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{{Short description|American free software activist and GNU Project founder (born 1953)}}
'''Richard Matthew Stallman''', a.k.a. '''RMS''', (born ], ]) is the founder of the ], the ] project, and the ]. He is also a ] ], whose major accomplishments include ], the ], and the ]. He is the author of the ] (''GNU GPL'' or ''GPL''), the most widely-used ], which pioneered the concept of the ].
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}}{{redirect|Stallman|the flutist|Robert Stallman|the speculative fiction author|Robert Lester Stallman}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2020}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2024|cs1-dates=y}}
{{Use list-defined references|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Richard Stallman
| image = File:Richard_Stallman_Bologna_2024_abc1.jpg
| caption = Stallman in 2024
| alt = Stallman smiling
| birth_name = Richard Matthew Stallman
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1953|03|16}}
| birth_place = ], New York, U.S.
| other_names = rms (RMS)
| education = {{unbulleted list|] (])|] (attended)}}
| occupation = {{hlist|Activist|programmer}}
| title =
| known_for = {{hlist|]|]|]|]|]|]|]}}
| awards = {{ubl
|]
|]
|]
|]
|]
}}
| website = {{official URL}}
| signature = RMS's Signature.png
}}


'''Richard Matthew Stallman''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|ɔː|l|m|ən}} {{respell|STAWL|mən}}; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, '''rms''',<ref name="initials"/> is an American ] activist and ]. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software which ensures these freedoms is termed ]. Stallman launched the ], founded the ] (FSF) in October 1985,<ref name="fsfbio"/> developed the ] and ], and wrote all versions of the ].
] book '']'' by ] (]).]]


Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to write a ] computer ] composed entirely of free software.<ref name="initialgnu"/> With that he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including among others, the GNU Compiler Collection,<ref name="gcc-contribs"/> ],<ref name="RIT"/> and GNU Emacs text editor.<ref name="multic"/>
Since the mid-], he has spent most of his time as a ], advocating ] and campaigning against ]s and expansions of ] law. The time that he still devotes to ] is spent on GNU Emacs. He is currently supported by various ]s and maintains a modest standard of living.


Stallman pioneered the concept of ], which uses the principles of copyright law to preserve the right to use, modify, and distribute free software. He is the main author of ]s which describe those terms, most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license.<ref name="wheeler"/>
== Biography ==


In 1989, he co-founded the ]. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against ], ] (which he refers to as digital ''restrictions'' management, calling the more common term misleading), and other legal and technical systems which he sees as taking away users' freedoms. That includes ], ]s, ], ], ], ]s, and ] ]s without ].
Stallman was born in ] to Alice Lippman and Daniel Stallman. As a child, he was well know to masturbate in public, but in his adult life is more know for picking fleas out of his beard. In his programming years he was perhaps better known by his initials, "RMS". In the first edition of the '']'', he wrote, '"Richard Stallman" is just my mundane name; you can call me "rms".'


In September 2019, Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his ] role at ] after making controversial comments about the ] sex trafficking scandal.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Svrluga |first=Susan |date=September 17, 2019 |title=Computer scientist Richard Stallman resigns from MIT after comments about Epstein scandal |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/09/17/computer-scientist-richard-stallman-resigns-mit-after-comments-about-epstein-scandal/ |access-date=July 7, 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> Stallman remained head of the GNU Project, and in 2021 returned to the FSF board of directors and others.
His first access to a computer came during his junior year at high school in the ]s. Hired by the ], Stallman spent the summer after his high-school graduation writing his first program, a preprocessor for the ] written in the ] ]. "I first wrote it in PL/I, then started over in assembly language when the PL/I program was too big to fit in the computer", he later said. (Williams 2002, )


== Early life ==
After that job, Stallman held a Laboratory Assistant position in the Biology Department at ]. Although he was already moving toward a career in mathematics or physics, his analytical mind impressed the lab director such that a few years after Stallman departed for college, his mother received a phone call. "It was the professor at Rockefeller", she recalled. "He wanted to know how Richard was doing. He was surprised to learn that he was working in computers. He'd always thought Richard had a great future ahead of him as a biologist." (Williams 2002, )
Stallman was born March 16, 1953<ref name="AutoLO-2"/> in ], to a family of ] heritage.<ref name="stallman-jewish-source-1"/> He had a troublesome relationship with his parents and did not feel he had a proper home.<ref name="stallman-jewish-source-1"/> He was interested in computers at a young age; when he was a pre-teen at a summer camp, he read manuals for the ].<ref name="mgro"/> From 1967 to 1969, Stallman attended a ] Saturday program for high school students.<ref name="mgro"/> He was also a volunteer laboratory assistant in the ] department at ]. Although he was interested in mathematics and ], his supervising professor at Rockefeller thought he showed promise as a biologist.<ref name="freeasinfreedom-chap3"/>


His first experience with actual computers was at the ] when he was in high school. He was hired for the summer in 1970 after his senior year of high school, to write a numerical analysis program in ].<ref name="mgro"/> He completed the task after a couple of weeks ("I swore that I would never use FORTRAN again because I despised it as a language compared with other languages") and spent the rest of the summer writing a text editor in ]<ref name="Berättar"/> and a ] for the ] ] on the ].<ref name="emac6"/>
In ], as a freshman at ], Stallman became a ] at the ] ]. He was hired by ], a man who would later found ] and become a bitter opponent for Stallman. Later, at the age of nineteen, he worked for a timesharing company in ] with a desk adjacent to that of ], now a well known technology ].


===Decline of the hacker culture=== === Harvard University and MIT ===
As a first-year student at ] in fall 1970, Stallman was known for his strong performance in ].<ref name="freeasinfreedom-chap4"/> He was happy, "For the first time in my life, I felt I had found a home at Harvard."<ref name="mgro"/>


In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the ],<ref name="Maracke_2019"/> and became a regular in the ] community, where he was usually known by his initials, ''RMS'', which he used in his computer accounts.<ref name="initials"/><ref name="Lih2009"/> Stallman received a bachelor's degree in physics ('']'') from Harvard in 1974.<ref name="Bio"/> He considered staying on at Harvard, but instead decided to enroll as a graduate student at the ] (MIT). He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the ].<ref name="mgro" /><ref name="emac6" />
In the ], the ] that dominated Stallman's life began to dissolve. The emergence of "portable software" &mdash; software that could be made to run on different types of computers &mdash; meant that the ability for computer users to modify and share the software that came with computers was now a problem for the business models of the computer manufacturers. To prevent their software being used on their competitors' computers, manufacturers stopped distributing ] and began restricting copying and redistribution of their software by copyrighting it.


While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under ],<ref name="emac6" /> Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI ], called ''dependency-directed backtracking''.<ref name="AI9" /> The paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in ]s. {{As of|2009}},{{update inline|date=June 2022}} the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking.<ref name="russell" /> The technique of ], wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.<ref name="russell" />
In 1980 ], a fellow AI lab hacker, founded ] to market ]s, which he and ] 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, ] and other hackers felt that the venture-capital funded approach was better. As no agreement could be met, most of the remaining lab hackers gave LMI a year's grace, and then founded ]. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers &mdash; most notably ] &mdash; and persuaded them to resign from the AI lab on the grounds of a conflict of interest. While both companies delivered ], Richard Stallman felt that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab.


As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects like ] and ] for the ] (ITS), as well as the ] operating system (the ] of 1974–1976 and the CADR of 1977–1979—this latter unit was commercialized by ] and ], Inc. (LMI) starting around 1980).<ref name="Lih2009" /> He became an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab, which at that time was funded primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (]). When MIT's ] (LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password, with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to re-enable anonymous access to the systems. Around 20 percent of the users followed his advice at the time, although passwords ultimately prevailed. Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward.<ref name="Levy" />
For two years, from ] to the end of ], Stallman single-handedly duplicated the efforts of the Symbolics programmers to prevent them from gaining a monopoly on the Lab's computers. By that time, however, he was the last of his generation of hackers at the Lab. He was asked to sign ]s and perform other actions he considered betrayals of his principles, but chose instead to share his work with others in what he regarded as a classical spirit of scientific collaboration and openness.


== Events leading to GNU ==
Stallman argues that software users should have freedom &mdash; in particular, 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" . The phrase "software wants to be free" is commonly attributed to him; however, no evidence can be found to confirm this. He argues that the primary goal of freedom is to benefit users and society rather than to improve software. Consequently, in ] ], he quit his job at ] to work full time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September ]. He did not complete a ] but has been awarded four ] doctoral degrees (see below).
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the ] which Stallman thrived on began to fragment. To prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing ] and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such ] had existed before, and it became apparent that it would become the norm. This shift in the legal characteristics of software was a consequence triggered by the US ].<ref name="Cringely"/>


When ] in 1979 placed ] in the ] markup language and word processing system to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed it "a crime against humanity".<ref name="emac6"/> During an interview in 2008, he clarified that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a crime, not the issue of charging for software.<ref name="unplugged"/> Stallman's ] is a ] replacement, loosely based on Scribe;<ref name="AutoLO-3"/> the original version was finished in 1986.<ref name="AutoLO-4"/>
=== Founding GNU ===
In ], Stallman published the ], which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with ]. The name GNU is a ] for GNU's Not Unix. Soon after, he incorporated the ] ] (FSF) to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software community.


In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed ], the ].{{Citation needed|reason=Ref 26 does not say it was a 9700|date=December 2024}} Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser 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 waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.<ref name="freeasinfreedom-Chap1"/>
In ], Stallman invented and popularized the concept of '']'', a ] mechanism to protect the modification and redistribution rights for ]. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed, with the notable exception of a ]. Members of the GNU project were working on a kernel called ], but a risky design decision proved to be a bad gamble, and development of the Hurd was slow.


], a fellow AI Lab hacker, founded ] (LMI) to market ]s, which he and ] 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 ]-funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, hackers from the latter camp founded ], with the aid of ], an AI Lab administrator. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers including notable hacker ], who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics also forced Greenblatt to resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab's community. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.<ref name="Levy"/>
By producing the software tools needed to write software, and publishing a generalised license that could be applied to any software project (The GPL), Stallman enabled others to write free software independent of the GNU project. In ], one such independent project produced the ]. By luck, this could be combined with the existing GNU software to make a complete operating system. This was a great milestone for the GNU project, but the simultaneous appearance of Linux and the GNU+Linux operating system created confusion, and most people used the name Linux to refer to both.


Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to share with their neighbors and be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He maintains that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are antisocial and unethical.<ref name="OpenSources"/> The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy.<ref name="Salus"/> He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral ''value'', and not merely for pragmatic reasons such as possibly developing technically superior software.<ref name="AutoLO-5"/> ], one of the creators of the ],<ref name="AutoLO-6"/> argues that moral arguments, rather than pragmatic ones, alienate potential allies and hurt the end goal of removing code secrecy.<ref name="esr"/>
==Terminology==


In February 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid<ref name="AutoLO-7"/> "visiting scientist" in the ].<ref name="AutoLO-8"/> Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.<ref name="Lifestyle"/>
Stallman places great importance on the words people use to talk about the relationship between software and freedom. In particular, he untiringly asks people to say "free software", "GNU/Linux", and to avoid the term "]". His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of the importance of terminology, are a source of constant friction with some parts of the free and open source software communities.


== GNU project ==
One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use certain terminology. Sometimes he even requires journalists to read parts of the GNU philosophy before an interview.
{{main|GNU Project}}
This style has earned him a reputation of being "high-maintenance". He also turns down speaking requests over some terminology issues.
Stallman announced the plan for the ] in September 1983 on several ] mailing lists and ].<ref name="initialgnu"/><ref name="newunix"/> He started the project on his own and describes: "As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it."<ref name="gnuproject"/>


]) at ], Kolkata, India]]
===Free Software===
In 1985, Stallman published the ], which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with ].<ref name="Lih2009"/> The name GNU is a ] for "GNU's Not Unix".<ref name="Lih2009"/> Soon after, he started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman was the nonsalaried president of the FSF, which is a ] nonprofit organization founded in ].<ref name="DuBois"/>


Stallman 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.
Over the years, people have tried to come up with a term for free software that does not have the ambiguity problem between having-freedom and zero-cost. The most well known alternative is "]". Stallman strongly objects to this term since he says it hides the goal of ]. Support for this term was no doubt bolstered by some influential figures' dislike of Stallman's moral and political pronouncements.


Stallman was responsible for contributing many necessary tools, including a ] (]), ] (]), ] (]), and a ] (]). The notable omission was a ]. In 1990, members of the GNU project began using Carnegie Mellon's Mach ] in a project called ], which has yet to achieve the maturity level required for full ] compliance.
For similar reasons, he asks people to say "]", not "closed source software", when referring to software that is not free software.


