter with President Chavez (2004-12-01 to 2004-12-06)". Richard Stallman Travel and Free Software Activities Journal.{{cite web], a Latin American television station.{{cite web]n State of Kerala, he persuaded officials to discard proprietary software, such as Microsoft's, at state-run schools. This has resulted in a landmark decision to switch all school computers in 12,500 high schools from Windows to a free software operating system. The Finacial Express: Kerala logs Microsoft out

After personal meetings, Stallman has obtained positive statements about the free software movement from the then-President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam{{cite web]{{cite web|url=http://www.fsf.org/news/stallman-royal.html|title=Meeting between Ségolène Royal and Richard Stallman|-->, and the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa.{{cite web].

Protesting against proprietary software in April 2006, Stallman held a "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom" placard at a speech by an ATI representative in the building where Stallman works, resulting in the police being called. ATI has since merged with AMD corporation and has taken new steps to make their hardware documentation available for use by the free software community.

Terminology Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about the world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He untiringly asks people to say "free software", "GNU/Linux", and to avoid the term "intellectual property". His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of the importance of terminology, are a source of regular mis-understanding and friction with parts of the free software community.

One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agree to use his terminology throughout their article. Leader of the Free World, Wired Magazine, Issue 11.11, November 2003. Sometimes he has even required journalists to read parts of the GNU philosophy before an interview, for "efficiency's sake". Interview with Josh Mehlman, Australian Personal Computer, accessed on 18 February, 2005 He has been known to turn down speaking requests over some terminology issues. Linux, GNU, Freedom by Richard M. Stallman, accessed on 18 February, 2005

Stallman rejects a common alternative term "open-source software" because it does not call to mind what Stallman sees as the value of the software: Freedom (political). Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source", accessed on 18 February, 2005 Thus it will not inform people of the freedom issues, and will not lead to people valuing and defending their freedom. Why Software Should Be Free. April 24, 1992.Two alternatives which Stallman does accept are "libre software" and "unfettered software", however, "free software" is the term he asks people to use in English. For similar reasons, he argues for the term "proprietary software" rather than "closed source software", when referring to software that is not free software.

Stallman GNU/Linux naming controversy that the term "GNU/Linux", which he pronounces "GNU Slash Linux", be used to refer to the operating system created by combining the GNU system and the Linux kernel. Stallman refers to this operating system as "a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer." Linux, GNU, and freedom by Richard M. Stallman He claims that the connection between the GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people refer to the combination as merely "Linux." What's in a name? by Richard Stallman, accessed on 18 February, 2005 Starting around 2003, he began also using the term "GNU+Linux", which he pronounces "GNU plus Linux".

Stallman argues that the term "Intellectual Property" is designed to confuse people, and is used to prevent intelligent discussion on the specifics of copyright, patent, and trademark laws, respectively, by lumping together areas of law that are more dissimilar than similar.{{cite web|url=http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/torino-rms-transcript.en.html#note-on-ip|title=Transcript of Richard Stallman speaking on GPLv3 in Torino|date=18th March 2006|quote=Everyone who uses the term "intellectual property" is either confused himself or trying to confuse you.--> He also argues that by referring to these laws as "property" laws, the term biases the discussion when thinking about how to treat these issues.

An example of cautioning others to avoid other terminology while also offering suggestions for possible alternatives, is this sentence of an email by Stallman to a public mailing list:

Personal life Stallman has devoted the bulk of his life’s energies to political and software activism. Professing to care little for material wealth, he explains that he has "always lived cheaply… like a student, basically. And I like that, because it means that money is not telling me what to do."

For many years, Stallman maintained no permanent residence outside his office at MIT’s MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, describing himself as a “squatter” on campus. His “research affiliate” position at MIT is unpaid.

In a footnote to an article he wrote in 1999, he says “As an atheist, I don't follow any religious leaders, but I sometimes find I admire something one of them has said.”Stallman chooses not to celebrate Christmas, instead celebrating on December 25 a holiday of his own invention, "Grav-mass." The name and date are references to Isaac Newton, whose birthday falls on that day.http://www.stallman.org/grav-mass.html

When asked about his influences, he has replied that he admires Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Ralph Nader, and Dennis Kucinich. He has also commented: “I admire Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, even though I criticize some of the things that they did.” Stallman is a Green Party supporter.http://www.stallman.org/

Stallman recommends not owning a mobile phone, for privacy reasons, as they track users and report users' movements to the phone company.

Stallman enjoys a wide range of musical styles from Conlon Nancarrow{{ cite web]; the Free Software Song takes the form of alternative words for the Bulgarian folk dance Sadi Moma. More recently he wrote a take-off on the Cuban folk song Guantanamera, about a prisoner in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and recorded it in Cuba with Cuban musicians.

As a young adult, Stallman counted folk dance among his passions, “During the middle of his sophomore year at Harvard, Stallman had joined up with a dance troupe that specialized in folk dances. What began as a simple attempt to meet women and expand his social horizons soon expanded into yet another passion alongside hacking.” and though he had to give it up in 1975 due to knee injury, “Near the end of that first year at MIT, however, disaster struck. A knee injury forced Stallman to drop out of the troupe.” he was able to resume around 1979. In 1998 a foot injury forced him to abandon folk dancing permanently, but he still performs small dance steps as a matter of spontaneous habit.

Stallman is a fan of science fiction, including works by the author Greg Egan. He occasionally goes to science fiction conventionsand wrote the Free Software Song while awaiting his turn to sing at a convention. He has written two science fiction stories, The Right to Read and Jinnetic Engineering.

A native English language speaker, Stallman is also sufficiently fluent in French language and Spanish language to deliver his two-hour speeches in those languages, and claims a “somewhat flawed” command of Indonesian language.

Recognition Stallman has received the following recognition for his work:

1986: Honorary life time membership of the Chalmers Computer Society
1990: Receives the exceptional merit award MacArthur Fellowship
1990: The Association for Computing Machinery's Grace Murray Hopper Award "For pioneering work in the development of the extensible editor EMACS (Editing Macros)."{{cite web

|url=http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=9380313&srt=alpha&alpha=S&aw=145&ao=GMHOPPER|title=Grace Murry Hopper award citation|-->

1996: Honorary doctorate from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology
1998: Electronic Frontier Foundation's EFF Pioneer Award
1999: Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award
2001: Takeda Awards ()
2001: Second honorary doctorate, from the University of Glasgow
2002: United States National Academy of Engineering membership
2003: Third honorary doctorate, from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
2004: Fourth honorary doctorate, from the Universidad Nacional de Salta. RESOLUCIÓN CS N° 204/04.
2004: Honorary professorship, from the National University of Engineering.
2005: Fundazione Pistoletto prize.
2007: Fifth honorary doctorate/degree, from the University of Pavia{{cite web

|url=http://www.unipv.it/portale/stampa.php?id=646|title=Laurea honoris causa ... al padre del software libero, l’americano Richard Stallman.-->

Output Stallman has authored and been the subject of several books:

Stallman has four topics that he has spoken on often:

The GNU project and the free software movement, March 3rd 2006
The Dangers of Software Patents, May 24th 2004
Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks, April 19th 2001
The GNU GPL, and GPLv3, April 1st 2007