Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms,
is an American
free software movement
The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for user (computing), software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets thes ...
activist and
programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming.
The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...
. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software which ensures these freedoms is termed
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
. Stallman launched the
GNU Project
The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...
, founded the
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...
(FSF) in October 1985,
developed the
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that support various programming languages, Computer architecture, hardware architectures, and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes ...
and
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a text editor and suite of free software tools. Its development began in 1984 by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU ...
, and wrote all versions of the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...
.
Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to write a
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...
computer
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
composed entirely of free software.
With that he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including among others, the GNU Compiler Collection,
GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, Assembly, C, C++, D, Fortran, Haskell, Go, Objective-C, OpenCL C, Modula-2, Pascal, Rust, and par ...
,
and GNU Emacs text editor.
Stallman pioneered the concept of
copyleft
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...
, which uses the principles of copyright law to preserve the right to use, modify, and distribute free software. He is the main author of
free software license
A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...
s which describe those terms, most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license.
In 1989, he co-founded the
League for Programming Freedom
League for Programming Freedom (LPF) was founded in 1989 by Richard Stallman to unite free software developers as well as developers of proprietary software to fight against software patents and the extension of the scope of copyright. Their logo ...
. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against
software patents
A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something ...
,
digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...
(which he refers to as digital ''restrictions'' management, calling the more common term misleading), and other legal and technical systems which he sees as taking away users' freedoms; this includes
software license agreements,
non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also known as a confidentiality agreement (CA), confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement (SA), is a legal contract or part of a contract between at le ...
s,
activation keys,
dongles,
copy restriction,
proprietary format
A proprietary file format is a file format of a company, organization, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular encoding-scheme, such that the decoding and interpretation of this stored data is easily ac ...
s, and
binary executable
In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), in ...
s without
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer.
Since a computer, at base, only ...
.
In September 2019, Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his
visiting scientist role at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
after making controversial comments about the
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( , ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...
sex trafficking scandal. Stallman remained head of the GNU Project, and in 2021 returned to the FSF board of directors and others.
Early life
Stallman was born March 16, 1953
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, to a family of
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
heritage.
He had a troublesome relationship with his parents and did not feel he had a proper home.
He was interested in computers at a young age; when he was a pre-teen at a summer camp, he read manuals for the
IBM 7094.
From 1967 to 1969, Stallman attended a
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
Saturday program for high school students.
He was also a volunteer laboratory assistant in the
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
department at
Rockefeller University
The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...
. Although he was interested in mathematics and
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
, his supervising professor at Rockefeller thought he showed promise as a biologist.
His first experience with actual computers was at the
IBM New York Scientific Center when he was in high school. He was hired for the summer in 1970 after his senior year of high school, to write a numerical analysis program in
Fortran.
He completed the task after a couple of weeks ("I swore that I would never use FORTRAN again because I despised it as a language compared with other languages") and spent the rest of the summer writing a text editor in
APL and a
preprocessor
In computer science, a preprocessor (or precompiler) is a Computer program, program that processes its input data to produce output that is used as input in another program. The output is said to be a preprocessed form of the input data, which i ...
for the
PL/I
PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language initially developed by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. It has b ...
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs.
Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...
on the
IBM System/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...
.
Harvard University and MIT
As a first-year student at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in fall 1970, Stallman was known for his strong performance in
Math 55
Math 55 is a two-semester freshman undergraduate mathematics course at Harvard University founded by Lynn Loomis and Shlomo Sternberg. The official titles of the course are Studies in Algebra and Group Theory (Math 55a) and Studies in Real and Co ...
.
He was happy, "For the first time in my life, I felt I had found a home at Harvard."
In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence L ...
,
and became a regular in the
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
community, where he was usually known by his initials, ''RMS'', which he used in his computer accounts.
Stallman received a bachelor's degree in physics (''
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...
'') from Harvard in 1974.
He considered staying on at Harvard, but instead decided to enroll as a graduate student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT). He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the
MIT AI Laboratory.
While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under
Gerry Sussman,
Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI
truth maintenance system, called ''dependency-directed backtracking''.
The paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in
constraint satisfaction problem
Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are mathematical questions defined as a set of objects whose state must satisfy a number of constraints or limitations. CSPs represent the entities in a problem as a homogeneous collection of finite const ...
s. , the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking.
The technique of
constraint recording, wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.
As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects like
TECO and
Emacs
Emacs (), originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor Macros"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...
for the
Incompatible Timesharing System
Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) is a time-sharing operating system developed principally by the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, with help from Project MAC. The name is the jocular complement of the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing Syste ...
(ITS), as well as the
Lisp machine operating system (the
CONS
In computer programming, ( or ) is a fundamental function in most dialects of the Lisp programming language. ''constructs'' memory objects which hold two values or pointers to two values. These objects are referred to as (cons) cells, conses, ...
of 1974–1976 and the CADR of 1977–1979—this latter unit was commercialized by
Symbolics
Symbolics, Inc., is a privately held American computer software maker that acquired the assets of the former manufacturing company of the identical name and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp (programming language), Lisp sy ...
and
Lisp Machines
Lisp Machines, Inc. was a company formed in 1979 by Richard Greenblatt of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to build Lisp machines. It was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
By 1979, the Lisp Machine Project at MIT, originated and he ...
, Inc. (LMI) starting around 1980).
He became an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab, which at that time was funded primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
). When MIT's
Laboratory for Computer Science
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...
(LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password, with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to re-enable anonymous access to the systems. Around 20 percent of the users followed his advice at the time, although passwords ultimately prevailed. Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward.
Events leading to GNU
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the
hacker culture
The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy—often in collective effort—the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware (mostly digital electronics), ...
which Stallman thrived on began to fragment. To prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer.
Since a computer, at base, only ...
and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such
proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...
had existed before, and it became apparent that it would become the norm. This shift in the legal characteristics of software was a consequence triggered by the US
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, ...
.
When
Brian Reid in 1979 placed
time bombs in the
Scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing.
The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
markup language and word processing system to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed it "a crime against humanity".
During an interview in 2008, he clarified that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a crime, not the issue of charging for software.
Stallman's
texinfo
Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form (creating filetypes as , , , etc., and a specific hypertext format, ) with a single source file. It is implemented by a computer program released as ...
is a
GPL replacement, loosely based on Scribe;
the original version was finished in 1986.
In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed
laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a Electric charge, negatively charged cylinder call ...
, the
Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.
Richard Greenblatt, a fellow AI Lab hacker, founded
Lisp Machines, Inc. (LMI) 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, the other hackers felt that the
venture capital
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
-funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, hackers from the latter camp founded
Symbolics
Symbolics, Inc., is a privately held American computer software maker that acquired the assets of the former manufacturing company of the identical name and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp (programming language), Lisp sy ...
, with the aid of
Russ Noftsker, an AI Lab administrator. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers including notable hacker
Bill Gosper, who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics also forced Greenblatt to resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab's community. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.
Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to share with their neighbors and be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He maintains that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are antisocial and unethical.
The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy.
He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral ''value'', and not merely for pragmatic reasons such as possibly developing technically superior software.
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the R ...
, one of the creators of the
open-source movement
The open-source software movement is a social movement that supports the use of open-source licenses for some or all software, as part of the broader notion of open collaboration. The open-source movement was started to spread the concept/idea ...
,
argues that moral arguments, rather than pragmatic ones, alienate potential allies and hurt the end goal of removing code secrecy.
In February 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid
"visiting scientist" in the
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.
GNU project
Stallman announced the plan for the
GNU operating system in September 1983 on several
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...
mailing lists and
USENET
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
.
He started the project on his own and describes: "As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it."

In 1985, Stallman published the
GNU Manifesto
__NOTOC__
The ''GNU Manifesto'' is a direct action, call-to-action by Richard Stallman encouraging participation and support of the GNU Project's goal in developing the GNU free software, free computer operating system. The GNU Manifesto was publ ...
, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
.
The name GNU is a
recursive acronym
A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book '' Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'', in which Hofs ...
for "GNU's Not Unix".
Soon after, he started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman was the nonsalaried president of the FSF, which is a
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...
nonprofit organization founded in
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
.