In 1991, ], a ] student, used the GNU's development tools to produce the free ] ]. The existing programs from the GNU project were readily ported to run on the resultant platform. Most sources use the name '']'' to refer to the general-purpose operating system thus formed, while Stallman and the FSF call it ''GNU/Linux''. This has been a longstanding ] in the free software community. Stallman argues that not using GNU in the name of the operating system unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project and harms the sustainability of the free software movement by breaking the link between the software and the free software philosophy of the GNU project.
Stallman accepts terms such as ], ], and "unfettered software", but prefers the term free software since a lot of energy has been invested in that term.


Stallman's influences on hacker culture include the name ]<ref name="PE"/> and the ] editor. On ] systems, GNU Emacs's popularity rivaled that of another editor ], spawning an ]. Stallman's take on this was to ] himself as St. IGNUcius of the ]<ref name="Takver"/><ref name="Church"/> and acknowledge that "vi vi vi is the ]", while "using a free version of vi is not a ]; it is a ]".<ref name="faif"/>
===GNU/Linux===


In 1992, developers at ] doing their own work on Emacs clashed with Stallman and ultimately ] the software into what would become ].<ref name="lemacs"/> The technology journalist ] has characterized what he sees as Stallman's uncompromising stubbornness as common among elite computer programmers:
Stallman asks people to ], when referring to the operating system made by combining the GNU system and the Linux kernel. His reason for this term is that the connection between the GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people call the combination "Linux".
{{blockquote|There's something comforting about Stallman's intransigence. Win or lose, Stallman will never give up. He'll be the stubbornest mule on the farm until the day he dies. Call it fixity of purpose, or just plain cussedness, his single-minded commitment and brutal honesty are refreshing in a world of spin-meisters and multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns.<ref name="leonard"/>}}


In 2018, Stallman instituted "Kind Communication Guidelines" for the GNU project to help its mailing list discussions remain constructive while avoiding explicitly promoting diversity.<ref name="AutoLO-9"/>
===Copyright, patents, and trademarks===


In October 2019, a public statement signed by 33 maintainers of the GNU project asserted that Stallman's behaviour had "undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users" and called for "GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project".<ref name="guix"/> The statement was published soon after Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his "visiting scientist" role at MIT in September 2019.<ref name="AutoLO-1"/><ref name="explains-why-hes-willing-to-quit"/> In spite of that, Stallman remained head of the GNU project.<ref name="phoronix.com"/><ref name="Stallman"/>
Stallman says the term "Intellectual Property" is designed to confuse people. By lumping together areas of law that have little or nothing in common, it is used to prevent intelligent discussion on a topic. Also, by referring to these laws as "property" laws, he says that term biases the listener when thinking about how to treat these issues. "These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. Copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of a work of authorship or art. Patent law was intended to encourage publication of ideas, at the price of finite monopolies over these ideas--a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others. Trademark law was not intended to promote any business activity, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying"


== Activism ==
===Lesser terminology issues===
Stallman has written many essays on software freedom, and has been an outspoken political campaigner for the free software movement since the early 1990s.<ref name="Lih2009"/> The speeches he has regularly given are titled ''The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement'',<ref name="zagreb"/> ''The Dangers of Software Patents'',<ref name="IFSO"/> and ''Copyright and Community in the Age of Computer Networks''.<ref name="copyright-and-globalization"/> In 2006 and 2007, during the eighteen month public consultation for the drafting of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, he added a fourth topic explaining the proposed changes.<ref name="gpl3"/>


Stallman's staunch advocacy for free software inspired the creation of the Virtual Richard M. Stallman (]), software that analyzes the packages currently installed on a ] system, and reports those that are from the non-free tree.<ref name="vrms"/> Stallman disagrees with parts of Debian's definition of free software.<ref name="debbug"/>
To a much lesser extent, Stallman recommends the use of other terms such as "software idea patents" instead of the more common "software patents". His reason is that the latter gives the wrong impression that the patent covers an entire piece of software. He also uses the term "(UFO) Uniform Fee Only", as a replacement for "(RAND) Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory". His reasoning is that a mandatory royalty of any amount discriminates against free software because distributors of free software cannot count the number of copies in existence. This concern is shared by much of the free software and open source communities, but Stallman's term is not widely used.


In 1999, Stallman called for development of a free online encyclopedia through the means of inviting the public to contribute articles.<ref name="free-encyclopedia"/> The resulting ] was eventually retired in favour of the emerging ], which had similar aims and was enjoying greater success.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> Stallman was on the Advisory Council of Latin American television station ] from its launch<ref name="chaveztv"/> but resigned in February 2011, criticizing pro-Gaddafi propaganda during the ].<ref name="politics-feb"/>
==Trivia==
* Stallman vehemently differentiates ] from ].
* As well as "RMS", Stallman cultivates the humorous soubriquet "St. Ignucius" / "St. IGNUcius" (of the ]).
* An aficionado of a wide range of music from ] to ], Stallman is the author of the ]y ].
* Stallman gave ] its name.
* In 1977, Stallman published an AI ] called dependency-directed backtracking. The paper was co-authored by ].
* When asked who his influences are, he has remarked that he admires ], ], ], ], and ]. He has also commented: "''I admire ] and ], even though I criticize some of the things that they did.''"
* At one point, Stallman named the GNU ] kernel "Alix" after his then-girlfriend.
* Stallman speaks fluent ] and ], moderately fluent ], flawed ] and ].
<!-- I've lost the reference for this, can someone uncomment it if they dig up the reference? * In 2004, having been asked, he endorsed ], recommending people to vote No in the ] -->
*The movie documentary '']'' features interviews with Stallman.
*He has been the subject, or some would say the instigator, of a number of widely-publicized ]s. Although occasionally for technical reasons (] vs. ]), most of these flamewars have revolved around the use of non-free software.
*Stallman founded the ] in 1989 to fight ] and ]. The League never gained the momentum Stallman hoped for, and has become mostly dormant.


]
== Recognition ==
Stallman has received numerous prizes and awards for his work, amongst them:
* ]: ]
* ]: The ]'s ] "For pioneering work in the development of ... EMACS"
* ]: Honorary ] from ]'s ]
* ]: ]'s ]
* ]: ]
* ]: Second honorary doctorate, from the ]
* ]: ] (&#27494;&#30000;&#30740;&#31350;&#22888;&#21169;&#36062;)
* ]: ] membership
* ]: Third honorary doctorate, from the ]
* ]: Fourth honorary doctorate, from the ] ].


In August 2006, at his meetings with the government of the Indian State of ], 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 ] to a free software operating system.<ref name="kerala"/>
== Links and references ==


After personal meetings, Stallman obtained positive statements about the free software movement from the then-president of India, {{nowrap|]}},<ref name="president-india"/> French 2007 presidential candidate ],<ref name="stallman-royal"/> and the president of Ecuador ].<ref name="latin-america"/>
=== Publications by Richard Stallman ===


Stallman has participated in protests about software patents,<ref name="kpoe"/> ],<ref name="mpaa"/><ref name="protest-france"/> and ].
* Stallman, Richard M. & Sussman, Gerald J. (] ]). ''Heuristic Techniques in Computer-Aided Circuit Analysis'', published in ''IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, Vol. CAS-22 (11)''
* Stallman, Richard M. & Sussman, Gerald J. (]). ''Forward Reasoning and Dependency-Directed Backtracking In a System for Computer-Aided Circuit analysis'', published in ''Artificial Intelligence 9'' pp.135-196
* Stallman, Richard M. (]). ''EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable, Self-Documenting Display Editor''. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory publication AIM-519A.
* Stallman, Richard M. (]). ''GNU Emacs Manual: Fifteenth edition for GNU Emacs Version 21''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: . ISBN 188211485X.
* Stallman, Richard M. (]). ''Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: . ISBN 1882114981. (Also available online in various formats, e.g. PDF .)


Protesting against proprietary software in April 2006, Stallman held a "Don't buy from ], enemy of your freedom" placard at an invited talk given by an ATI compiler architect in the building where Stallman worked, resulting in the police being called.<ref name="protest-ati"/> ] has since acquired ATI and has taken steps to make their hardware documentation available for use by the free software community.<ref name="amd-open"/>
* Stallman et al (]). ''GNU Make: A Program for Directed Compilation''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: . ISBN 1882114833.


] machine at ], Chennai]]
=== Bibliography ===
Stallman has characterized ] as having a "malign influence" on computing because of Jobs' leadership in guiding Apple to produce ]s.<ref name="Clarke"/><ref name="Jobs"/> According to Stallman, while Jobs was at ], Jobs asked Stallman if he could distribute a modified GCC in two parts, one part under GPL and the other part, an ] preprocessor under a proprietary license. Stallman initially thought this would be legal, but since he also thought it would be "very undesirable for free software", he asked a lawyer for advice. The response he got was that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them, and a judge would ask whether it was "really" one program, rather than how the parts were labeled. Therefore, Stallman sent a message back to Jobs which said they believed Jobs' plan was not allowed by the GPL, which resulted in NeXT releasing the Objective-C front end under GPL.<ref name="AutoLO-14"/>{{Primary source inline|date=November 2023|reason=The entire Jobs anecdote is sourced to Stallman's own emails in violation of WP:OR}}
* ] (]): '']'', ] Press. ISBN 0596002874. Also available over the web under the ] .)
* ] (ed) (2002): ''].'' Boston: GNU Press. ISBN 1882114981. Also available over the web: .)


For a period of time, Stallman used a notebook from the ] program. Stallman's computer is a refurbished ] with ] (a free ] replacement), and ].<ref name="AutoLO-15"/> Before the ThinkPad X200, Stallman used a Thinkpad T400s with Libreboot and Trisquel GNU/Linux.<ref name="AutoLO-16"/> And before the T400s, Stallman used a ThinkPad X60, and even further back in time, a ] Yeeloong ] (using the same company's ] processor) which he chose because, like the X200, X60 and the T400s, it could run with free software at the ] level, stating "freedom is my priority. I've campaigned for freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for the sake of a more convenient computer."<ref name="usesthis"/> Stallman's Lemote was stolen from him in 2012 while he was in Argentina.<ref name="argentina"/> Before Trisquel, Stallman has used the ] operating system.<ref name="AutoLO-17"/><ref name="AutoLO-18"/>
=== External links ===
{{wikiquote}}
* - Richard Stallman's personal ].
*
* - The original GNU announcement
* - Contains around 50 essays, mostly written by RMS.


==== Speeches ==== === Copyright reduction ===
Stallman has regularly given a talk entitled "Copyright vs. Community" where he reviews the state of digital rights management (DRM) and names many of the products and corporations which he boycotts. His approach to DRM is best summed up by the FSF ] campaign. In the talks, he makes proposals for a "reduced copyright" and suggests a 10-year limit on copyright. He suggests that, instead of restrictions on sharing, authors be supported using a tax, with revenues distributed among them based on ]s of their popularity to ensure that "fairly successful non-stars" receive a greater share than they do now (compare with ] which is associated with proponents of strong copyright), or a convenient anonymous ] system for people to support authors directly. He indicates that no form of non-commercial sharing of copies should be considered a copyright violation.<ref name="tech-help-share"/><ref name="elpais-leysinde"/> He has advocated for ] in a comment on ].<ref name="elpais-leysinde"/><ref name="dontobey"/>
* - ] recordings of 15 speeches by RMS, plus one video.
* - at the ] (]).
* in ], ] ], ]
* - at the ] (]).
* (Ogg/Theora video)
* (audio and video, different formats)


He has reportedly refused to autograph anything bearing a '©' symbol, in line with his views.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a169.ht |title=FINNCON/BALTCON |date=August 2001 |access-date=August 25, 2024 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011112022819/https://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a169.html |archive-date=November 12, 2001 }}</ref>
=== Interviews ===
* - conducted by the now-defunct ], at the beginning of the GNU project (July ]).
* (]).
* (July ]).
* (December ]).
* (January ]).
* in ].


