Richard Stallman Quotes

I think Linux is a great thing, in the big picture. It's a great hacker's tool, and it has a lot of potential to become something more.

I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'

Ubuntu is doing amazing things, and I think it's going to change the face of the desktop.

There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.

Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.

When I first got into technology I didn't really understand what open source was. Once I started writing software, I realized how important this would be.

I think the wonderful thing about vi is that it has such a good market share because we gave it away.

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.

[Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful.

While I personally believe strongly in the philosophy and ideology of the Free Software movement, you can't win people over just on philosophy; you have to have a better product, too.

I don't try to be a threat to MicroSoft, mainly because I don't really see MS as competition. Especially not Windows-the goals of Linux and Windows are simply so different.

A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smart phones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.

I've never regretted not making Linux shareware: I really don't like the pay for use binary shareware programs.

When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver.

The Mozilla project is big in terms of lines of code and complexity.

Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft.

I got bitten by the free software bug in February of 1998 around the time of the Mozilla announcement.

I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.

It doesn't cost anything to replicate code. So the companies that make code, that's why they've done so well. We take it for granted now, but why is it that code is free? It's because somebody built this self-replicating process.

Making things open-source brings the cost down.

The beauty of open-source is that you can pick up right where someone left off and start right there.

All of our code is open source, so it can be used for other projects.

As of today, the Postfix mail transport agent has almost 50,000 lines of code, comments not included.

I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.

I think Linux is a great thing, because Linux is an alternative to Windows, and because, of all the operating systems that are at all relevant today, Unix is the best of a bad lot.