Stallman popularized the concept of ''copyleft'', a legal 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 (GPL) was released. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed.
Stallman was responsible for contributing many necessary tools, including a
text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...
(
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a text editor and suite of free software tools. Its development began in 1984 by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU ...
),
compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...
(
GCC),
debugger
A debugger is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" programs). Common features of debuggers include the ability to run or halt the target program using breakpoints, step through code line by line, and display ...
(
GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, Assembly, C, C++, D, Fortran, Haskell, Go, Objective-C, OpenCL C, Modula-2, Pascal, Rust, and par ...
), and a
build automator (
GNU make). The notable omission was a
kernel. In 1990, members of the GNU project began using Carnegie Mellon's Mach
microkernel
In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...
in a project called
GNU Hurd
GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, an ...
, which has yet to achieve the maturity level required for full
POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX; ) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines application programming interfaces (APIs), along with comm ...
compliance.
In 1991,
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git.
He was honored, along with Shinya Yam ...
, a
Finnish student, used the GNU's development tools to produce the free
monolithic
A monolith is a monument or natural feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock.
Monolith or monolithic may also refer to:
Architecture
* Monolithic architecture, a style of construction in which a building is carved, cast or excavated f ...
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...
. The existing programs from the GNU project were readily ported to run on the resultant platform. Most sources use the name ''
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
'' to refer to the general-purpose operating system thus formed, while Stallman and the FSF call it ''GNU/Linux''. This has been a longstanding
naming controversy in the free software community. Stallman argues that not using GNU in the name of the operating system unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project and harms the sustainability of the free software movement by breaking the link between the software and the free software philosophy of the GNU project.
Stallman's influences on hacker culture include the name
POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX; ) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines application programming interfaces (APIs), along with comm ...
and the
Emacs
Emacs (), originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor Macros"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...
editor. On
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
systems, GNU Emacs's popularity rivaled that of another editor
vi, spawning an
editor war. Stallman's take on this was to
canonize himself as St. IGNUcius of the
Church of Emacs and acknowledge that "vi vi vi is the
editor of the beast", while "using a free version of vi is not a
sin
In religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of the deities. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered ...
; it is a
penance
Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of contrition for sins committed, as well as an alternative name for the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession.
The word ''penance'' derive ...
".
In 1992, developers at
Lucid Inc.
Lucid Incorporated was a Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park, California-based computer software development company. Founded by Richard P. Gabriel in 1984, it went bankrupt in 1994.
History
The first CEO was Tony Slocum, formerly of IntelliCorp ...
doing their own work on Emacs clashed with Stallman and ultimately
forked the software into what would become
XEmacs
XEmacs is a graphical- and console-based text editor which runs on almost any Unix-like operating system as well as Microsoft Windows. XEmacs is a fork, based on a version of GNU Emacs from the late 1980s. Any user can download, use, and modify ...
.
The technology journalist
Andrew Leonard has characterized what he sees as Stallman's uncompromising stubbornness as common among elite computer programmers:
In 2018, Stallman instituted "Kind Communication Guidelines" for the GNU project to help its mailing list discussions remain constructive while avoiding explicitly promoting diversity.
In October 2019, a public statement signed by 33 maintainers of the GNU project asserted that Stallman's behaviour had "undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users" and called for "GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project".
The statement was published soon after Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his "visiting scientist" role at MIT in September 2019.
In spite of that, Stallman remained head of the GNU project.
Activism
Stallman has written many essays on software freedom, and has been an outspoken political campaigner for the free software movement since the early 1990s.
The speeches he has regularly given are titled ''The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement'',
''The Dangers of Software Patents'',
and ''Copyright and Community in the Age of Computer Networks''.
In 2006 and 2007, during the eighteen month public consultation for the drafting of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, he added a fourth topic explaining the proposed changes.
Stallman's staunch advocacy for free software inspired the creation of the Virtual Richard M. Stallman (
vrms), software that analyzes the packages currently installed on a
Debian GNU/Linux system, and reports those that are from the non-free tree.
Stallman disagrees with parts of Debian's definition of free software.
In 1999, Stallman called for development of a free online encyclopedia through the means of inviting the public to contribute articles.