Stallman has helped and supported the ] get back online, after it had been taken down on October 19, 2007, following a ] letter from ].<ref name="IMSLP"/>
]
]
]
]
]
]
]


], a conference organized by ] in ], India]]
]
Stallman mentions the dangers some ] bring compared to paper books, with the example of the ] ] that prevents the copying of e-books and allows Amazon to order automatic deletion of a book. He says that such e-books present a big step backward with respect to paper books by being less easy to use, copy, lend to others or sell, also mentioning that Amazon e-books cannot be bought anonymously. His short story "]" provides a picture of a dystopian future if the right to share books is impeded. He objects to many of the terms within typical ]s that accompany e-books.<ref name="elpais-leysinde"/><ref name="IMSLP"/><ref name="ebook"/> He discourages the use of several storage technologies such as ] or ] video discs because the content of such media is encrypted. He considers manufacturers' use of encryption on non-secret data (]) as a conspiracy.<ref name="AutoLO-19" />
]

]
Stallman recognized the ] to be a criminal act by Sony and supports a general boycott of ] for its ].<ref name="Sony" /> Stallman has suggested that the United States government may encourage the use of ] because this would allow them to access users' data without needing a ].<ref name="chromeos" /><ref name="nochrome" /><ref name="boston-review" /><ref name="examples" /> He denies being an ] despite his wariness of some legislation and the fact that he has "advocated strongly for user privacy and his own view of software freedom".<ref name="pro-state gland" />
]

]
=== Terminologies ===
]
] consisting of the platter of an old ]<ref name="Church"/> (], 2012)]]
]
Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about the world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He asks people to say ''free software'' and ''GNU/Linux'', and to avoid the terms ''intellectual property'' and '']'' (in relation to copying not approved by the publisher). One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout the article.<ref name="wired"/>
]

]
Stallman argues that the term ''intellectual property'' is designed to confuse people, and is used to prevent intelligent discussion on the specifics of ], ], ], and other areas of law by lumping together things that are more dissimilar than similar.<ref name="torino"/> 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, writing:
]

]
{{blockquote|These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. Copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of a work of authorship or art. Patent law was intended to encourage publication of ideas, at the price of finite monopolies over these ideas–a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others. Trademark law was not intended to promote any business activity, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying.<ref name="mirage"/>}}
]

]
==== Open source and Free software ====
]
His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of the importance of terminology, are a source of regular misunderstanding and friction with parts of the free software and ]. After initially accepting the concept,<ref name="AutoLO-23"/> Stallman rejects a common ], '']'', because it does not call to mind what Stallman sees as the value of the software: ].<ref name="free-open"/> He wrote, "Free software is a political movement; open source is a development model."<ref name="words-to-avoid-open"/> Thus, he believes that the use of the term will not inform people of the freedom issues, and will not lead to people valuing and defending their freedom.<ref name="why-open"/> Two alternatives which Stallman does accept are ''software libre'' and ''unfettered software'', but ''free software'' is the term he asks people to use in English. For similar reasons, he argues for the term '']'' or ''non-free software'' rather than '']'', when referring to software that is not free software.
]

]
==== Linux and GNU ====
]
{{main|GNU/Linux naming controversy}}
]
Stallman asks that the term ''GNU/Linux'', which he pronounces {{IPAc-en|ɡ|n|uː|_|s|l|æ|ʃ|_|ˈ|l|ɪ|n|ə|k|s}} {{respell|GNOO|_|SLASH|_|LIN|əks}}, be used to refer to the operating system created by combining the GNU system and the kernel Linux. Stallman refers to this operating system as "a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer".<ref name="linux gnu"/> 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.<ref name="in-a-name"/> Starting around 2003, he began also using the term ''GNU+Linux'', which he pronounces {{IPAc-en|ɡ|n|uː|_|p|l|ʌ|s|_|ˈ|l|ɪ|n|ə|k|s}} {{respell|GNOO|_|PLUS|_|LIN|əks}}, to prevent others from pronouncing the phrase ''GNU/Linux'' as {{IPAc-en|ɡ|n|uː|_|ˈ|l|ɪ|n|ə|k|s}} {{respell|GNOO|_|LIN|əks}}, which would erroneously imply that the kernel Linux is maintained by the GNU project.<ref name="rms-kernel-trap-interview"/> The creator of Linux, ], has publicly said that he objects to modification of the name and that the rename "is their ]] confusion not ours".<ref name="AutoLO-26"/>
]

]
=== Surveillance resistance ===
]
Stallman professes admiration for ]<ref name="Silicon_2011"/> and ].<ref name="AutoLO-21"/> He has spoken against government and corporate surveillance on many occasions.<ref name="AutoLO-22"/><ref name="Stallman_2013_Surveillance"/><ref name="Stallman_2018_Safe"/>
]

]
He refers to mobile phones as "portable surveillance and ]",<ref name="gpl3-22june"/> refusing to own a cell phone due to the lack of phones running entirely on free software.<ref name="infoweek"/> He also avoids using a key card to enter his office building<ref name="shaggygod"/> since key card systems track each location and time that someone enters the building using a card. He usually does not browse the web directly from his personal computer. Instead, he uses GNU Womb's grab-url-from-mail utility, an email-based proxy which downloads the webpage content and then emails it to the user.<ref name="stallman-computing"/><ref name="strawmen"/> More recently, he said that he accesses all websites via ], except for Misplaced Pages (which generally disallows editing from Tor unless users have an ]).<ref name="SchuesslerInterview"/><ref name="SchuesslerNewspaper"/>
]

]
== Comments about Jeffrey Epstein scandal ==
]
In September 2019, it was learned that ] had made donations to MIT, and in the wake of this, ] director ] resigned. An internal MIT ] ] mailing list thread was started to protest the coverup of MIT's connections to Epstein.<ref name="Ongweso_2019" /> In the thread, discussion had turned to deceased MIT professor ], who was named by ] as one of the people that Epstein had forced her to have sex with.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed |title=AI pioneer accused of having sex with trafficking victim on Jeffrey Epstein's island |last=Brandom |first=Russell |date=Aug 9, 2019 |website=The Verge |quote=A victim of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein testified that she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky, as revealed in a newly unsealed deposition.}}</ref> Giuffre, a minor at the time, had been caught in Epstein's underage sex trafficking ring.<ref name="Ongweso_2019" /> In response to a comment saying that Minsky "is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", Stallman objected to the inaccurate wording. Minsky was not accused of "assault", and from the victims' testimonies it was not clear whether Minsky had committed "assault", and Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to conceal that from most of his associates".<ref name="Lee_2019" /> When challenged by other members of the mailing list, he added "It is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as ] or whether the victim was ]", holding that it was not relevant to the harm that was done to the victim.<ref name="Ongweso_2019" /><ref name="Lee_2019" />
]

]
Stallman remained critical of Epstein and his role saying "We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex–by Epstein. She was being harmed."<ref name="Bekiempis_2019" />
]
Stallman's comments along with a compilation of accusations against him<ref name="Gano_2019_Appendix"/> were published via ] by Selam Gano, who called for him to be removed from MIT.<ref name="Svrluga_2019" /><ref name="Gano_2019" /> '']'' published a copy of the email chain on September 13, 2019.<ref name="Ongweso_2019" /><ref name="Svrluga_2019" /> Stallman's writings from 2013 and earlier related to underage sex and child pornography laws resurfaced, increasing the controversy.<ref name="Lee_2019" />{{Clarify|date=August 2024}} Tied to his comments regarding Minsky it led to several calling for Stallman's resignation.<ref name="Svrluga_2019" /><ref name="Ongweso_2019" /> During the backlash to Stallman's comments regarding the Epstein case, Stallman received criticism for previous writings advocating for the ] and pedophilia. In September 2006, Stallman had written, "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Free Software Pioneer Quits MIT Over His Comments On Epstein Sex Trafficking Case |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761718975/free-software-pioneer-quits-mit-over-his-comments-on-epstein-sex-trafficking-cas |website=NPR}}</ref> On September 14, 2019, Stallman acknowledged that since the time of his past writings, he had learned that there were problems with underage sex, writing on his blog: "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm ]<!-- This is not a typo! It's a gender-neutral pronoun. --> psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that."<ref>{{cite web |last=Brodkin |first=Jon |date=March 22, 2021 |title=Richard Stallman returns to FSF 18 months after controversial rape comments |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/ |access-date=December 3, 2022 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref><ref name="Engadget_2019" /><ref>{{cite web |title=2006: May – August Political Notes – Richard Stallman |url=https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20(Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party) |access-date=December 3, 2022 |website=stallman.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Stallman |first1=Richard |title=Political Notes |url=https://stallman.org/archives/2019-sep-dec.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) |access-date=May 20, 2023}}</ref>
]

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On September 16, 2019, Stallman announced his resignation from both MIT and FSF, "due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations".<ref name="Levy2019"/> In a post on his website, Stallman asserted that his posts to the email lists were not to defend Epstein, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a 'serial rapist', and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him—and other inaccurate claims—and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said. I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the misunderstanding."<ref name="Lee_2019"/> In 2021, he apologized for tone-deafly failing "to acknowledge as context the injustice that Epstein did to women or the pain that caused".{{Citation_needed|date=November 2024}}
]

]
===Return to FSF===
]
In March 2021, at ], Stallman announced his return to the FSF board of directors.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":1"/> Shortly thereafter, an open letter was published on ] asking for Stallman's removal, along with the entire FSF board of directors, with the support of prominent ] organizations including ] and ]. The letter includes a list of accusations against Stallman.<ref name="OL_1"/><ref name="Brodkin_2021"/><ref name="Tor_2021"/> In response, an open letter asking for the FSF to retain Stallman was also published, arguing that Stallman's statements were mischaracterized, misunderstood and that they need to be interpreted in context.<ref name="OL_2"/><ref name="Varghese_2021_2"/> The FSF board on April 12 made a statement re-affirming its decision to bring back Richard Stallman.<ref name="FSF_2021_1"/> After that Stallman issued a statement explaining his poor social skills and apologizing.<ref name="FSF_2021_2"/>

Multiple organizations criticized, defunded, and/or cut ties with the FSF<ref name="OL_3"/> including ],<ref name="Salter_2021"/> the ],<ref name="FSF_2021_3"/> the ],<ref name="Conserv_2021"/> ],<ref name="Suse_1"/><ref name="Suse_2"/> the ],<ref name="OSI"/> the ],<ref name="DocFound_2021"/> the ],<ref name="OBrien_2021"/> and the ].<ref name="Tor_2"/> ] declined to issue a statement after a community vote on the matter.<ref name="Varghese_2"/> However, the FSF claims that had relatively little financial impact, as it has said direct financial support from corporations accounted for less than 3% of its revenue in the most recent fiscal year.<ref name="FSF_FAQ"/>

== Personal life ==
Stallman lives in ] and moved there after living in ] for many years.<ref name="Lifestyle"/> He speaks English, French, Spanish and some Indonesian.<ref name="Lifestyle"/> He has said that he is "an ] of ] ancestry"<ref name="stallman-jewish-source-1"/> and often wears a button that reads "Impeach God".<ref name="freeasinfreedom-chap4"/><ref name="Proulx"/> He denies having ]'s, but has sometimes speculated whether he could have a "shadow"<ref name="Brody_1997" /> version of it.<ref name="stallman-jewish-source-1" /><ref name="FF_CH5" /> He says he is ].{{r|Stallman, Why It Is (2012)}}

Stallman has written a collection of ] and parody songs.<ref name="doggerel"/>

In September 2023, while giving his keynote presentation at the GNU 40th anniversary event, Stallman revealed he had been diagnosed with ], a form of ], and said that his prognosis was good and he hopes to be around for years to come.<ref>{{cite web |date=September 29, 2023 |title=Richard Stallman is Battling Cancer 😔 |url=https://news.itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-battling-cancer/ |access-date=September 30, 2023 |website=It's FOSS News |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Proven |first=Liam |date=September 29, 2023 |title=Free software pioneer Stallman reveals cancer diagnosis |url=https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/29/richard_stallman_cancer/ |access-date=September 30, 2023 |website=] |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Richard Stallman's Personal Page |url=https://stallman.org/ |access-date=December 26, 2023 |website=stallman.org}}</ref> He later stated he was in remission.<ref>https://stallman.org/</ref>

== {{anchor|Honors and awards}} Honors and awards ==
* 1986: Honorary lifetime membership of the ] Computer Society<ref name="CUT"/>
* 1990: Exceptional merit award ] ("genius grant")<ref name="macfound"/>
* 1990: The Association for Computing Machinery's ] "For pioneering work in the development of the extensible editor EMACS (Editing Macros)"<ref name="acmawards"/>
* 1996: Honorary doctorate from Sweden's ]<ref name="Hedersdoktorer"/>
* 1998: Electronic Frontier Foundation's ]<ref name="pioneer"/>
* 1999: ]<ref name="ahref"/>
* 2001: The Takeda Techno-Entrepreneurship Award for Social/Economic Well-Being ({{lang|ja|武田研究奨励賞}})<ref name="takeda"/><ref name="takeda-mit-2001-10-17"/>
* 2001: Honorary doctorate from the ]<ref name="glasgow"/>
* 2002: US ] membership "for starting the GNU project, which produced influential, non-proprietary software tools, and for founding the free software movement"<ref name="NAE"/>
* 2003: Honorary doctorate from the {{lang|nl|]|italic=no}}<ref name="VUB"/>
* 2004: Honorary doctorate from the ]<ref name="UNSA"/>
* 2004: Honorary professorship from the ]<ref name="UNI"/>
* 2007: Honorary professorship from the ]<ref name="UIGV"/>
* 2007: First Premio Internacional Extremadura al Conocimiento Libre<ref name="20minutos"/>
* 2007: Honorary doctorate from the ]<ref name="AutoLO-33"/>
* 2007: Honorary doctorate, from the ]<ref name="unipv"/>
* 2008: Honorary doctorate from the ], in Peru<ref name="Cebe_1"/>
* 2009: Honorary doctorate from ]<ref name="Lakehead"/><ref name="Agora"/>
* 2011: Honorary doctorate from ]<ref name="UNC"/>
* 2012: Honorary professorship from the ] in Peru<ref name="Cebe_2"/>
* 2012: Honorary doctorate from the Universidad Latinoamericana Cima de Tacna in Peru<ref name="Biography"/>
* 2012: Honorary doctorate from the {{ill|Universidad José Faustino Sánchez Carrión|es|Universidad Nacional José Faustino Sánchez Carrión}}, in Peru<ref name="Biography"/>
* 2014: Honorary doctorate from ] in Montréal<ref name="Concordia"/>
* 2015: ] "For the development and leadership of GCC"<ref name="acmawards"/>
* 2016: Honorary doctorate from ]<ref name="UPMC"/>
* 2016: Social Medicine award from ]<ref name="gnuhealthcon2016"/>

