'''[https://stallman.org/%|%Richard Stallman]''', AKA '''RMS''', is the founder
of the [FSF%|%Free Software Foundation] and the [GNU] project.  He is also the
author of the [GPL].  



** Reading **

   [http://features.slashdot.org/story/13/01/06/163248/richard-stallman-answers-your-questions%|%Richard Stallman Answers Your Questions] slashdot, 2013-01-17:   

   [http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/%|%Free as in Freedom] ([https://archive.org/details/faif-2.0%|%PDF]), Sam Williams, 2002-03:  Available online in its entirety:   

   [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html%|%My Lisp Experiences and the Development of GNU Emacs], Richard Stallman, 2002:   

   [https://web.archive.org/web/20050109190107/http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/603961%|%How free is open? An interview with Richard M. Stallman], [Cameron Laird], 2004:   

   [http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/09/richard-stallman-on-the-hacker-spirit-at-mit/index.htm%|%Richard Stallman on the Hacker Spirit at MIT], Glyn Moody, 2013-09-30:   

   [http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/10/richard-stallman-on-the-painful-birth-of-gnu/index.htm%|%Richard Stallman on the Painful Birth of GNU], Glyn Moody, 2013-10-02:   

   [http://mgross.com/writing/books/the-more-things-change/bonus-chapters/richard-stallman-high-school-misfit-symbol-of-free-software-macarthur-certified-genius/%|%Richard Stallman: High School Misfit, Symbol of Free Software, MacArthur-Certified Genius]:   

   [http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-richard-stallman.html%|%Open And Shut], by Richard Poynder 2006-03-21:   


** Video **

   [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvwkaHBrDyI%|%How to Learn to Program]:   in which RMS does an uncannily good impression of [gwlester]



** Description **

Stallman wrote [Emacs], [GCC], and numerous other free programs.  While at the
[MIT] [Category AI%|%AI%|%] Lab, he famously single-handedly cloned the output of the
entire Symbolics programming team, making his work directly available to
Symbolics' competitor, Lisp Machines Incorporated.  This was in response to
Symbolics' decision to stop sharing their source code with the AI Lab.  "I was
going to punish Symbolics if it was the last thing I did,"
[http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch07.html%|%Stallman said].  Another
formative event was the sale of Gosling Emacs by James Gosling to UniPress, who
then successfully forced Stallman to stop distributing the Gosling source code
that Stallman had previously received permission to incorporate into Emacs.
Stallman's response to this turn of events was the [GPL].

Stallman has been claimed to be aggressive towards competing projects. 
Jamie Zawinski complained that he
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.lucid-emacs.help/wpGcc_IY_jo/Ob-7PEfZlbkJ%|%unfairly
stifled news of Lucid Emacs], and [Cedric Beust%|%Cédric Beust]
[http://beust.com/weblog2/archives/000014.html%|%wrote a critique] describing
Stallman's leadership failure at the time.  Ulrich Drepper accused Stallman of
[http://sourceware.org/ml/libc-announce/2001/msg00000.html%|%attempting a
hostile takeover of glibc].  He insists that most [Linux] distributions
should be called [https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html%|%GNU/Linux].

** RMS and Tcl **

In 1994, when he was promoting [Guile], Stallman
posted a
[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.tcl/7JXGt-Uxqag/3JBTj5I43yAJ%|%diatribe
against Tcl] to [comp.lang.tcl]. At the 1999 LinuxWorld Convention and Expo, Stallman
called [JO%|%John Ousterhout] a
[http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch11.html%|%parasite on the free software
community].

** Trivia **

   RMS was a [http://beust.com/weblog2/archives/000014.html%|%vocal critic of the mouse]:   

In spite to the free-love nature of the [GPL], and contrary to his own outer
appearance, Stallman ''wasn't'' a hippie:

    :   "The world is a certain way. They wanted to believe in a fairy-tale. But at the time, there was a nice thing about them. which is that they wanted people to love each other and not hurt each other, which I thought was a good thing. But all told, I couldn’t be part of that. I didn’t want to get involved with the use of drugs, which I thought of as scary and dangerous and foolish. And clearly, they had no idea of caution. They were taking crazy risks because they didn’t understand that they could be hurt. I’d read that-supposedly–young people don’t believe they can die. Well, that never happened to me. I can’t understand how anyone can not believe that he can die." [http://mgross.com/writing/books/the-more-things-change/bonus-chapters/richard-stallman-high-school-misfit-symbol-of-free-software-macarthur-certified-genius/%|%ref]


** Good Clean Fun **

   [https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developers-public/2011-October/007647.html%|%Speaking Engagement Info Packet]:   in which Stallman empathizes with the plight of parrots

   Stallman is [http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/533096562.html%|%looking for love]:    

   [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pube5Aynsls%|%Soulja Boy Dance, MIT Style]:   
   "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE%|%Giving the Linus Torvalds award to the Free Software Foundation] is sort of like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Fleet":    

   [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neRw5b7HVjw&feature%|%Dancing with a gnu]:   

   [https://rms.sexy/%|%sexy!]:   


[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/open_source.png]

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Giuseppe_Craffonara_Christus.jpg/184px-Giuseppe_Craffonara_Christus.jpg]

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Richard_Matthew_Stallman_cropped.jpeg]

[http://i.stack.imgur.com/6xRKP.jpg]




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