The resulting
GNUPedia was eventually retired in favour of the emerging
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
, which had similar aims and was enjoying greater success.
Stallman was on the Advisory Council of Latin American television station
teleSUR from its launch
but resigned in February 2011, criticizing pro-Gaddafi propaganda during the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
.
In August 2006, at his meetings with the government of the Indian State of
Kerala
Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
, he persuaded officials to discard proprietary software, such as Microsoft's, at state-run schools. This has resulted in a landmark decision to switch all school computers in 12,500 high schools from
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
to a free software operating system.
After personal meetings, Stallman obtained positive statements about the free software movement from the then-president of India, ,
French 2007 presidential candidate
Ségolène Royal
Ségolène Royal (; born Marie-Ségolène Royal; 22 September 1953) is a French politician who took part in the 2007 French presidential election, losing to Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round. She was the first woman in France's history to r ...
,
and the president of Ecuador
Rafael Correa
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado (; born 6 April 1963) is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as the 45th president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement from its foundation until 2017, Corr ...
.
Stallman has participated in protests about software patents,
digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...
,
and
proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...
.
Protesting against proprietary software in April 2006, Stallman held a "Don't buy from
ATI, enemy of your freedom" placard at an invited talk given by an ATI compiler architect in the building where Stallman worked, resulting in the police being called.
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...
has since acquired ATI and has taken steps to make their hardware documentation available for use by the free software community.

Stallman has characterized
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
as having a "malign influence" on computing because of Jobs' leadership in guiding Apple to produce
closed platform
A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This ...
s.
According to Stallman, while Jobs was at
NeXT
NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...
, Jobs asked Stallman if he could distribute a modified GCC in two parts, one part under GPL and the other part, an
Objective-C
Objective-C is a high-level general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style message passing (messaging) to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was ...
preprocessor under a proprietary license. Stallman initially thought this would be legal, but since he also thought it would be "very undesirable for free software", he asked a lawyer for advice. The response he got was that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them, and a judge would ask whether it was "really" one program, rather than how the parts were labeled. Therefore, Stallman sent a message back to Jobs which said they believed Jobs' plan was not allowed by the GPL, which resulted in NeXT releasing the Objective-C front end under GPL.
For a period of time, Stallman used a notebook from the
One Laptop per Child program. Stallman's computer is a refurbished
ThinkPad X200 with
Libreboot (a free
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...
replacement), and
Trisquel GNU/Linux.
Before the ThinkPad X200, Stallman used a Thinkpad T400s with Libreboot and Trisquel GNU/Linux.
And before the T400s, Stallman used a ThinkPad X60, and even further back in time, a
Lemote Yeeloong
netbook
A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops.
At their inception in l ...
(using the same company's
Loongson
Loongson () is the name of a family of general-purpose, MIPS architecture-compatible, later in-house LoongArch architecture central processing unit, microprocessors, as well as the name of the Chinese Fabless manufacturing, fabless company (Loo ...
processor) which he chose because, like the X200, X60 and the T400s, it could run with free software at the
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...
level, stating "freedom is my priority. I've campaigned for freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for the sake of a more convenient computer."
Stallman's Lemote was stolen from him in 2012 while he was in Argentina.
Before Trisquel, Stallman has used the
gNewSense
gNewSense was a Linux distribution, active from 2006 to 2016. It was based on Debian, and developed with sponsorship from the Free Software Foundation. Its goal was user-friendliness, but with all proprietary (e.g. binary blobs) and non-free ...
operating system.
Copyright reduction
Stallman has regularly given a talk entitled "Copyright vs. Community" where he reviews the state of digital rights management (DRM) and names many of the products and corporations which he boycotts. His approach to DRM is best summed up by the FSF
Defective by Design campaign. In the talks, he makes proposals for a "reduced copyright" and suggests a 10-year limit on copyright. He suggests that, instead of restrictions on sharing, authors be supported using a tax, with revenues distributed among them based on
cubic roots of their popularity to ensure that "fairly successful non-stars" receive a greater share than they do now (compare with
private copying levy
A private copying levy (also known as blank media tax or levy) is a government-mandated scheme in which a special tax or levy (additional to any general sales tax) is charged on purchases of recordable media. Such taxes are in place in variou ...
which is associated with proponents of strong copyright), or a convenient anonymous
micropayment system for people to support authors directly. He indicates that no form of non-commercial sharing of copies should be considered a copyright violation.