== Selected publications ==
'''Manuals'''
* {{cite book |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=1980 |title=EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable, Self-Documenting Display Editor |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA |publisher=MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory publication |id=AIM-519A |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=2002 |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/ |title=GNU Emacs Manual |location=Boston, Massachusetts, USA |publisher=GNU Press |isbn=1-882114-85-X |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Stallman |author-first1=Richard M. |author-last2=McGrath |author-first2=Roland |author-last3=Smith |author-first3=Paul D. |date=2004 |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/ |title=GNU Make: A Program for Directed Compilation |location=Boston, Massachusetts, USA |publisher=GNU Press |isbn=1-882114-83-3 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Stallman |first=Richard |title=GNU C Language Introduction and Reference Manual |publisher=] |year=2023 |language=en}}

'''Selected essays'''
* {{cite book |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=2015 |title=Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman |title-link=Free Software, Free Society |edition=Third |location=Boston, Massachusetts, USA |publisher=GNU Press |isbn=978-0-9831592-5-4 |ref=none}}

== See also ==
{{Portal|Biography|Free and open-source software|Computer programming|United States}}
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order ]. -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* ], a minor planet named after Richard
* '']'', a biography by Sam Williams
* ]
* ]
* ]
* '']''
{{div col end}}
{{clear}}

== References ==
{{reflist|refs=

<ref name="20minutos">{{cite web |url=http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/197555/0/richard/stallman/linux/ |title=El padre del software libre, Premio Internacional Extremadura |date=February 2007 |publisher=20minutos.es |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="acmawards">{{cite web |url=http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/stallman_9380313.cfm |title=Richard Stallman – Award Winner |website=ACM Awards |publisher=] |access-date=April 28, 2016}}</ref>

<ref name="Agora">{{cite web |url=http://agora.lakeheadu.ca/agora.php?st=327 |title=Honorary Degree Recipients |publisher=Agora.lakeheadu.ca |date=May 21, 2009 |access-date=March 27, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821115904/http://agora.lakeheadu.ca/agora.php?st=327 |archive-date=August 21, 2013}}</ref>

<ref name="ahref">{{cite web |url=http://www.ahref.com/guides/industry/199907/0727piou2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000816100041/http://www.ahref.com/guides/industry/199907/0727piou2.html |archive-date=August 16, 2000 |url-status=dead |title=ahref.com > Guides > Industry > WWW8 Notes: Open-Source Software and Software Patents |access-date=April 2, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="AI9">{{cite web |author-last1=Stallman |author-first1=Richard M. |author-last2=Sussman |author-first2=Gerald J. |author-link2=Gerald Jay Sussman |date=1977 |title=Forward Reasoning and Dependency-Directed Backtracking in a System for Computer-Aided Circuit analysis |publisher=Artificial Intelligence 9 |pages=135–196 |url=http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6255/AIM-380.pdf?sequence=4}}</ref>

<ref name="amd-open">{{cite web |url=http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/amd-will-deliver-open-graphics-drivers/ |title=AMD will deliver open graphics drivers |publisher=Itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com |date=May 9, 2007 |access-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181205060711/https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/amd-will-deliver-open-graphics-drivers/ |archive-date=December 5, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="argentina">{{cite web |author-last=Rauch |author-first=Guillermo |url=http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/ |title=Richard Stallman has his bag stolen in Argentina |publisher=Devthought.com |date=June 9, 2012 |access-date=July 22, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120718014725/http://www.devthought.com/2012/06/09/richard-stallman-robbed-in-argentina/ |archive-date=July 18, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-1">{{cite web|url=https://www.cnet.com/news/computer-scientist-richard-stallman-resigns-from-mit-after-jeffrey-epstein-comments/|title=Computer scientist Richard Stallman resigns from MIT after Jeffrey Epstein comments |author-last=Musil |author-first=Steven |website=CNET |language=en |access-date=October 1, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-14">{{cite web |url=https://sourceforge.net/p/clisp/clisp/ci/default/tree/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL |title=I hate to have to play this role with a fellow hacker, but ... |publisher=Clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net |access-date=August 17, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-15">{{cite web |url=https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html |title=How I do my Computing |website=stallman.org |access-date=September 16, 2018}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-16">{{cite web |url=https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410035339/https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html |archive-date=April 10, 2016 |title=How I do my Computing |date=April 10, 2016 |access-date=September 16, 2018}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-17">{{cite web |url=http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/ |title=An interview with Richard Stallman |publisher=Richard.stallman.usesthis.com |date=January 23, 2010 |access-date=July 2, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717175618/http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/ |archive-date=July 17, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-18">{{cite web |title=GNU/Linux Meeting 2014: Richard Stallman è approdato a Palermo |language=it |url=http://www.html.it/articoli/gnulinux-meeting-2014-richard-stallman-e-approdato-a-palermo/ |website=HTML.it |date=April 3, 2014 |access-date=July 17, 2014}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-19">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html |title=Why Upgrade to GPLv3 |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |website=GNU Project |publisher=Free Software Foundation |access-date=October 16, 2014 |quote=Under the and similar laws, it is illegal ... to distribute DVD players unless they restrict the user according to the official rules of the DVD conspiracy}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-2">{{cite web |url=https://stallman.org/biographies.html#serious |title=Biography |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |website=stallman.org |access-date=April 13, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-21">{{cite web |url=http://www.livemint.com/Politics/rwwhxWH1sgb1ZdYQycTuWO/Richard-Stallman-surveillance-is-incompatible-with-democrac.html |title=Richard Stallman: surveillance is incompatible with democracy |publisher=Livemint.com |date=January 22, 2014 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-22">, Richard Stallman, Russia Today Youtube Channel.</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-23">{{cite web |author-last=Tiemann |author-first=Michael |title=History of the OSI |publisher=Open Source Initiative |access-date=April 16, 2014 |url=http://www.opensource.org/history |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140412040818/http://opensource.org/history |archive-date=April 12, 2014}}</ref>

<ref name="words-to-avoid-open">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open |title=Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing |publisher=Free Software Foundation |access-date=July 17, 2014}}</ref>

<ref name="rms-kernel-trap-interview">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-kernel-trap-interview.en.html |title=Interview with Richard Stallman, KernelTrap.org, 2005 |author-last=Andrews |author-first=Jeremy |publisher=GNU |date=2005 |access-date=September 10, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-26">{{cite web |author-last=Torvalds |author-first=Linus |author-link=Linus Torvalds |title=LKML: Linus Torvalds: Re: GPLv3 Position Statement |url=https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/25/161 |website=lkml.org |publisher=Linux Kernel Mailing List |access-date=March 24, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="doggerel">{{cite web |url=http://www.stallman.org/doggerel.html |title=Doggerel – Richard Stallman |website=www.stallman.org}}</ref>

<ref name="Lee_2019">{{Cite web |author-last=Lee |author-first=Timothy B. |date=September 17, 2019 |title=Richard Stallman leaves MIT after controversial remarks on rape |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/richard-stallman-leaves-mit-after-controversial-remarks-on-rape/ |access-date=August 5, 2020 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-3">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo |title=Texinfo – GNU Documentation System – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) |publisher=Gnu.org |date=February 19, 2015 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-33">{{cite book |author-last=Steele |author-first=Guy L. Jr. |author-link=Guy L. Steele Jr. |title=The Hacker's Dictionary: A Guide to the World of Computer Wizards |date=1991 |url=https://archive.org/details/newhackersdictio00raym |url-access=registration}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-4">, by Richard M. Stallman. 5. Documentation system. I now have a truly compatible pair of programs which can convert a file of texinfo format documentation into either a printed manual or an Info file. Documentation files are needed for many utilities., February 1986, GNU's Bulletin, Volume 1 No.1</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-5">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html |title=Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism |publisher=Gnu.org |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-6">{{cite web |url=http://opensource.org/history |title=History of the Open Source Initiative |date=September 19, 2006 |publisher=Opensource.org |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-7">{{cite news |url=https://news.mit.edu/2001/stallman-1017 |title=Stallman shares Takeda award of nearly $1M |newspaper=Mit News &#124; Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-8">{{cite web |url=https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/richard-stallman |title=Richard Stallman – MIT CSAIL |website=www.csail.mit.edu |access-date=January 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190917081124/https://www.csail.mit.edu/person/richard-stallman |archive-date=September 17, 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="AutoLO-9">{{cite web |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/90254836/linus-torvalds-is-back-at-linux-while-gnus-stallman-unveils-a-kindness-policy |title=Linus Torvalds is back at Linux while GNU's Stallman unveils a "kindness policy" |author-first=Steven |author-last=Melendez |publisher=Fast Company |date=October 22, 2018 |access-date=September 24, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="Berättar">{{cite web |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |url=http://www.lysator.liu.se/history/garb/txt/87-2-rms.txt |title=RMS Berättar |access-date=September 22, 2009}}</ref>

<ref name="explains-why-hes-willing-to-quit">{{cite web |author-last1=Bort |author-first1=Julie |title=A programmer explains why he's willing to quit rather than work with industry legend Richard Stallman, who resigned from MIT after controversial remarks on Jeffrey Epstein |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/gnu-programmers-call-for-richard-stallman-to-quit-2019-10 |website=businessinsider.com |publisher=Business Insider |date=October 10, 2019 |access-date=August 11, 2021}}</ref>

<ref name="boston-review">{{cite web |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard |title=Who does that server really serve? |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html |publisher=], ] |access-date=January 15, 2012 |date=September 20, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="chaveztv">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,3604,1535981,00.html |title=Chavez TV beams into South America |work=The Guardian |location=London |date=July 26, 2005 |access-date=May 22, 2010 |author-first=Alfonso |author-last=Daniels}}</ref>

<ref name="chromeos">{{cite web |author-last=Arthur |author-first=Charles |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/dec/14/chrome-os-richard-stallman-warning |title=Google's ChromeOS means losing control of data, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman |work=guardian.co.uk |publisher=] |date=December 14, 2010 |access-date=February 16, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="Clarke">{{cite web |author-last=Clarke |author-first=Gavin |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/10/stallman_glad_jobs_gone |title=Stallman: Jobs exerted 'malign influence' on computing |publisher=Theregister.co.uk |date=October 10, 2011 |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="Concordia">{{Cite web |url=http://www.concordia.ca/content/shared/en/news/main/stories/2014/10/01/concordia-awardshonorarydoctoratestoaquebecbusinessleaderaninter.html |title=Concordia awards 3 new honorary doctorates |website=www.concordia.ca}}</ref>

<ref name="copyright-and-globalization">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html |title=Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) |access-date=January 17, 2008}}</ref>

<ref name="Cringely">Robert X. , around the 46th minute</ref>

<ref name="debbug">{{cite web |url=http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=221807 |title=#221807 – "vrms and RMS disagree sometimes... AND depends on non-free section presence..." – Debian Bug report logs |publisher=Bugs.debian.org |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="dontobey">{{cite web |url=http://torrentfreak.com/richard-stallman-opts-to-disobey-anti-piracy-law-110610/ |title=Richard Stallman Opts to Disobey Anti-Piracy Law |publisher=TorrentFreak.com |date=June 10, 2011 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="DuBois">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsf.org/working-together/profiles/free-software-foundation/ |title=Free Software Foundation |author-first=Steven |author-last=DuBois |date=October 15, 2010 |access-date=July 21, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="ebook">{{cite web |url=https://gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.en.html |title=The Danger of E-Books |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard |publisher=] |date=2011–2013 |access-date=March 27, 2013}}</ref>

<ref name="elpais-leysinde">{{cite news |url=http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2011/06/08/actualidad/1307484020_850215.html |title=La 'ley Sinde' es tan injusta que debería ser desobedecida |author-last=Mora |author-first=Miguel |work=] |publisher=Ediciones El País, S.L. |language=es |date=June 8, 2011 |access-date=April 1, 2013}}</ref>

