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GNU Questions: RMS on SCO, Distributions, DRM August 13, 2003, 22:51:30 EDT
In September of 1983, a computer programmer working in the Massachusetts Institute for Technology AI Lab announced a plan that was the antithesis of the proprietary software concept that had come to dominate the industry. The plan detailed the creation of a UNIX replacement that would be entirely free, not as in the cost of the product, but as in freedom.
That announcement would eventually catapult its author, Richard M. Stallman, into someone known and respected around the world and, perhaps more amazingly, a person that companies such as Apple and Netscape would alter their plans because of.
Stallman is not your average advocate of a particular cause. Nearly two decades after the announcement of his GNU System, he has stayed firm on his positions and has founded and guided the Free Software Foundation into an organization capable of promoting and managing the GNU System, a set of components that form more of what is often mistakenly known simply as "Linux" than the Linux kernel itself does.
That might be somewhat unusual in today's society where causes popular today quickly become forgotten in tomorrow's priorities, but there is something even more unusual about Stallman. He is always open and available to those who drop him an e-mail, and not just the media, but also the the individual user or developer.
This is not because he has nothing to do -- Stallman is a busy globetrotter constantly doing whatever it takes to promote the philosophy of free software. In his characteristic form, he was kind enough to agree to an encore interview with Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler.
<snip>
Timothy R. Butler: Do you have any closing thoughts you would like to share with Open for Business readers?
Richard M. Stallman: A non-free program is a predatory social system that keeps people in a state of domination and division, and uses the spoils to dominate more. It may seem like a profitable option to become one of the emperor's lieutenants, but ultimately the ethical thing to do is to resist the system and put an end to it.
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