He has advocated for
civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...
in a comment on
Ley Sinde.
He has reportedly refused to autograph anything bearing a '©' symbol, in line with his views.
Stallman has helped and supported the
International Music Score Library Project
The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project uses MediaWiki software, and ...
get back online, after it had been taken down on October 19, 2007, following a
cease and desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...
letter from
Universal Edition
Universal Edition (UE) is an Austrian classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, it originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market. The firm soon expanded to become one of t ...
.

Stallman mentions the dangers some
e-books
An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...
bring compared to paper books, with the example of the
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, Audible audiobooks, and other digital media via wireless networking ...
e-reader
An e-reader, also called an e reader or e device, is a Mobile computing, mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and Periodical literature, periodicals.
Any device that can display text on ...
that prevents the copying of e-books and allows Amazon to order automatic deletion of a book. He says that such e-books present a big step backward with respect to paper books by being less easy to use, copy, lend to others or sell, also mentioning that Amazon e-books cannot be bought anonymously. His short story "
The Right to Read" provides a picture of a dystopian future if the right to share books is impeded. He objects to many of the terms within typical
end-user license agreement
An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user.
The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has ...
s that accompany e-books.
He discourages the use of several storage technologies such as
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
or
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
video discs because the content of such media is encrypted. He considers manufacturers' use of encryption on non-secret data (
to force the user to view certain promotional material) as a conspiracy.
Stallman recognized the
Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal to be a criminal act by Sony and supports a general boycott of
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
for its
legal actions against George Hotz.
Stallman has suggested that the United States government may encourage the use of
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
because this would allow them to access users' data without needing a
search warrant
A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize Police, law enforcement officers to conduct a Search and seizure, search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to Confiscation, confiscate an ...
.
He denies being an
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
despite his wariness of some legislation and the fact that he has "advocated strongly for user privacy and his own view of software freedom".
Terminologies

Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about the world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He asks people to say ''free software'' and ''GNU/Linux'', and to avoid the terms ''intellectual property'' and ''
piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...
'' (in relation to copying not approved by the publisher). One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout the article.
Stallman argues that the term ''intellectual property'' is designed to confuse people, and is used to prevent intelligent discussion on the specifics of
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
,
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
,
trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...
, and other areas of law by lumping together things that are more dissimilar than similar.
He also argues that by referring to these laws as property laws, the term biases the discussion when thinking about how to treat these issues, writing:
Open source and Free software
His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of the importance of terminology, are a source of regular misunderstanding and friction with parts of the free software and
open-source communities. After initially accepting the concept,
Stallman rejects a common
alternative term, ''
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...
'', because it does not call to mind what Stallman sees as the value of the software:
freedom
Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws".
In one definition, something is "free" i ...
.
He wrote, "Free software is a political movement; open source is a development model."
Thus, he believes that the use of the term will not inform people of the freedom issues, and will not lead to people valuing and defending their freedom.
Two alternatives which Stallman does accept are ''software libre'' and ''unfettered software'', but ''free software'' is the term he asks people to use in English. For similar reasons, he argues for the term ''
proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...
'' or ''non-free software'' rather than ''
closed-source software'', when referring to software that is not free software.
Linux and GNU
Stallman asks that the term ''GNU/Linux'', which he pronounces , be used to refer to the operating system created by combining the GNU system and the kernel Linux. Stallman refers to this operating system as "a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer".
He claims that the connection between the GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people refer to the combination as merely Linux.
Starting around 2003, he began also using the term ''GNU+Linux'', which he pronounces , to prevent others from pronouncing the phrase ''GNU/Linux'' as , which would erroneously imply that the kernel Linux is maintained by the GNU project.
The creator of Linux,
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git.
He was honored, along with Shinya Yam ...
, has publicly said that he objects to modification of the name and that the rename "is their
FSF">Free_software_foundation.html" ;"title="he Free software foundation">FSFconfusion not ours".