<ref name="emac6">{{cite book |author-last=Williams |author-first=Sam |title=Free as in freedom: Richard Stallman's crusade for free software |date=2002 |publisher=O'Reilly |location=Beijing, China |isbn=0-596-00287-4 |edition=2nd |chapter=Chapter 6 – The Emacs Commune |url=https://archive.org/details/freeasinfreedomr00will}}</ref>

<ref name="encyclopedia">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.html |access-date=October 15, 2011 |title=The 💕 Project |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M.}}</ref>

<ref name="esr">{{cite web |url=http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4386 |title=Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters |work=Esr.ibiblio.org |date=June 11, 2012 |access-date=July 14, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324053917/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4386 |archive-date=March 24, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="examples">{{cite web |author-last=Hill |author-first=Benjamin Mako |title=Show Me the Code |url=http://revealingerrors.com/show_me_the_code|work=Revealing Errors |access-date=January 15, 2012 |author-link=Benjamin Mako Hill |date=February 1, 2009}}</ref>

<ref name="faif">{{cite book |author-last=Williams |author-first=Sam |title=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software |publisher=O'Reilly Media |date=March 15, 2002 |isbn=0-596-00287-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/freeasinfreedomr00will |access-date=November 26, 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="free-encyclopedia">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html |access-date=October 15, 2006 |title=The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M.}}</ref>

<ref name="free-open">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html |title=Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" |publisher=Gnu.org |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="freeasinfreedom-chap4">{{cite book |author-last=Williams |author-first=Sam |title=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software |url=https://archive.org/details/freeasinfreedomr00will |publisher=O'Reilly Media |date=2002 |isbn=0-596-00287-4}}</ref>

<ref name="fsfbio">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsf.org/about/leadership/ |title=The Free Software Foundation Management |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=March 7, 2011 |work=Free Software Foundation |at=Richard M. Stallman, President |access-date=July 21, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="gcc-contribs">{{Cite web |url=https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Contributors.html |title=Contributors (Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)) |website=gcc.gnu.org}}</ref>

<ref name="glasgow">{{cite web |url=http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archive/2001/february/headline_29920_en.html |title=University of Glasgow :: University news :: Archive of news :: 2001 :: February :: University announces honorary degrees to celebrate 550th anniversary |publisher=Gla.ac.uk |date=February 1, 2001 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="gnuhealthcon2016">{{Cite web |url=http://www.gnuhealthcon.org/2016-las_palmas/awards.html |title=GNU Health CON 2016 – I International GNU Health Conference |website=www.gnuhealthcon.org |access-date=August 30, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181208001924/http://www.gnuhealthcon.org/2016-las_palmas/awards.html |archive-date=December 8, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="gnuproject">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html |title=The GNU Project |author-first=Richard M. |author-last=Stallman |date=1998 |work=Free Software Foundation |access-date=July 7, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="gpl3">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/#transcripts |title=GPLv3 – GNU General Public License, version 3 |access-date=January 17, 2008 |work=]}}</ref>

<ref name="gpl3-22june">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/barcelona-rms-transcript.ca.html#draft2-preview |title=GPLv3 – Transcript of Richard Stallman from the third international GPLv3 conference, Barcelona; 2006-06-22 |language=ca |publisher=Fsfeurope.org |date=June 22, 2006 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="guix">{{cite web |title=Joint statement on the GNU Project |url=https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ |website=guix.gnu.org |date=October 7, 2019 |access-date=May 3, 2020}}</ref>

<ref name="Hedersdoktorer">{{cite web |url=http://www.kth.se/en/om/fakta/fame/hedersdoktorer/hedersdoktorer-vid-kth-1.3974 |title=KTH &#124; Honorary doctors at KTH |publisher=Kth.se |date=November 19, 2014 |access-date=March 27, 2015 |archive-date=April 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150417073005/http://www.kth.se/en/om/fakta/fame/hedersdoktorer/hedersdoktorer-vid-kth-1.3974 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="IFSO">{{cite web |url=http://www.ifso.ie/documents/rms-2004-05-24.html |title=IFSO: Richard Stallman: The Dangers of Software Patents; 2004-05-24 (transcript) |publisher=Ifso.ie |access-date=January 17, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701172056/https://www.ifso.ie/documents/rms-2004-05-24.html |archive-date=July 1, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="IMSLP">{{cite web |url=http://imslp.wikidot.com/ |title=Main page of the IMSLP |publisher=wikidot.com |date=December 6, 2011 |access-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080415201349/http://imslp.wikidot.com/ |archive-date=April 15, 2008}}</ref>

<ref name="in-a-name">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html |title=What's in a name? by Richard Stallman |publisher=Gnu.org |date=September 20, 2000 |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="infoweek">{{cite web |url=http://www.informationweek.com/news/175802222?pgno=4 |title=A Rare Glimpse into Richard Stallman's World |publisher=Informationweek.com |date=January 6, 2006 |access-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-date=April 3, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403073315/http://www.informationweek.com/news/175802222?pgno=4 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="initialgnu">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html |title=Initial GNU announcement |date=September 27, 1983 |access-date=November 20, 2008 |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M.}}</ref>

<ref name="initials">{{cite web |work=Richard Stallman's 1983 biography |quote='Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms' |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |title=Humorous Bio |publisher=First edition of "The Hacker's Dictionary" |access-date=November 20, 2008 |url=https://stallman.org/biographies.html#humorousbio}}</ref>

<ref name="Jobs">{{cite web |url=https://stallman.org/archives/2011-jul-oct.html#06_October_2011_%28Steve_Jobs%29 |title=06 October 2011 (Steve Jobs) |author-first=Richard M. |author-last=Stallman |work=Political notes from 2011: July–October |publisher=Stallman.org |access-date=February 16, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="kerala">{{cite web |url=http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=138464 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208075556/http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=138464 |archive-date=December 8, 2006 |title=Kerala logs Microsoft out |publisher=The Financial Express |access-date=March 12, 2010}}</ref>

<ref name="kpoe">{{cite web |url=http://wien.kpoe.at/news/article.php/20050803081612703 |title=Protest in Brussels against software patents |publisher=Wien.kpoe.at |access-date=March 27, 2015 |archive-date=December 26, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226104412/http://wien.kpoe.at/news/article.php/20050803081612703 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="Lakehead">{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRVzZogu3qU |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/TRVzZogu3qU |archive-date=December 21, 2021 |url-status=live |title=RMS Given Honorary Degree at Lakehead |publisher=YouTube.com |date=May 31, 2009 |access-date=March 27, 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

<ref name="latin-america">{{cite web |url=https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/c2a1success-for-free-software-in-latin-america <!-- Updated on July 25, 2016 from original: http://rudd-o.com/archives/2006/12/13/success-for-free-software-in-latin-america --> |title=Success for free software in Latin America! |access-date=April 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226104358/https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/c2a1success-for-free-software-in-latin-america |archive-date=December 26, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="lemacs">{{cite web |url=http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html |title=The Lemacs/FSFmacs Schism |access-date=December 12, 2009 |archive-date=November 30, 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091130093142/http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html}}</ref>

<ref name="Levy">{{Cite book |last=Levy |first=Steven |title=Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution |date=2001 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-14-100051-0 |edition=Updated afterword |location=New York, N.Y}}</ref>

<ref name="Lifestyle">{{cite web |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=2018 |title=Lifestyle |url=https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html |website=Richard Stallman's Personal Site |access-date=August 30, 2018}}</ref>

<ref name="Lih2009">{{cite book |author-last=Lih |author-first=Andrew |date=2009 |title=The Misplaced Pages Revolution |publisher=Hyperion |location=New York City, New York, USA |isbn=978-1-4013-0371-6 |oclc=232977686 |url=https://archive.org/details/wikipediarevolut00liha}}</ref>

<ref name="linux gnu">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html |title=Linux, GNU, Freedom by Richard M. Stallman |publisher=Gnu.org |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="macfound"> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307004157/http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.1142703/k.787E/Fellows_List__August_1990.htm |date=March 7, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="mgro">{{cite web |author-last=Gross |author-first=Michael |title=Richard Stallman: High School Misfit, Symbol of Free Software, MacArthur-Certified Genius |url=http://mgross.com/writing/books/the-more-things-change/bonus-chapters/richard-stallman-high-school-misfit-symbol-of-free-software-macarthur-certified-genius/|work=The More Things Change |access-date=April 9, 2014 |format=interview transcript |date=1999}}</ref>

<ref name="mirage">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html |title=Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |publisher=GNU.org |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="mpaa">{{cite web |url=http://www.mccullagh.org/image/d30-23/richard-stallman-and-flag.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020803023102/http://www.mccullagh.org/image/d30-23/richard-stallman-and-flag.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 3, 2002 |title=Protest outside and inside MPAA meeting on DRM |publisher=Mccullagh.org |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="multic">{{cite web |url=https://www.multicians.org/mepap.html#secii |date=April 8, 1996 |title=Multics Emacs: The History, Design and Implementation |author-last=Greenberg |author-first=Bernard S.}}; {{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-faq.html#Origin-of-the-term-Emacs |title=GNU Emacs FAQ}}; {{cite web |url=http://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html |title=Emacs Timeline |author-last=Zawinski |author-first=Jamie}}</ref>

<ref name="NAE">{{cite web |url=http://www.nae.edu/MembersSection/Directory20412/30606.aspx |title=NAE Website – Dr. Richard M. Stallman |publisher=Nae.edu |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="newunix">{{cite web |url=http://groups.google.co.uk/group/net.unix-wizards/msg/4dadd63a976019d7?dmode=source |title=new UNIX implementation |access-date=March 12, 2010 |archive-date=January 25, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100125115446/http://groups.google.co.uk/group/net.unix-wizards/msg/4dadd63a976019d7?dmode=source |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name="nochrome">Adhikari, Richard. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123151909/http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Why-Richard-Stallman-Takes-No-Shine-to-Chrome-71469.html |date=January 23, 2021}} ''LinuxInsider'', December 15, 2010.</ref>

<ref name="PE">{{cite web |date=February 2, 2006| title=POSIX 1003.1 FAQ Version 1.12 |url=http://www.opengroup.org/austin/papers/posix_faq.html |access-date=July 16, 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="phoronix.com">{{Cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Richard-Stallman-GNU-Head |title=Richard Stallman To Continue As Head Of The GNU Project - Phoronix |website=www.phoronix.com}}</ref>

<ref name="pioneer">{{cite web |url=https://w2.eff.org/awards/pioneer/1998.php |title=EFF: Torvalds, Stallman, Simons Win 1998 Pioneer Awards |publisher=W2.eff.org |access-date=March 27, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108234837/https://w2.eff.org/awards/pioneer/1998.php |archive-date=November 8, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="politics-feb">{{cite web |url=https://www.stallman.org/archives/2010-nov-feb.html#26%20February%202011%20%28Telesur%20Propaganda%29 |title=26 February 2011 (Telesur Propaganda) |work=Political notes from 2010: November–February |author-first=Richard M. |author-last=Stallman |publisher=Stallman.org |access-date=June 7, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="president-india">{{cite web |url=http://www.gnu.org.in/node/25 |title=Richard Stallman Meets the President of India |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016191823/http://gnu.org.in/node/25 |archive-date=October 16, 2007}}</ref>

<ref name="pro-state gland">{{cite web |url=https://www.networkworld.com/article/937048/stallman-joins-the-internet-talks-net-neutrality-patents-and-more.html |title=Stallman joins the Internet, talks net neutrality, patents and more |date=March 23, 2015 |publisher=Network World}}</ref>

<ref name="protest-ati">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/rms-ati-protest.html |title=Protest against ATI nearly led to the arrest of RMS| publisher=Free Software Foundation page}}</ref>

<ref name="protest-france">{{cite web |url=http://stopdrm.info/index.php?2006/06/11/89-on-remet-ca-paris |title=Protest in France against DRM |publisher=Stopdrm.info |access-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702062335/http://stopdrm.info/index.php?2006%2F06%2F11%2F89-on-remet-ca-paris |archive-date=July 2, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="Proulx">{{cite web |author-first=François |author-last=Proulx |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/francois/23625436/ |title=Richard Stallman |date=July 3, 2005 |publisher=Flickr |access-date=September 2, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="RIT">{{cite web |title=Richard Stallman lecture at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden |date=October 30, 1986 |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html |website=gnu.org |access-date=September 21, 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="Salus">{{cite web |url=http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050513135545766 |title=The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin |author-first=Peter H. |author-last=Salus |publisher=Groklaw.net |date=May 13, 2005 |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="SchuesslerInterview">{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkkDvKGcNSo&t=38m01s |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/fkkDvKGcNSo |archive-date=December 21, 2021 |url-status=live |title=Richard Stallman: Apple fanboys are foolish people |date=February 22, 2016 |via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

