Top 100 Richard Stallman Quotes
#1. Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.
Richard Stallman
#2. Would a dating service on the net be 'frowned upon' ... ? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.
Richard Stallman
#3. No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs.
Richard Stallman
#4. 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
#5. If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power.
Richard Stallman
#7. 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.
Richard Stallman
#8. 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
#9. 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
#11. 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.
Richard Stallman
#12. Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better.
Richard Stallman
#13. 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.
Richard Stallman
#14. It's clear that other problems such as [ ... ] the domination of business over government, science, thought, and society, are much bigger than non-free software.
Richard Stallman
#15. If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.
Richard Stallman
#16. People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the world.
Richard Stallman
#17. 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
#18. 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.'
Richard Stallman
#20. 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
#21. You know, if you were *really* going to starve, you'd be justified in writing proprietary software.
Richard Stallman
#22. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
Richard Stallman
#23. I have not seen anyone assume that all the citizens of New York are guilty of murder, violence, robbery, perjury, or writing proprietary software.
Richard Stallman
#24. 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.
Richard Stallman
#25. 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
#26. I never imagined that the Free Software Movement would spawn a watered-down alternative, the Open Source Movement, which would become so well-known that people would ask me questions about 'open source' thinking that I work under that banner.
Richard Stallman
#27. It doesn't take special talents to reproduce
even plants can do it. On the other hand, contributing to a program like Emacs takes real skill. That is really something to be proud of. It helps more people, too.
Richard Stallman
#28. 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
#29. Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go.
Richard Stallman
#30. Odious ideas are not entitled to hide from criticism behind the human shield of their believers feelings.
Richard Stallman
#31. We need to teach people to refuse to install non-free plug-ins; we need to teach people to care more about their long-term interest of freedom than their immediate desire to view a particular site.
Richard Stallman
#32. With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.
Richard Stallman
#33. Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
Richard Stallman
#34. 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
#35. I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia.
Richard Stallman
#36. People get the government their behavior deserves. People deserve better than that.
Richard Stallman
#37. Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.
Richard Stallman
#38. My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.
Richard Stallman
#40. 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
#42. 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.
Richard Stallman
#43. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.
Richard Stallman
#44. To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master. And in the area of computing, freedom means not using proprietary software.
Richard Stallman
#45. 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
#46. 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.
Richard Stallman
#47. Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy.
Richard Stallman
#48. I'm trying to change the way people approach knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge, to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop other people from sharing it, is sabotage.
Richard Stallman
#49. I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute.
Richard Stallman
#50. 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
#51. 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
#52. 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.
Richard Stallman
#53. Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.
Richard Stallman
#54. Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.
Richard Stallman
#55. 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.
Richard Stallman
#56. In terms of effect on the world, it's very good that I've lived. And so I guess, if I could go back in time and prevent my birth, I wouldn't do it. But I sure wish I hadn't had so much pain.
Richard Stallman
#57. Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.
Richard Stallman
#58. If ebooks mean that readers' freedom must either increase or decrease, we must demand the increase.
Richard Stallman
#59. 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.
Richard Stallman
#60. The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.
Richard Stallman
#61. Officially, MPAA stands for Motion Picture Association of America, but I suggest that MPAA stands for Malicious Power Attacking All.
Richard Stallman
#63. 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.
Richard Stallman
#64. Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.
Richard Stallman
#65. I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program. They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it.
Richard Stallman
#66. There is no system but GNU and Linux is one of it's kernels
Richard Stallman
#69. I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
Richard Stallman
#70. Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.
Richard Stallman
#71. Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.
Richard Stallman
#72. The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
Richard Stallman
#73. 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.
Richard Stallman
#74. Because I don't believe that it's really desirable to have security on a computer, I shouldn't be willing to help uphold the security regime.
Richard Stallman
#75. 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.
Richard Stallman
#76. Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.
Richard Stallman
#77. In the free/libre software movement, we develop software that respects users' freedom, so we and you can escape from software that doesn't.
Richard Stallman
#78. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
Richard Stallman
#79. You can use any editor you want, but remember that vi vi vi is the text editor of the beast.
Richard Stallman
#80. A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth.
Richard Stallman
#81. All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.
Richard Stallman
#82. I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.
Richard Stallman
#83. 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
#84. 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
#85. The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists.
Richard Stallman
#87. Globalizing a bad thing makes it worse. But globalizing a good thing is usually good.
Richard Stallman
#88. 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
#89. 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.
Richard Stallman
#90. Today many people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons. That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do! Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first step.
Richard Stallman
#91. So, make a real effort to avoid getting sucked into all the expensive lifestyle habits of typical Americans. Because if you do that, then people with the money will dictate what you do with your life.
Richard Stallman
#92. While corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance in technology is an opening for them to further restrict its users.
Richard Stallman
#93. One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control.
Richard Stallman
#94. 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.
Richard Stallman
#95. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
Richard Stallman
#96. 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.
Richard Stallman
#97. Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something.
Richard Stallman
#98. Our mailing lists (and their repeater newsgroups) are only for the purpose of promoting proprietary software.
Richard Stallman
#99. 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
#100. Facebook mistreats its users. Facebook is not your friend; it is a surveillance engine. For instance, if you browse the Web and you see a 'like' button in some page or some other site that has been displayed from Facebook. Therefore, Facebook knows that your machine visited that page.
Richard Stallman
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