Surveillance resistance
Stallman professes admiration for Julian Assange
and Edward Snowden.
He has spoken against government and corporate surveillance on many occasions.
He refers to mobile phones as "portable surveillance and
tracking devices",
refusing to own a cell phone due to the lack of phones running entirely on free software.
He also avoids using a key card to enter his office building
since key card systems track each location and time that someone enters the building using a card. He usually does not browse the web directly from his personal computer. Instead, he uses GNU Womb's grab-url-from-mail utility, an email-based proxy which downloads the webpage content and then emails it to the user.
In a 2016 interview, he said that he accesses all websites via
Tor
Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to:
Places
* Toronto, Canada
** Toronto Raptors
* Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain
* Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city
* Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano
* Tor Bay, Devon, England
* Tor ...
, except for Wikipedia (which generally disallows editing from Tor).
Comments about Jeffrey Epstein scandal
In September 2019, it was learned that
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( , ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...
had made donations to MIT, and in the wake of this,
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...
director
Joi Ito resigned. An internal MIT
CSAIL listserv
The term Listserv (styled by the registered trademark licensee, L-Soft International, Inc., as LISTSERV) has been used to refer to electronic mailing list software applications in general, but is more properly applied to a few early instances of ...
mailing list thread was started to protest the coverup of MIT's connections to Epstein.
In the thread, discussion had turned to deceased MIT professor
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive scientist, cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research in artificial intelligence (AI). He co-founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...
, who was named by
Virginia Giuffre as one of the people that Epstein had forced her to have sex with. Giuffre, a minor at the time, had been caught in Epstein's underage sex trafficking ring.
In response to a comment saying that Minsky "is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", Stallman objected to the inaccurate wording. Minsky was not accused of "assault", and from the victims' testimonies it was not clear whether Minsky had committed "assault", and Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to conceal that from most of his associates".
When challenged by other members of the mailing list, he added "It is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as
which country it was in or whether the victim was
18 years old or 17", holding that it was not relevant to the harm that was done to the victim.
Stallman remained critical of Epstein and his role, saying "We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex–by Epstein. She was being harmed."
Stallman's comments along with a compilation of accusations against him
were published via
Medium by Selam Gano, who called for him to be removed from MIT.
''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...
'' published a copy of the email chain on September 13, 2019.
Stallman's writings from 2013 and earlier related to underage sex and child pornography laws resurfaced, increasing the controversy.
Tied to his comments regarding Minsky it led to several calling for Stallman's resignation.
During the backlash to Stallman's comments regarding the Epstein case, Stallman received criticism for previous writings advocating for the
legalization of child pornography and pedophilia. In September 2006, Stallman had written, "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing." On September 14, 2019, Stallman acknowledged that since the time of his past writings, he had learned that there were problems with underage sex, writing on his blog: "Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm
per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that."
On September 16, 2019, Stallman announced his resignation from both MIT and FSF, "due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations".
In a post on his website, Stallman asserted that his posts to the email lists were not to defend Epstein, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. I've called him a 'serial rapist', and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him—and other inaccurate claims—and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said. I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the misunderstanding."
Return to FSF
In March 2021, at
LibrePlanet2021, Stallman announced his return to the FSF board of directors.
Shortly thereafter, an open letter was published on
GitHub
GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
asking for Stallman's removal, along with the entire FSF board of directors, with the support of prominent
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
organizations including
GNOME
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...
and
Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
. The letter includes a list of accusations against Stallman.
In response, an open letter asking for the FSF to retain Stallman was also published, arguing that Stallman's statements were mischaracterized, misunderstood and that they need to be interpreted in context.
The FSF board on April 12 made a statement re-affirming its decision to bring back Richard Stallman.
After that Stallman issued a statement explaining his poor social skills and apologizing.
Multiple organizations criticized, defunded, and/or cut ties with the FSF
including
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...
,
the
Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...
,
the
Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (also known as "Conservancy") is an organization that provides a Nonprofit organization, non-profit home, infrastructure support, and legal support for free software, free and open source software projects. The ...
,
SUSE,
the
OSI,
the
Document Foundation,
the
EFF,
and the
Tor Project.
Debian
Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...
declined to issue a statement after a community vote on the matter.
