Stallman: Free software is matter of good vs. evil
Students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County got a lecture today about morals, ethics and politics from radical software developer Richard M. Stallman, a founder of the free-software movement.
Free software is not about the price of software or even about the quality or practicality of it, according to Stallman. It is much more important than that. “This is about ethics,” he said. “That is, good and evil.”
Just so you understand which side Stallman comes down on, proprietary software and restrictive licensing agreements are evil. “Free software respects the user’s freedom,” he said. His goal: Use exclusively free software.
Free software is free not necessarily in the sense of price, but in the sense that it comes with no restrictions or strings attached for the user. “Think free speech rather than free beer,” he says.
Stallman’s roots go back to the 1970s to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when coding was called hacking and software development was a calling rather than a business. He remains true to those roots, and most of his efforts today are devoted to the Free Software Foundation he founded in the 1980s as a vehicle for developing a free software operating system.
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re: Stallman
Stallman - the real life Matt Foley.
Hard to believe that after hearing Stallman speak at their Uni, students aren't flocking to CS careers so that they too can live like vagrants, have no car, no house, or clothes made in this century (but all the Thorazine the free clinics can offer).