Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. Richard Stallman More Quotes by Richard Stallman More Quotes From Richard Stallman The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part. Richard Stallman practicefictionideas You can use any editor you want, but remember that vi vi vi is the text editor of the beast. Richard Stallman editorsusewant If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power. Richard Stallman yokeunjustexercise Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something. Richard Stallman fundamentalsgivingway I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia. Richard Stallman javaislandswriting Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine. Richard Stallman enginessurveillance Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. Richard Stallman androidsdifferentlittles No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs. Richard Stallman insultchurchideas Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy. Richard Stallman digital-technologydigitaltechnology I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place. Richard Stallman wallwritingyears Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking. Richard Stallman hackingdifficult Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance. Richard Stallman awardslearninggiving GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it. Richard Stallman nameswritinggiving Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users dont have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware. Richard Stallman programsoftwaresource By the way, I hope you all know about the worldwide boycott of Coca Cola company for things like murdering union organizers in Colombia. See the site killercoke.org. Richard Stallman coca-colaunionsway It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value". Richard Stallman simplewritingmean Snow is so beautiful, it doesn't have to be useful. Richard Stallman snowbeautiful The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages. Richard Stallman trustappreciatepowerful People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking. Richard Stallman churchusepeople Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft. Richard Stallman programmingcrafts