However, the FSF claims that had relatively little financial impact, as it has said direct financial support from corporations accounted for less than 3% of its revenue in the most recent fiscal year.
Personal life
Stallman lives in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
and moved there after living in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
for many years.
He speaks English, French, Spanish and some Indonesian.
He has said that he is "an
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
of
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
ancestry"
and often wears a button that reads "Impeach God".
He denies having
Asperger's, but has sometimes speculated whether he could have a "shadow"
version of it.
He says he is
childfree.
Stallman has written a collection of
filk music
Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to Science fiction fandom, science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and been played primarily since the mid-197 ...
and parody songs.
In September 2023, while giving his keynote presentation at the GNU 40th anniversary event, Stallman revealed he had been diagnosed with
follicular lymphoma, a form of
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
, and said that his prognosis was good and he hopes to be around for years to come. He later stated he was in remission and he was getting treatment.
Honors and awards
* 1986: Honorary lifetime membership of the
Chalmers University of Technology
Chalmers University of Technology (, commonly referred to as Chalmers) is a private university, private research university located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Chalmers focuses on engineering and science, but more broadly it also conducts research ...
Computer Society
* 1990: Exceptional merit award
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...
("genius grant")
* 1990: The Association for Computing Machinery's
Grace Murray Hopper Award
The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or serv ...
"For pioneering work in the development of the extensible editor EMACS (Editing Macros)"
* 1996: Honorary doctorate from Sweden's
Royal Institute of Technology
KTH Royal Institute of Technology (), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technology and is Sweden's largest technical university. Since 2018, KTH consist ...
* 1998: Electronic Frontier Foundation's
Pioneer Award
* 1999:
Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award
* 2001: The Takeda Techno-Entrepreneurship Award for Social/Economic Well-Being ()
* 2001: Honorary doctorate from the
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...
* 2002: US
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...
membership "for starting the GNU project, which produced influential, non-proprietary software tools, and for founding the free software movement"
* 2003: Honorary doctorate from the
* 2004: Honorary doctorate from the
Universidad Nacional de Salta
* 2004: Honorary professorship from the
Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería del Perú
* 2007: Honorary professorship from the
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University
* 2007: First Premio Internacional Extremadura al Conocimiento Libre
* 2007: Honorary doctorate from the
Universidad de Los Angeles de Chimbote
* 2007: Honorary doctorate, from the
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...
* 2008: Honorary doctorate from the
Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, in Peru
* 2009: Honorary doctorate from
Lakehead University
* 2011: Honorary doctorate from
National University of Córdoba
* 2012: Honorary professorship from the
Universidad César Vallejo de Trujillo in Peru
* 2012: Honorary doctorate from the Universidad Latinoamericana Cima de Tacna in Peru
* 2012: Honorary doctorate from the , in Peru
* 2014: Honorary doctorate from
Concordia University
Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...
in Montréal
* 2015:
ACM Software System Award
The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...
"For the development and leadership of GCC"
* 2016: Honorary doctorate from
Pierre and Marie Curie University
Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...
* 2016: Social Medicine award from
GNU Solidario
Selected publications
Manuals
*
*
*
*
Selected essays
*
See also
*
9882 Stallman, a minor planet named after Richard
* ''
Free as in Freedom'', a biography by Sam Williams
*
Free Software Street
*
GNU
GNU ( ) is an extensive collection of free software (394 packages ), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popu ...
*
History of free and open-source software
*
Lisp Machine Lisp
* ''
Revolution OS''
References
External links
*
In Support of Richard Stallman a website which advocates for Stallman.
*
*
*
Essays on the ''Philosophy of the GNU Project'' almost all written by Stallman
Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman 3rd edition, free pdf book written by Stallman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stallman, Richard Matthew
1953 births
Activists from New York City
American atheists
American bloggers
American computer programmers
Articles containing video clips
American artificial intelligence researchers
Copyright activists
American education activists
Emacs
Filkers
Free software people
Free software programmers
GNU people
Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni
Internet activists
Jewish American atheists
Jewish American scientists
Linux people
Lisp (programming language) people
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
Members of the Free Software Foundation board of directors
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
Privacy activists
Programming language designers
Hackers