157 Quotes by Richard Stallman

While corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance in technology is an opening for them to further restrict its users.

Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine.

I'm trying to change the way people approach knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge, to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop other people from sharing it, is sabotage.

EMACS could not have been reached by a process of careful design, because such processes arrive only at goals which are visible at the outset, and whose desirability is established on the bottom line at the outset. Neither I nor anyone else visualized an extensible editor until I had made one, nor appreciated its value until he had experienced it. EMACS exists because I felt free to make individually useful small improvements on a path whose end was not in sight.

With paper printed books, you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash, which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.

Laws that oppress people have no moral authority

Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.

Our mailing lists (and their repeater newsgroups) are only for the purpose of promoting proprietary software.

Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy.