Richard Stallman |
Richard Matthew Stallman, (a.k.a. RMS), (born March 16, 1953) is the founder of the free software movement, the GNU project, and the Free Software Foundation. He is a renowned Hacker, whose major accomplishments include Emacs (and the later GNU Emacs), the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger. He is also the author of the GNU General Public License ( GNU GPL or GPL ), the most widely-used free software license, which pioneered the concept of the copyleft.
Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time as a political campaigner, advocating free software and campaigning against software patents and expansions of Copyright law. The time that he still devotes to computer programming is spent on GNU Emacs. He supports himself by being paid for around half of the speeches he gives.
=Biography=
Stallman was born in Manhattan to Alice Lippman. His first access to a computer came during his high school senior year at high school in 1969. Hired by the IBM New York Scientific Center, Stallman spent the summer after his high-school graduation writing his first program, a preprocessor for the PL/I programming language on the IBM 360. 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, [http://www.faifzilla.org/ch03.html chapter 3])
Stallman was simultaneously a volunteer Laboratory Assistant in the Biology Department at Rockefeller University. 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, [http://www.faifzilla.org/ch03.html chapter 3])
In June 1971, as a freshman at Harvard University (graduated with a BA in Physics in 1974), Stallman became a programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he became a fixture in the hacker community. During these years, he was perhaps better known by his initials, RMS . In the first edition of the Jargon File , he wrote, Richard Stallman is just my mundane name; you can call me rms . [http://stallman.org/index.html#humorousbio]
==Decline of MIT s hacker culture==
In the 1980s, the Hacker culture in which Stallman lived began to dissolve. The emergence of portable software — software that could be made to run on different types of computers — 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 from being used on their competitors computers, manufacturers stopped distributing source code and began restricting copying and redistribution of their software by copyrighting it. Such restricted software had existed before, but now there was no escape from it.
In 1980 Richard Greenblatt (programmer), a fellow AI lab hacker, founded Lisp Machines, Inc. 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, Russ Noftsker and other hackers felt that the venture-capital funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, most of the remaining lab hackers founded Symbolics. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers — most notably Bill Gosper — and they left the AI lab. Symbolics forced Greenblatt to resign too by quoting MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab.
For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, 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 rejected a future where he would have to sign non-disclosure agreements and perform other actions he considered betrayals of his principles, and chose instead to share his work with others in what he regarded as a classical spirit of scientific collaboration.
Stallman argues that software users should have freedom — 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 [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/stallman.html]. The phrase software wants to be free is commonly attributed to him, but he did not say it. He argues that freedom is vital in and of itself and not merely because it may lead to improved software. Consequently, in January 1984, he quit his job at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work full time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. He did not complete a Doctor of Philosophy but has been awarded four honorary degree doctoral degrees (see below).
==Founding GNU==
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 incorporated the non-profit organization Free Software Foundation (FSF) to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software community.
In 1985, Stallman invented and popularized the concept of copyleft , a law 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 was released. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed, with the notable exception of a Kernel (computer science). Members of the GNU project began a kernel called GNU Hurd in 1990, but a risky design decision proved to be a bad gamble, and development of the Hurd was slow.
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 1991, one such independent project produced the Linux kernel. Fortuitously, 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 the Linux kernel and the operating system created by combining the incomplete GNU system and the Linux kernel caused confusion, and most people used the name Linux to refer to both.
=Terminology=
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 Intellectual property . 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 community.
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, for efficiency´s sake. [http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/19E0B3D9F6981357CA256D44001ACA0A] This style has earned him a reputation of being high-maintenance [http://www.iwr.co.uk/features/1133127]. He also turns down speaking requests over some terminology issues. [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html]
Stallman is prone to being something of a monologuist. He does not take kindly to criticism or interruption.
==Free Software==
Stallman accepts terms such as Libre software, Free/Libre/Open-Source Software, and unfettered software , but prefers the term free software since a lot of energy has been invested in that term. (For similar reasons, he asks people to say proprietary software , not closed source software , when referring to software that is not free software.)
The term free software , however, can mean either freedom software or zero-cost software or both. Over the years, people have tried to come up a more intuitive and less ambiguous term. See Gratis versus Libre and Open-source software.
