Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Because I don't believe that it's really desirable to have security on a computer, I shouldn't be willing to help uphold the security regime.
There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive.
If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.
I have not seen anyone assume that all the citizens of New York are guilty of murder, violence, robbery, perjury, or writing proprietary software.
Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.
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.
Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.
Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.
Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know.
Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.
It's clear that other problems such as [...] the domination of business over government, science, thought, and society, are much bigger than non-free software.
Now that corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users.
If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
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.
Would a dating service for people on the net be "frowned upon" by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.
The reason that a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.
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.
If there is a Like button in a page, Facebook knows who visited that page. And it can get IP address of the computer visiting the page even if the person is not a Facebook user.
In essence, Chrome OS is the GNU/Linux operating system. However, it is delivered without the usual applications, and rigged up to impede and discourage installing applications.
In terms of effect on the world, it's very good that I've lived. And so I guess, if I could go back in time and prevent my birth, I wouldn't do it. But I sure wish I hadn't had so much pain.
Paying isn’t wrong, and being paid isn’t wrong. Trampling other people’s freedom and community is wrong, so the free software movement aims to put an end to it, at least in the area of software.
We need to teach people to refuse to install non-free plug-ins; we need to teach people to care more about their long-term interest of freedom than their immediate desire to view a particular site.
I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.
So, make a real effort to avoid getting sucked into all the expensive lifestyle habits of typical Americans. Because if you do that, then people with the money will dictate what you do with your life.
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.
I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
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.
Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better.
It doesn't take special talents to reproduce--even plants can do it. On the other hand, contributing to a program like Emacs takes real skill. That is really something to be proud of. It helps more people, too.
The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.
CD stores have the disadvantage of an expensive inventory, but digital bookshops would need no such thing: they could write copies at the time of sale on to memory sticks, and sell you one if you forgot your own.
The idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing.
In practice, the copyright system does a bad job of supporting authors, aside from the most popular ones. Other authors' principal interest is to be better known, so sharing their work benefits them as well as readers.
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.
Today many people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons. That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do! Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first step.
My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.
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.
The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.
Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware.
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.
Facebook collects a lot of data from people and admits it. And it also collects data which isn't admitted. And Google does too. As for Microsoft, I don't know. But I do know that Windows has features that send data about the user.
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.
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.
I never imagined that the Free Software Movement would spawn a watered-down alternative, the Open Source Movement, which would become so well-known that people would ask me questions about "open source" thinking that I work under that banner.
Many users of the GNU/Linux system will not have heard the ideas of free software. They will not be aware that we have ideas, that a system exists because of ethical ideals, which were omitted from ideas associated with the term 'open source.'
The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
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.
In essence, Chrome OS is the GNU/Linux operating system. However, it is delivered without the usual applications, and rigged up to impede and discourage installing applications. I'd say the problem is in the nature of the job ChromeOS is designed to do.
If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.
I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program. They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it.