A Tribute to Richard Stallman
Yesterday morning Jimmy Källhagen from Sweden published this tribute. It's about knowledge and sharing, not limited to software:
This Christmas, I wanted to share a message of gratitude. I think there is one person we should all be grateful for, but who is often misunderstood. That's why I want to share this post with you all.I write this because it is true, not to be confirmed.
Richard Stallman: The Man Who Set Knowledge Free
In a world racing toward digital chains, one man refused to kneel.
When corporations sought to lock knowledge behind walls of profit, when the architects of Silicon Valley dreamed of a world where every line of code became a tool of control, Richard Stallman stood alone and raised his banner of freedom.
"People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the world."
In 1983, when comfort, wealth, and conformity beckoned, he chose exile. He launched the GNU Project, not for riches, not for fame, but for something far greater: the liberation of humanity itself.
"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."
From his mind sprang GNU, Bash, Emacs, GCC, and the revolutionary GPL license, the legal and technical foundation of the modern Internet. Every server running Linux, every line of code governed by the GPL, every freely accessible tool and library, owes its existence to Stallman’s vision. The world’s digital infrastructure, the websites, the cloud, the services we rely on runs largely on Linux under the principles he championed, giving billions access to information without gatekeepers.
For the first time in history, human knowledge became a birthright, not a privilege.
The price was immense. He rejected fortune. Embraced simplicity. Endured ridicule, isolation, and misunderstanding. Yet he never wavered: "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. Think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'."
"Personal success is not wrong, but it is limited in importance, and once you have enough of it, it is a shame to keep striving for that, instead of for truth, beauty, or justice."
Richard Stallman chose justice over comfort. Freedom over fortune. Trusth over popularity.
Because of him, you control your computer, not the other way around. Because of him, a child in a remote village has access to the same tools as students at the world’s most privileged institutions. Because of him, the Internet itself, the backbone of modern civilization runs on the principles he fought for.
"Value your freedom or you will lose it."
This holiday season, honor not just the code he wrote, but the chains he shattered. Not just the tools he built, but the doors he opened.
Richard Matthew Stallman. Programmer. Philosopher. Liberator and Freedom Fighter.
The man who gave humanity its digital freedom and asked for nothing in return.
GNU/Linux. GPL. Freedom.
Merry Christmas from Jimmy Källhagen, Sweden
Based on the FSF's message dated Christmas Eve, they had received two donations totalling close to a million dollars, in addition to the 300,000+ dollars raised this winter. So it seems like many people do care. █