<ref name="SchuesslerNewspaper">{{Cite news |url=https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/digital/internet/freiheitskaempfer-rebell-und-papst/story/25800176 |title=Freiheitskämpfer, Rebell und Papst |author-first=Matthias |author-last=Schüssler |newspaper=Tages-Anzeiger |date=February 17, 2016 |via=www.tagesanzeiger.ch}}</ref>

<ref name="shaggygod">{{cite web |url=http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/the_shaggy_god/ |title=The Shaggy God |publisher=Bostonmagazine.com |access-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105024409/http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/the_shaggy_god/ |archive-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="Sony">{{cite web |url=http://www.defectivebydesign.org/sony |title=Boycott Sony |publisher=Defectivebydesign.org |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="Stallman, Why It Is (2012)">{{cite web |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |title=Why It Is Important Not to Have Children |date=September 2012 |website=Stallman.org |url=https://stallman.org/articles/children.html |access-date=December 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102070833/https://stallman.org/articles/children.html |archive-date=November 2, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref>

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<ref name="stallman-jewish-source-1">{{cite web |title=The Basement Interviews-Freeing the Code |publisher= IA |date=March 21, 2006 |url=https://archive.org/download/The_Basement_Interviews/Richard_Stallman_Interview.pdf |access-date=April 25, 2013}}</ref>

<ref name="stallman-royal">{{cite web |url=http://www.fsf.org/news/stallman-royal.html |title=Meeting between Ségolène Royal and Richard Stallman |publisher=Fsf.org |access-date=July 22, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="strawmen">{{cite web |url=http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=134979 |title=Real men don't attack straw men |access-date=March 24, 2009 |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard |date=December 15, 2007 |publisher=OpenBSD 'misc' Mailing List |quote=For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116045202/http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/134336/focus=134979 |archive-date=November 16, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="takeda">{{cite web |url=http://www.takeda-foundation.jp/en/aboutus/topics/p20010911.html |title=The Takeda Foundation |publisher=Takeda-foundation.jp |access-date=March 27, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="takeda-mit-2001-10-17">{{cite web |title=Stallman shares Takeda award of nearly $1M |publisher=MIT |date=October 17, 2001 |url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/stallman-1017.html |access-date=November 26, 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="Takver"> Hosted on the ].</ref>

<ref name="tech-help-share">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/17/sharing-ebooks-richard-stallman |title=Technology should help us share, not constrain us |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=April 17, 2012 |publisher=The Guardian: ]}}</ref>

<ref name="torino">{{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=March 18, 2006 |quote=Everyone who uses the term intellectual property is either confused himself or trying to confuse you.}}</ref>

<ref name="UNC">{{cite web |url=http://www.unc.edu.ar/seccion/novedades/2011/agosto/honoris-causa-para-richard-stallman-el-guru-del-software-libre |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111024041223/http://www.unc.edu.ar/seccion/novedades/2011/agosto/honoris-causa-para-richard-stallman-el-guru-del-software-libre |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 24, 2011 |trans-title=Honoris Causa for Richard Stallman, Free Software guru |title=Honoris Causa para Richard Stallman, el gurú del software libre |website=National University of Córdoba |language=es |date=August 16, 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="unipv">{{cite web |url=http://www.unipv.eu/on-line/Home/Ateneo/Organidigoverno/Rettore/articolo1229.html |title=Laurea in Ingegneria Informatica a Richard Stallman. |website=University of Pavia |access-date=April 26, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004234138/http://www.unipv.eu/on-line/Home/Ateneo/Organidigoverno/Rettore/articolo1229.html |archive-date=October 4, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="unplugged">{{cite web |url=http://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3737586_3/Richard-Stallman-Live-and-Unplugged.htm |title=Richard Stallman, Live and Unplugged |quote=Q: You once said "the prospect of charging money for software was a crime against humanity". Do you still believe this? A: Well, I was not distinguishing the two meanings of free. |access-date=June 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170629211002/http://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3737586_3/Richard-Stallman-Live-and-Unplugged.htm |archive-date=June 29, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="UNSA">{{cite web |url=http://bo.unsa.edu.ar/cs/R2004/R-CS-2004-0204.html |title=RESOLUCIÓN CS N° 204/04 |publisher=Bo.unsa.edu.ar |access-date=March 12, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110531174108/http://bo.unsa.edu.ar/cs/R2004/R-CS-2004-0204.html |archive-date=May 31, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="UPMC">{{cite web |url=http://www.upmc.fr/en/university/history_and_famous_people/doctors_honoris_causa/the_dhc_ceremony_at_the_sorbonne/the_2016_dhc.html |title=Cérémonie des docteurs honoris causa 2016}}</ref>

<ref name="usesthis">{{cite web |url=http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/ |title=the setup is a bunch of nerdy interviews: What do people use to get the job done? |publisher=Richard.stallman.usesthis.com |date=January 23, 2010 |access-date=March 12, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717175618/http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/ |archive-date=July 17, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="vrms">{{cite web |url=http://vrms.alioth.debian.org/ |title=The Virtual Richard M. Stallman package |access-date=January 17, 2008 |work=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823192755/http://vrms.alioth.debian.org/ |archive-date=August 23, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="VUB">{{cite web |url=http://www.vub.ac.be/english/home/DHC/overview.html |title=Vrije Universiteit Brussel |publisher=Vub.ac.be |access-date=March 27, 2015 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402140640/http://www.vub.ac.be/english/home/DHC/overview.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="wheeler">{{cite web |url=http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html |title=Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else. |access-date=November 20, 2008 |author-last=Wheeler |author-first=David A.}}</ref>

<ref name="why-open">{{cite web |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html |title=Why Software Should Be Free |date=April 24, 1992 |publisher=gnu.org |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M.}}</ref>

<ref name="wired">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/linus_pr.html |title=Leader of the Free World, ''Wired'' Magazine, Issue 11.11, November 2003 |magazine=Wired |publisher=Wired.com |date=September 17, 1991 |access-date=July 22, 2012 |author-last=Rivlin |author-first=Gary}}</ref>

<ref name="zagreb">{{cite web |url=http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html |title=Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement, Zagreb; 2006-03-09 |access-date=January 17, 2008 |work=]}}</ref>

<ref name="Bio">{{cite web |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |title=Serious Bio |url=https://www.stallman.org/biographies.html#serious |access-date=July 17, 2015}}</ref>

<ref name="Church">{{cite web |url=https://www.stallman.org/saint.html |title=St IGNUcius web page at www.stallman.org |publisher=Stallman.org |access-date=March 12, 2010}}</ref>

<ref name="CUT">{{cite web |title=Event details: Talk by Richard rms Stallman |url=http://www.ait.gu.se/aktuellt/kalendarium/Aktuellt_detalj/?eventId=1775246748 |publisher=Chalmers University of Technology |access-date=April 8, 2012 |archive-date=November 6, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106195703/https://ait.gu.se/aktuellt/kalendarium/Aktuellt_detalj/?eventId=1775246748 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="freeasinfreedom-Chap1">{{cite book |author-last=Williams |author-first=Sam |title=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software |publisher=O'Reilly Media |date=2002 |isbn=0-596-00287-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/freeasinfreedomr00will}} Chapter 1. Available under the ] in both the initial (accessed on October 27, 2006) and the updated {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092801/http://www.faifzilla.org/ch01.html |date=October 9, 2018}}. Retrieved October 27, 2006.</ref>

<ref name="freeasinfreedom-chap3">{{cite book |author-last=Williams |author-first=Sam |title=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software |title-link=Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software |publisher=O'Reilly Media |date=2002 |isbn=0-596-00287-4}} Chapter 3. Available under the ] in both the initial (accessed on October 27, 2006) and the updated {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116000104/http://www.faifzilla.org/ch03.html |date=November 16, 2018}}. Retrieved October 27, 2006.</ref>

<ref name="leonard">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/2002/04/02/stallman/ |author-last=Leonard |author-first=Andrew |title=Code free or die|work=] |date=April 3, 2002 |access-date=April 20, 2017}}</ref>

<ref name="OpenSources">{{cite book |author=Various |title=Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution |publisher=O'Reilly Media |date=1999 |isbn=1-56592-582-3 |chapter=Stallman chapter |chapter-url=http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/stallman.html |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781565925823}}</ref>

<ref name="russell">{{cite book |title=Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach |edition=3rd |date=2009 |author-last1=Russell |author-first1=Stuart |author-link1=Stuart J. Russell |author-last2=Norvig |author-first2=Peter |title-link=Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach |author-link2=Peter Norvig |page=229}}</ref>

<ref name="UIGV">{{cite web |title=Universidad Garcilaso realizó Conferencia Magistral a cargo del Dr. Richard Stallman |url=http://www.uigv.edu.pe/relaciones-publicas/3108_conferenciastallman.php |work=Noticias Garcilasinas |publisher=Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega |access-date=April 8, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120623143602/http://www.uigv.edu.pe/relaciones-publicas/3108_conferenciastallman.php |archive-date=June 23, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="UNI">{{cite web |title=Richard Matthew Stallman ofrecerá conferencia orientada al uso del software libre |url=http://www.uni.edu.pe/sitio/novedades/2008/np_081114_stallman.htm|work=Nota de Prensa |publisher=Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería del Perú |access-date=April 8, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120707171139/http://www.uni.edu.pe/sitio/novedades/2008/np_081114_stallman.htm |archive-date=July 7, 2012}}</ref>

<ref name="Stallman">{{cite web |url=http://www.stallman.org/ |title=Richard Stallman's Personal Site |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |access-date=March 18, 2021 |quote="I continue to be the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project. I do not intend to stop any time soon."}}</ref>

<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |author-last=Brodkin |author-first=Jon |date=March 22, 2021 |title=Richard Stallman returns to FSF 18 months after controversial rape comments |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/ |access-date=March 23, 2021 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name=":1">{{cite web |author-last=Clark |author-first=Mitchell |date=March 22, 2021 |title=Richard Stallman returns to the Free Software Foundation after resigning in 2019 |url=https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22344910/richard-stallman-returns-free-software-foundation-board-comments |access-date=March 22, 2021 |work=]}}</ref>

<ref name="Maracke_2019">{{Cite journal |author-last=Maracke |author-first=Catharina |date=February 25, 2019 |title=Free and Open Source Software and FRAND-based patent licenses: How to mediate between Standard Essential Patent and Free and Open Source Software |journal=The Journal of World Intellectual Property |language=en |volume=22 |issue=3–4 |pages=78–102 |doi=10.1111/jwip.12114 |s2cid=159111696 |issn=1422-2213|doi-access=free}}</ref>

<ref name="Silicon_2011">{{Cite web |date=March 25, 2011 |title=Stallman: Only Victims Of Tyranny Should Use Facebook {{!}} Silicon UK Tech News |url=https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/stallman-only-victims-of-tyranny-should-use-facebook-23600/amp |access-date=January 15, 2021 |website=Silicon UK |language=en-GB}}</ref>

<ref name="Stallman_2013_Surveillance">{{Cite magazine |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=October 14, 2013 |title=Stallman: How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2013/10/a-necessary-evil-what-it-takes-for-democracy-to-survive-surveillance/ |access-date=August 3, 2020 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref>

<ref name="Stallman_2018_Safe">{{cite news |author-last=Stallman |author-first=Richard M. |date=April 3, 2018 |title=A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe {{!}} Richard Stallman |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance |access-date=August 3, 2020 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

<ref name="Brody_1997">{{cite news |author-last=Brody |author-first=Jane E. |date= February 4, 1997|title=Quirks, Oddities May Be Illnesses |language= |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/04/science/quirks-oddities-may-be-illnesses.html |access-date= |issn= |quote=Dr. John J. Ratey, a psychiatrist, has named shadow syndrome, a mild form of a well-recognized neuropsychiatric disorder like autism.}}</ref>

<ref name="FF_CH5">{{cite web |title=Free as in Freedom: Chapter 5 |url=https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch05.html |access-date=March 25, 2021 |website=www.oreilly.com}}</ref>

<ref name="Ongweso_2019">{{cite news |author-last=Ongweso |author-first=Edward Jr. |title=Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing' |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing |date=September 13, 2019 |access-date=August 5, 2020 |work=Vice |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Bekiempis_2019">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/17/mit-scientist-emails-epstein |title=MIT scientist resigns over emails discussing academic linked to Epstein |author-first=Victoria |author-last=Bekiempis |date=September 17, 2019 |access-date=August 5, 2020 |work=]}}</ref>

<ref name="Gano_2019">{{cite web |author-last1=Gano |author-first1=Selam |title=Remove Richard Stallman And everyone else horrible in tech |url=https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930231618/https://medium.com/@selamjie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 |archive-date=September 30, 2019 |website=Medium |publisher=Selam Gano |access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref>

<ref name="Gano_2019_Appendix">{{cite web |author-last1=Gano |author-first1=Selam |title=Remove Richard Stallman: Appendix A |url=https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929151144/https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 |archive-date=September 29, 2019 |website=Medium |publisher=Selam Gano |access-date=August 13, 2024}}</ref>

