Free Software Free Society 3rd Edition by Richard M. Stallman

I use his software everyday to get things done. So when I created a distro, I call my distro Crankshaft GNU slash Linux. But Stallman wanted to call desktop distros GNU/Linux. I wonder if he will actually be the last person who is a genius and willing to set aside personal financial interests and live humbly, or maybe he will be the last person that has the balls to actually do it.īTW - Normally I don't care what people call anything. We need more people who stand up and fight for software freedom. Last time I sent him a happy birthday note, he replied something like he will not live forever. So I just sent him notes thanking him for GNU on GNU anniversary and wishing him a happy birthday on his birthday. I don't have much to say to Stallman most of the times. I know he couldn't possibly have hired a person who pretends to be him - he corrected the lingo of the sender. He actually spent time to read and answer every single email I sent to him despite me being a little no one. But not everyone knows he is also one of the nicest, most honest, down-to-earth people ever. And in the life that produced these words and works, there is inspiration forĪnyone who would, like Stallman, fight to create this freedom.Įveryone knows Stallman is very hard to work with. But whether we succeed or fail, in these essays is a picture of what that freedom could be. And we will come to see that no man, through his deeds or words, has done as much to make possible the freedom

Yet when our world finally comes to understand the power and danger of code - when it finally sees that code, like laws, or like government, must be transparent to be free-then we will look back at this uncompromising and persistent programmerĪnd recognize the vision he has fought to make real: the vision of a world where freedom and knowledge survives the compiler. > He is uncompromising and persistent patient in both. His anger can flare at friend as easily as foe.

I know him well enough to know he is a hard man to like. We have indeed not earned that freedom yet. Wow, the close of Lessig's introduction is powerful.

Free Software Free Society 3rd Edition by Richard M. Stallman