Stallman strongly objects to the term open source to replace the term free since he says it hides the goal of freedom.[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html] He declines interviews for stories that would label his work as open source because that would misrepresent his views.
==GNU/Linux==
Stallman asks people to GNU/Linux naming controversy, 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 . [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html]
==Copyright, patents, and trademarks==
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 these specific laws. 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 . [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml]
Not being a lawyer, Stallman does not claim to be an expert on the details of all these various laws.
==Lesser terminology issues==
*Stallman has recommended 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 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 [http://perens.com/Articles/OASIS.html], but Stallman s term is not widely used. *He asks people to reject the term piracy for the act of copying information because piracy has always designated the act of robbery or plundery at sea, the term being misused by today s corporations to lend a greater importance to the act of copying software or other immaterial things. *He refers to digital audio discs that use Copy control and other similar technology to copy protection as corrupt discs rather than Compact disc to emphasize that they break the Red Book (audio CD standard) and that recent discs are printed without the Compact Disc logo *He coined the term Trusted computing to refer to what many manufacturers and industry analysts call Trusted Computing , on the grounds that it limits the freedoms of users.
A list of all the terminology issues he takes a stance on can be found on the [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html Words to avoid ] page on the GNU website.
=Speeches=
Since the early-1990s, he has spent most of his time as a political campaigner. The titles of the three speeches he gives most often are The GNU project and the Free Software movement , The Dangers of Software Patents , and Copyright and Community in the age of computer networks . He has given numerous keynote speeches at conferences, including the first Wikimania conference in 2005.
=Criticism=
Stallman is characterized by some as being extremely difficult to work with. The released an archive of email messages detailing the history of the Emacs/XEmacs split. [http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html] He discusses specific shortcomings of the Emacs design, but at a high level attributes the problems with Emacs not simply to technology, but to Stallman s perceived inability to work with others. Stallman s own view of the XEmacs split differs considerably, and describes the XEmacs team as being uncooperative. [http://stallman.org/articles/xemacs.origin]
Stallman s insistence on using the term GNU/Linux to describe Linux-based operating systems is perceived as high-handed by some; , that are arguably just as important as GNU. [http://www.ties.org/deven/gnu-linux.html] [http://www.usermode.org/docs/gnulinux.html] Stallman responds that this is illogical, as X11 gets no less credit from the name GNU/Linux than it gets from Linux alone. [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#many]
=Trivia=
*An aficionado of a wide range of music from Conlon Nancarrow to folk music, Stallman is the author of the Filk musicy Free Software Song. He has performed renaissance music and Balinese gamelan music, as well as international folk dance. He plays the recorder. *Stallman is a science fiction fan and occasionally goes to conventions. *Stallman gave POSIX its name. *In 1977, Stallman published an AI Truth maintenance systems called dependency-directed backtracking. The paper was co-authored by Gerald Jay Sussman. He jokes that This is how the computer can avoid exploding when you ask it a self-contradictory question. [http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/mcallester90truth.html] *When asked who his influences are, he has remarked that he admires , even though I criticize some of the things that they did. *Stallman has never learned Java programming language. Nearly all of his work is in C programming language and Lisp programming languages. *Stallman did not participate in the counterculture of the 60s, but found its rejection of wealth as the main goal of life inspiring. *Stallman initially named the GNU GNU Hurd kernel Alix after his then-girlfriend, who managed a Unix computer facility and had told her friends They ought to name a kernel after me. *Stallman speaks fluent English language and French language, moderately fluent Spanish language, and flawed Indonesian language. He has studied Latin, Chinese, Hungarian, and Navajo, but did not reach the point of being able to speak them. He feels he has mastered a language when he can make puns in it. [http://stallman.org/spanish_puns.html]