<ref name="Svrluga_2019">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/09/17/computer-scientist-richard-stallman-resigns-mit-after-comments-about-epstein-scandal/ |title=Computer scientist Richard Stallman resigns from MIT after comments about Epstein scandal |author-first=Susan |author-last=Svrluga |date=September 13, 2019 |access-date=August 5, 2020 |newspaper=]}}</ref>

<ref name="Engadget_2019">{{cite web |title=GNU founder Richard Stallman resigns from MIT, Free Software Foundation |url=https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-17-rms-fsf-mit-epstein.html |access-date=October 25, 2021 |website=Engadget |date=September 17, 2019 |language=en-US}}</ref>

<ref name="Levy2019">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of-the-clueless-nerd/ |title=Richard Stallman and the fall of the clueless nerd |author-first=Steven |author-last=Levy |magazine=Wired |date=September 18, 2019 |access-date=September 18, 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="OL_1">{{cite web |title=An open letter to remove Richard M. Stallman from all leadership positions |url=https://rms-open-letter.github.io/ |access-date=March 26, 2021 |website=rms-open-letter.github.io |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Brodkin_2021">{{cite web |author-last=Brodkin |author-first=Jon |date=March 23, 2021 |title=Free software advocates seek removal of Richard Stallman and entire FSF board |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/free-software-advocates-seek-removal-of-richard-stallman-and-entire-fsf-board/ |access-date=March 24, 2021 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name="Tor_2021">{{Cite web |title=Mozilla and Tor join calls to oust Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/90618666/mozilla-and-tor-join-calls-to-oust-richard-stallman-from-free-software-foundation |access-date=March 27, 2021 |website=Fast Company |date=March 24, 2021 |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name="OL_2">{{Cite web |title=An open letter in support of RMS |url=https://rms-support-letter.github.io |access-date=March 25, 2021 |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name="Varghese_2021_2">{{Cite web |author-last=Varghese |author-first=Sam |title=iTWire - Pro-Stallman group issues open letter, wants him to stay on FSF board |url=https://itwire.com/open-source/pro-stallman-group-issues-open-letter,-wants-him-to-stay-on-fsf-board.html |access-date=March 25, 2021 |website=itwire.com |language=en-gb}}</ref>

<ref name="FSF_2021_1">{{Cite web |date=April 12, 2021 |title=Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman |url=https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412151531/https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman |archive-date=April 12, 2021 |access-date=April 16, 2021 |website=Free Software Foundation}}</ref>

<ref name="FSF_2021_2">{{Cite web |title=RMS addresses the free software community — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software |url=https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=www.fsf.org}}</ref>

<ref name="OL_3">{{Cite web |title=Statements by other organizations on the reappointment of RMS to the FSF board |url=https://rms-open-letter.github.io/statements.html |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=rms-open-letter.github.io |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Salter_2021">{{Cite web |author-last=Salter |author-first=Jim |date=March 29, 2021 |title=Red Hat withdraws from the Free Software Foundation after Stallman's return |url=https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/red-hat-withdraws-from-the-stallman-led-free-software-foundation/ |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref>

<ref name="FSF_2021_3">{{Cite web |title=Statement on Richard Stallman rejoining the FSF board - FSFE |url=https://fsfe.org/news/2021/news-20210324-01.html |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=FSFE - Free Software Foundation Europe |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Conserv_2021">{{Cite web |title=On the Recent Announcement by FSF's Board of Directors |url=https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/23/outreachy-fsf/ |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=Software Freedom Conservancy|language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Suse_1">{{Cite web |url=https://itwire.com/open-source/suse-joins-open-source-bodies-calling-for-stallman-to-go.html |title=ITWire - SUSE joins open source bodies calling for Stallman to go}}</ref>

<ref name="Suse_2">{{Cite web |title=A Message from the openSUSE Board |url=https://news.opensuse.org/_posts/2021-04-12-a-message-from-the-opensuse-board.md |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=openSUSE News |language=en |archive-date=August 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814095110/https://news.opensuse.org/_posts/2021-04-12-a-message-from-the-opensuse-board.md |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name="OSI">{{Cite web |title=OSI Response to RMS's reappointment to the Board of the Free Software Foundation {{!}} Open Source Initiative |url=https://opensource.org/OSI_Response |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=opensource.org |archive-date=March 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210324084416/https://opensource.org/OSI_Response |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<ref name="DocFound_2021">{{Cite web |date=March 25, 2021 |title=Statement about Richard M. Stallman and the Free Software Foundation |url=https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2021/03/25/statement-on-rms-and-fsf/ |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=The Document Foundation Blog |language=en-GB}}</ref>

<ref name="OBrien_2021">{{Cite web |author-last=O'Brien |author-first=Danny |date=March 24, 2021 |title=Statement on the Re-election of Richard Stallman to the FSF Board |url=https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-richard-stallman-fsf-board |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=Electronic Frontier Foundation |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Tor_2">{{Cite web |title=The Tor Project is joining calls for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from board… |url=https://twitter.com/torproject/status/1374754834050654212 |access-date=May 9, 2021 |website=Twitter |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Varghese_2">{{Cite web |author-last=Varghese |author-first=Sam |title=iTWire - Debian votes for no statement on Stallman's move back to FSF board |url=https://itwire.com/open-source/debian-votes-for-no-statement-on-stallman-s-move-back-to-fsf-board.html |access-date=April 20, 2021 |website=itwire.com |language=en-gb}}</ref>

<ref name="FSF_FAQ">{{Cite web |title=FSF board frequently asked questions (FAQ) — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software |url=https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-board-frequently-asked-questions-faq#FSFfinancialstatus |access-date=July 11, 2021 |website=www.fsf.org}}</ref>

<ref name="Cebe_1">{{Cite web |url=http://cebexpo.net/richard-stallman/ |title=Richard Stallman |date=March 30, 2014}}</ref>

<ref name="Cebe_2">{{Cite web |date=March 30, 2014 |title=Richard Stallman |url=http://cebexpo.net/richard-stallman/ |access-date=April 18, 2021 |website=CEBE: Central European Bitcoin Expo|language=en-US}}</ref>

<ref name="Biography">{{Cite web |title=Biography |url=https://stallman.org/biographies.html |access-date=September 26, 2021 |website=stallman.org}}</ref>
}}

== External links ==
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* , almost all written by Stallman
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Latest revision as of 21:30, 26 December 2024

American free software activist and GNU Project founder (born 1953) "Stallman" redirects here. For the flutist, see Robert Stallman. For the speculative fiction author, see Robert Lester Stallman.

Richard Stallman
Stallman smilingStallman in 2024
BornRichard Matthew Stallman
(1953-03-16) March 16, 1953 (age 71)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Other namesrms (RMS)
Education
Occupations
  • Activist
  • programmer
Known for
Awards
Websitestallman.org Edit this at Wikidata
Signature

Richard Matthew Stallman (/ˈstɔːlmən/ STAWL-mən; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software which ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in October 1985, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote all versions of the GNU General Public License.

Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to write a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software. With that he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including among others, the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU Debugger, and GNU Emacs text editor.

Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft, which uses the principles of copyright law to preserve the right to use, modify, and distribute free software. He is the main author of free software licenses which describe those terms, most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license.

In 1989, he co-founded the League for Programming Freedom. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against software patents, digital rights management (which he refers to as digital restrictions management, calling the more common term misleading), and other legal and technical systems which he sees as taking away users' freedoms. That includes software license agreements, non-disclosure agreements, activation keys, dongles, copy restriction, proprietary formats, and binary executables without source code.

In September 2019, Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his visiting scientist role at MIT after making controversial comments about the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal. Stallman remained head of the GNU Project, and in 2021 returned to the FSF board of directors and others.

Early life

Stallman was born March 16, 1953 in New York City, to a family of Jewish heritage. He had a troublesome relationship with his parents and did not feel he had a proper home. He was interested in computers at a young age; when he was a pre-teen at a summer camp, he read manuals for the IBM 7094. From 1967 to 1969, Stallman attended a Columbia University Saturday program for high school students. He was also a volunteer laboratory assistant in the biology department at Rockefeller University. Although he was interested in mathematics and physics, his supervising professor at Rockefeller thought he showed promise as a biologist.

His first experience with actual computers was at the IBM New York Scientific Center when he was in high school. He was hired for the summer in 1970 after his senior year of high school, to write a numerical analysis program in Fortran. He completed the task after a couple of weeks ("I swore that I would never use FORTRAN again because I despised it as a language compared with other languages") and spent the rest of the summer writing a text editor in APL and a preprocessor for the PL/I programming language on the IBM System/360.

Harvard University and MIT

As a first-year student at Harvard University in fall 1970, Stallman was known for his strong performance in Math 55. He was happy, "For the first time in my life, I felt I had found a home at Harvard."

In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and became a regular in the hacker community, where he was usually known by his initials, RMS, which he used in his computer accounts. Stallman received a bachelor's degree in physics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1974. He considered staying on at Harvard, but instead decided to enroll as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.

While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under Gerry Sussman, Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking. The paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems. As of 2009, the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking. The technique of constraint recording, wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.

As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects like TECO and Emacs for the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS), as well as the Lisp machine operating system (the CONS of 1974–1976 and the CADR of 1977–1979—this latter unit was commercialized by Symbolics and Lisp Machines, Inc. (LMI) starting around 1980). He became an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab, which at that time was funded primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). When MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password, with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to re-enable anonymous access to the systems. Around 20 percent of the users followed his advice at the time, although passwords ultimately prevailed. Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward.

Events leading to GNU

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the hacker culture which Stallman thrived on 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 was a consequence triggered by the US Copyright Act of 1976.

When Brian Reid in 1979 placed time bombs in the Scribe markup language and word processing system to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed it "a crime against humanity". During an interview in 2008, he clarified that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a crime, not the issue of charging for software. Stallman's texinfo is a GPL replacement, loosely based on Scribe; the original version was finished in 1986.

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser 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 waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.

Richard Greenblatt, a fellow AI Lab hacker, founded Lisp Machines, Inc. (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, hackers from the latter camp 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 also forced Greenblatt to resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab's community. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.

Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to share with their neighbors and be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He maintains that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are antisocial and unethical. The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy. He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral value, and not merely for pragmatic reasons such as possibly developing technically superior software. Eric S. Raymond, one of the creators of the open-source movement, argues that moral arguments, rather than pragmatic ones, alienate potential allies and hurt the end goal of removing code secrecy.

In February 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid "visiting scientist" in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.

GNU project

Main article: GNU Project

Stallman announced the plan for the GNU operating system in September 1983 on several ARPANET mailing lists and USENET. He started the project on his own and describes: "As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it."

Stallman in 2003 at the opening ceremony of NIXAL (a GLUG) at Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, India

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 nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman was the nonsalaried president of the FSF, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in Massachusetts.

Stallman 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 (GNU Emacs), compiler (GCC), debugger (GNU Debugger), and a build automator (GNU make). The notable omission was a kernel. In 1990, members of the GNU project began using Carnegie Mellon's Mach microkernel in a project called GNU Hurd, which has yet to achieve the maturity level required for full POSIX compliance.

In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student, used the GNU's development tools to produce the free monolithic Linux kernel. The existing programs from the GNU project were readily ported to run on the resultant platform. Most sources use the name Linux to refer to the general-purpose operating system thus formed, while Stallman and the FSF call it GNU/Linux. This has been a longstanding naming controversy in the free software community. Stallman argues that not using GNU in the name of the operating system unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project and harms the sustainability of the free software movement by breaking the link between the software and the free software philosophy of the GNU project.

Stallman's influences on hacker culture include the name POSIX and the Emacs editor. On Unix systems, GNU Emacs's popularity rivaled that of another editor vi, spawning an editor war. Stallman's take on this was to canonize himself as St. IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs and acknowledge that "vi vi vi is the editor of the beast", while "using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance".

In 1992, developers at Lucid Inc. doing their own work on Emacs clashed with Stallman and ultimately forked the software into what would become XEmacs. The technology journalist Andrew Leonard has characterized what he sees as Stallman's uncompromising stubbornness as common among elite computer programmers:

There's something comforting about Stallman's intransigence. Win or lose, Stallman will never give up. He'll be the stubbornest mule on the farm until the day he dies. Call it fixity of purpose, or just plain cussedness, his single-minded commitment and brutal honesty are refreshing in a world of spin-meisters and multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns.

In 2018, Stallman instituted "Kind Communication Guidelines" for the GNU project to help its mailing list discussions remain constructive while avoiding explicitly promoting diversity.

In October 2019, a public statement signed by 33 maintainers of the GNU project asserted that Stallman's behaviour had "undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users" and called for "GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project". The statement was published soon after Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his "visiting scientist" role at MIT in September 2019. In spite of that, Stallman remained head of the GNU project.

