FreeSoftware activist, founder of the
GnuProject, and author of a huge number of free tools:
GnuEmacs, GNU compiler (gcc), and debugger (gdb), etc...
Personal homepage:
http://stallman.org
Not a member of the
SoftwareConspiracy
Subject of the recent biography "
FreeAsInFreedom".
This interview with
PigDogJournal will give you something of the style, substance and substrate of the man:
http://www.pigdog.org/interview_with_stallman.html
He is also thought by some to have
CarpalTunnelSyndrome.
Also known as RMS, he is a
ThreeLetterPerson.
A new interview (5/1/2000) with the man appears here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/01/1052216&mode=thread
On Monday, April 17th, we requested questions for Richard M. Stallman. Here, at last, are his answers. Warning: The interview below contains mature concepts and strong opinions. It may not be suitable reading for easily-angered readers whose views conflict with Mr Stallman's.
Personal comment about the Warning above: Bring me a man who does not anger anyone, who does not bring forward discussion and controversy, and I will show you the Master's pet that he is.
Some excerpts from
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html (1986):
RichardStallman is not just an altruistic hacker trying to change the world of software development; he is an argumentative politician who is not afraid of provoking, upsetting and bugging people who don't agree with him. In spite of what you could assume intuitively, RMS even goes so far as to heatedly criticize
OpenSourceSoftware developers that use less restrictive licences than the
GeneralPublicLicense (i.e. give away their work with minimal restrictions, but don't propagate
FreeSoftware ideology).
As an unsurprising consequence, RMS is a very controversial character and subject of frequent emotional discussions/
FlameWars. It is in fact hard to collaboratively write up objective information about him without being interrupted by zealous fans on one side ("
RMS is a genius!") and passionate critics on the other side ("
RMS is dumb as a brick!").
[much heated
ThreadMode discussion moved to
RichardStallmanDiscussion]
CategoryPerson