*In 2004, having been asked, he endorsed Hugo_Chávez, recommending people to vote No in the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004 *The movie documentary Revolution OS features interviews with Stallman. *He has been the subject, or some would say the instigator, of a number of widely-publicized flamewars. Although occasionally for technical reasons (Tcl vs. Scheme programming language), most of these flamewars have revolved around the use of non-free software. *Stallman founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989 to fight Software patent and interface copyright. The League never gained the momentum Stallman hoped for, and has become dormant. *In 1999, Stallman called for development of a free on-line encyclopedia through the means of inviting the public to contribute articles. [http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html] *Stallman cannot Swimming. *Stallman is on the Advisory Council of teleSUR, a Latin America Television station *Linus Torvalds said: Think of Richard Stallman as the great philosopher and think of me as the engineer. [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2002/janfeb/showcase/motionpictures.html] *Stallman notably produced the Emacs editor; its popularity rivaled that of another editor vi, spawning the Editor war; Stallman s humourous take on this was to saint himself St. Ignucius / St. IGNUcius (of the Church of Emacs). [http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/80957.php] [http://www.stallman.org/saint.html]
=Recognition=
Stallman has received numerous prizes and awards for his work, amongst them:
=Links and references=
==Publications by Richard Stallman==
*Stallman, Richard M. & Sussman, Gerald J. (November 1975). 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. (1977). 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. (1981). EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable, Self-Documenting Display Editor . Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory publication AIM-519A. [ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-519A.pdf PDF] [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html HTML] *Stallman, Richard M. (2002). GNU Emacs Manual: Fifteenth edition for GNU Emacs Version 21 . Cambridge, Massachusetts: [http://www.gnupress.org/ GNU Press]. ISBN 188211485X. *Stallman, Richard M. (2002). Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman . Cambridge, Massachusetts: [http://www.gnupress.org/ GNU Press]. ISBN 1882114981. (Also available online in various formats, e.g. PDF [http://notabug.com/2002/rms-essays.pdf].) *Stallman et al (2004). GNU Make: A Program for Directed Compilation . Cambridge, Massachusetts: [http://www.gnupress.org/ GNU Press]. ISBN 1882114833.
==Bibliography==
==External links==
*[http://www.stallman.org stallman.org] - Richard Stallman s personal Homepage. *[http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ His weblog] *[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html Free Unix!] - The original GNU announcement *[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ GNU philosophy pages] - Contains around 50 essays, mostly written by RMS. *[http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/index.shtml Prince Kropotkin of Software] Chapter 3 of the open ebook Portraits of Open Source Pioneers
===Speeches===
*[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html The GNU Philosophy Audio pages] - Ogg Vorbis recordings of 15 speeches by RMS, plus one video. *[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html RMS lecture at KTH] - at the Royal Institute of Technology (1986). *[http://www.df.lth.se/~triad/stallman.html Stallman Lecture] in Lund, Sweden February 11, 2000 *[http://www.hubproject.org/news/2003/12/440.php Richard Stallman speaks] - at the World Summit on the Information Society (2003). *[http://stream.unice.fr:8000/essi/stallman.ogg April 2004, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France] (Ogg/Theora video) *[http://www.ulm.ccc.de/chaos-seminar/rms/video-en.html Nov 2004, University of Ulm, Germany: Software patents] (audio and video, different formats) *[http://www.archive.org/details/RMS-20050518-SoftwarePatents May 2005, University of Calgary, Canada: Software patents] (audio and video, different formats)
==Interviews==
*[http://alternativefreedom.blogspot.com/ Alternative Freedom Documentary featuring Richard Stallman] *[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/byte-interview.html BYTE Interview with Richard Stallman] - conducted by the now-defunct Byte magazine, at the beginning of the GNU project (July 1986). *[http://www.mgross.com/MoreThgsChng/interviews/stallman1.html Richard Stallman: High School Misfit, Symbol of Free Software, MacArthur-Certified Genius] (1999). *[http://www.builderau.com.au/program/0,39024614,39130008,00.htm Developer Spotlight: Richard Stallman] (July 2004). *[http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview] (December 2004). *[http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484 Kerneltrap.org Interview: Richard Stallman] (January 2005). *[http://eurohacker.mine.nu/issue2/a05.html Interview with RMS] in EuroHacker Magazine. *[http://non-tech-city.com/2005/05/13/interview-richard-stallman/ Interview with RMS from Non-Tech City]. *[http://radiotux.de/interviews/stallman_interview.ogg Audio Interview with Richard Stallman] by RadioTux and ORF at the WIKIMANIA 2005|
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