Activism

Stallman has written many essays on software freedom, and has been an outspoken political campaigner for the free software movement since the early 1990s. The speeches he has regularly given are titled The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement, The Dangers of Software Patents, and Copyright and Community in the Age of Computer Networks. In 2006 and 2007, during the eighteen month public consultation for the drafting of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, he added a fourth topic explaining the proposed changes.

Stallman's staunch advocacy for free software inspired the creation of the Virtual Richard M. Stallman (vrms), software that analyzes the packages currently installed on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and reports those that are from the non-free tree. Stallman disagrees with parts of Debian's definition of free software.

In 1999, Stallman called for development of a free online encyclopedia through the means of inviting the public to contribute articles. The resulting GNUPedia was eventually retired in favour of the emerging Misplaced Pages, which had similar aims and was enjoying greater success. Stallman was on the Advisory Council of Latin American television station teleSUR from its launch but resigned in February 2011, criticizing pro-Gaddafi propaganda during the Arab Spring.

Stallman giving a speech on "Free Software and Your Freedom" at the biennale du design of Saint-Étienne (2008)

In August 2006, at his meetings with the government of the Indian 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.

After personal meetings, Stallman obtained positive statements about the free software movement from the then-president of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, French 2007 presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, and the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa.

Stallman has participated in protests about software patents, digital rights management, and proprietary software.

Protesting against proprietary software in April 2006, Stallman held a "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom" placard at an invited talk given by an ATI compiler architect in the building where Stallman worked, resulting in the police being called. AMD has since acquired ATI and has taken steps to make their hardware documentation available for use by the free software community.

Stallman using his Lemote machine at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai

Stallman has characterized Steve Jobs as having a "malign influence" on computing because of Jobs' leadership in guiding Apple to produce closed platforms. According to Stallman, while Jobs was at NeXT, Jobs asked Stallman if he could distribute a modified GCC in two parts, one part under GPL and the other part, an Objective-C preprocessor under a proprietary license. Stallman initially thought this would be legal, but since he also thought it would be "very undesirable for free software", he asked a lawyer for advice. The response he got was that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them, and a judge would ask whether it was "really" one program, rather than how the parts were labeled. Therefore, Stallman sent a message back to Jobs which said they believed Jobs' plan was not allowed by the GPL, which resulted in NeXT releasing the Objective-C front end under GPL.

For a period of time, Stallman used a notebook from the One Laptop per Child program. Stallman's computer is a refurbished ThinkPad X200 with Libreboot (a free BIOS replacement), and Trisquel GNU/Linux. Before the ThinkPad X200, Stallman used a Thinkpad T400s with Libreboot and Trisquel GNU/Linux. And before the T400s, Stallman used a ThinkPad X60, and even further back in time, a Lemote Yeeloong netbook (using the same company's Loongson processor) which he chose because, like the X200, X60 and the T400s, it could run with free software at the BIOS level, stating "freedom is my priority. I've campaigned for freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for the sake of a more convenient computer." Stallman's Lemote was stolen from him in 2012 while he was in Argentina. Before Trisquel, Stallman has used the gNewSense operating system.

Copyright reduction

Stallman has regularly given a talk entitled "Copyright vs. Community" where he reviews the state of digital rights management (DRM) and names many of the products and corporations which he boycotts. His approach to DRM is best summed up by the FSF Defective by Design campaign. In the talks, he makes proposals for a "reduced copyright" and suggests a 10-year limit on copyright. He suggests that, instead of restrictions on sharing, authors be supported using a tax, with revenues distributed among them based on cubic roots of their popularity to ensure that "fairly successful non-stars" receive a greater share than they do now (compare with private copying levy which is associated with proponents of strong copyright), or a convenient anonymous micropayment system for people to support authors directly. He indicates that no form of non-commercial sharing of copies should be considered a copyright violation. He has advocated for civil disobedience in a comment on Ley Sinde.

He has reportedly refused to autograph anything bearing a '©' symbol, in line with his views.

Stallman has helped and supported the International Music Score Library Project get back online, after it had been taken down on October 19, 2007, following a cease and desist letter from Universal Edition.

Stallman at Swatantra 2014, a conference organized by ICFOSS in Kerala, India

Stallman mentions the dangers some e-books bring compared to paper books, with the example of the Amazon Kindle e-reader that prevents the copying of e-books and allows Amazon to order automatic deletion of a book. He says that such e-books present a big step backward with respect to paper books by being less easy to use, copy, lend to others or sell, also mentioning that Amazon e-books cannot be bought anonymously. His short story "The Right to Read" provides a picture of a dystopian future if the right to share books is impeded. He objects to many of the terms within typical end-user license agreements that accompany e-books. He discourages the use of several storage technologies such as DVD or Blu-ray video discs because the content of such media is encrypted. He considers manufacturers' use of encryption on non-secret data (to force the user to view certain promotional material) as a conspiracy.

Stallman recognized the Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal to be a criminal act by Sony and supports a general boycott of Sony for its legal actions against George Hotz. Stallman has suggested that the United States government may encourage the use of software as a service because this would allow them to access users' data without needing a search warrant. He denies being an anarchist despite his wariness of some legislation and the fact that he has "advocated strongly for user privacy and his own view of software freedom".

Terminologies

Stallman, in costume as St. IGNUcius, wearing a halo consisting of the platter of an old hard disk drive (Monastir, Tunisia, 2012)

Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about the world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He asks people to say free software and GNU/Linux, and to avoid the terms intellectual property and piracy (in relation to copying not approved by the publisher). One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout the article.

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, trademark, and other areas of law by lumping together things that are more dissimilar than similar. 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, writing:

These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. Copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of a work of authorship or art. Patent law was intended to encourage publication of ideas, at the price of finite monopolies over these ideas–a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others. Trademark law was not intended to promote any business activity, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying.

Open source and Free software

His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of the importance of terminology, are a source of regular misunderstanding and friction with parts of the free software and open-source communities. After initially accepting the concept, 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. He wrote, "Free software is a political movement; open source is a development model." Thus, he believes that the use of the term will not inform people of the freedom issues, and will not lead to people valuing and defending their freedom. Two alternatives which Stallman does accept are software libre and unfettered software, but free software is the term he asks people to use in English. For similar reasons, he argues for the term proprietary software or non-free software rather than closed-source software, when referring to software that is not free software.

Linux and GNU

Main article: GNU/Linux naming controversy

Stallman asks that the term GNU/Linux, which he pronounces /ɡnuː slæʃ ˈlɪnəks/ GNOO SLASH LIN-əks, be used to refer to the operating system created by combining the GNU system and the kernel Linux. Stallman refers to this operating system as "a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer". 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. Starting around 2003, he began also using the term GNU+Linux, which he pronounces /ɡnuː plʌs ˈlɪnəks/ GNOO PLUS LIN-əks, to prevent others from pronouncing the phrase GNU/Linux as /ɡnuː ˈlɪnəks/ GNOO LIN-əks, which would erroneously imply that the kernel Linux is maintained by the GNU project. The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, has publicly said that he objects to modification of the name and that the rename "is their confusion not ours".

Surveillance resistance

Stallman professes admiration for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. He has spoken against government and corporate surveillance on many occasions.

He refers to mobile phones as "portable surveillance and tracking devices", refusing to own a cell phone due to the lack of phones running entirely on free software. He also avoids using a key card to enter his office building since key card systems track each location and time that someone enters the building using a card. He usually does not browse the web directly from his personal computer. Instead, he uses GNU Womb's grab-url-from-mail utility, an email-based proxy which downloads the webpage content and then emails it to the user. More recently, he said that he accesses all websites via Tor, except for Misplaced Pages (which generally disallows editing from Tor unless users have an IP block exemption).

Comments about Jeffrey Epstein scandal

In September 2019, it was learned that Jeffrey Epstein had made donations to MIT, and in the wake of this, MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito resigned. An internal MIT CSAIL listserv mailing list thread was started to protest the coverup of MIT's connections to Epstein. In the thread, discussion had turned to deceased MIT professor Marvin Minsky, who was named by Virginia Giuffre as one of the people that Epstein had forced her to have sex with. Giuffre, a minor at the time, had been caught in Epstein's underage sex trafficking ring. In response to a comment saying that Minsky "is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", Stallman objected to the inaccurate wording. Minsky was not accused of "assault", and from the victims' testimonies it was not clear whether Minsky had committed "assault", and Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to conceal that from most of his associates". When challenged by other members of the mailing list, he added "It is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17", holding that it was not relevant to the harm that was done to the victim.

Stallman remained critical of Epstein and his role saying "We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex–by Epstein. She was being harmed." Stallman's comments along with a compilation of accusations against him were published via Medium by Selam Gano, who called for him to be removed from MIT. Vice published a copy of the email chain on September 13, 2019. Stallman's writings from 2013 and earlier related to underage sex and child pornography laws resurfaced, increasing the controversy. Tied to his comments regarding Minsky it led to several calling for Stallman's resignation. During the backlash to Stallman's comments regarding the Epstein case, Stallman received criticism for previous writings advocating for the legalization of child pornography and pedophilia. In September 2006, Stallman had written, "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing." On September 14, 2019, Stallman acknowledged that since the time of his past writings, he had learned that there were problems with underage sex, writing on his blog: "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that."

On September 16, 2019, Stallman announced his resignation from both MIT and FSF, "due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations". In a post on his website, Stallman asserted that his posts to the email lists were not to defend Epstein, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a 'serial rapist', and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him—and other inaccurate claims—and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said. I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the misunderstanding." In 2021, he apologized for tone-deafly failing "to acknowledge as context the injustice that Epstein did to women or the pain that caused".

Return to FSF

In March 2021, at LibrePlanet2021, Stallman announced his return to the FSF board of directors. Shortly thereafter, an open letter was published on GitHub asking for Stallman's removal, along with the entire FSF board of directors, with the support of prominent open-source organizations including GNOME and Mozilla. The letter includes a list of accusations against Stallman. In response, an open letter asking for the FSF to retain Stallman was also published, arguing that Stallman's statements were mischaracterized, misunderstood and that they need to be interpreted in context. The FSF board on April 12 made a statement re-affirming its decision to bring back Richard Stallman. After that Stallman issued a statement explaining his poor social skills and apologizing.

Multiple organizations criticized, defunded, and/or cut ties with the FSF including Red Hat, the Free Software Foundation Europe, the Software Freedom Conservancy, SUSE, the OSI, the Document Foundation, the EFF, and the Tor Project. Debian declined to issue a statement after a community vote on the matter. However, the FSF claims that had relatively little financial impact, as it has said direct financial support from corporations accounted for less than 3% of its revenue in the most recent fiscal year.

Personal life

Stallman lives in Boston and moved there after living in Cambridge, Massachusetts for many years. He speaks English, French, Spanish and some Indonesian. He has said that he is "an atheist of Jewish ancestry" and often wears a button that reads "Impeach God". He denies having Asperger's, but has sometimes speculated whether he could have a "shadow" version of it. He says he is childfree.

Stallman has written a collection of filk music and parody songs.

In September 2023, while giving his keynote presentation at the GNU 40th anniversary event, Stallman revealed he had been diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, a form of cancer, and said that his prognosis was good and he hopes to be around for years to come. He later stated he was in remission.

Honors and awards

Selected publications

Manuals

  • Stallman, Richard M. (1980). EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable, Self-Documenting Display Editor. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory publication. AIM-519A.
  • Stallman, Richard M. (2002). GNU Emacs Manual. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: GNU Press. ISBN 1-882114-85-X.
  • Stallman, Richard M.; McGrath, Roland; Smith, Paul D. (2004). GNU Make: A Program for Directed Compilation. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: GNU Press. ISBN 1-882114-83-3.
  • Stallman, Richard (2023). GNU C Language Introduction and Reference Manual. GNU.

Selected essays

See also

References

  1. ^ Stallman, Richard M. "Humorous Bio". Richard Stallman's 1983 biography. First edition of "The Hacker's Dictionary". Retrieved November 20, 2008. 'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'
  2. Stallman, Richard M. (March 7, 2011). "The Free Software Foundation Management". Free Software Foundation. Richard M. Stallman, President. Retrieved July 21, 2011.
  3. ^ Stallman, Richard M. (September 27, 1983). "Initial GNU announcement". Retrieved November 20, 2008.
  4. "Contributors (Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC))". gcc.gnu.org.
  5. "Richard Stallman lecture at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden". gnu.org. October 30, 1986. Retrieved September 21, 2006.
  6. Greenberg, Bernard S. (April 8, 1996). "Multics Emacs: The History, Design and Implementation".; "GNU Emacs FAQ".; Zawinski, Jamie. "Emacs Timeline".
  7. Wheeler, David A. "Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else". Retrieved November 20, 2008.
  8. Svrluga, Susan (September 17, 2019). "Computer scientist Richard Stallman resigns from MIT after comments about Epstein scandal". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
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