OLinux.com.br: Interview with GNU and FSF Founder, Richard Stallman

Jan 13, 2000, 06:17 (7 Talkback[s])

[ Thanks to Paulo Henrique B de Oliveira for this link. ]

"OLinux - The computers were always part of your life?"

"RMS: Computers were very expensive in the 1960s and not easy to find. But I was fascinated with computers, and read the manuals when I could find them, even though I never saw an actual computer. Then when I was a senior in high school, an IBM laboratory gave me a chance to use a real computer. I loved it immediately."

"OLinux - When did you realize that you had a very special mission in the world of free software technology?"

"RMS: Free software is a political philosophy ratherthan a kind of technology. And this was a decision, not a realization. In the 1970s and the early 80s, I worked in a community where software sharing was normal. Around 1981/1982 this community died, so I was faced with the prospect of having to live the user-subjugating way of life of proprietary software: prevented from studying or changing the software, and prohibited from sharing it."

Complete Story

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