Free as in Freedom. Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software

Richard Matthew Stallman’s rise from frustrated academic to political leader over the last 20 years speaks to many things. It speaks to Stallman’s stubborn nature and prodigious will. It speaks to the clearly articulated vision and values of the free software movement Stallman helped build. It speaks to the high-quality software programs Stallman has built, programs that have cemented Stallman’s reputation as a programming legend. It speaks to the growing momentum of the GPL, a legal innovation that many Stallman observers see as his most momentous accomplishment.

Most importantly, it speaks to the changing nature of political power in a world increasingly beholden to computer technology and the software programs that power that technology.

Maybe that’s why, even at a time when most high-technology stars are on the wane, Stallman’s star has grown. Since launching the GNU Project in 1984,5 Stallman has been at turns ignored, satirized, vilified, and attacked-both from within and without the free software movement. Through it all, the GNU Project has managed to meet its milestones, albeit with a few notorious delays, and stay relevant in a software marketplace several orders of magnitude more complex than the one it entered 18 years ago. So too has the free software ideology, an ideology meticulously groomed by Stallman himself.

To understand the reasons behind this currency, it helps to examine Richard Stallman both in his own words and in the words of the people who have collaborated and battled with him along the way. The Richard Stallman character sketch is not a complicated one. If any person exemplifies the old adage “what you see is what you get”, it’s Stallman.

“I think if you want to understand Richard Stallman the human being, you really need to see all of the parts as a consistent whole”, advises Eben Moglen, legal counsel to the Free Software Foundation and professor of law at Columbia University Law School. “All those personal eccentricities that lots of people see as obstacles to getting to know Stallman really are Stallman: Richard’s strong sense of personal frustration, his enormous sense of principled ethical commitment, his inability to compromise, especially on issues he considers fundamental. These are all the very reasons Richard did what he did when he did”.

Explaining how a journey that started with a laser printer would eventually lead to a sparring match with the world’s richest corporation is no easy task. It requires a thoughtful examination of the forces that have made software ownership so important in today’s society. It also requires a thoughtful examination of a man who, like many political leaders before him, understands the malleability of human memory. It requires an ability to interpret the myths and politically laden code words that have built up around Stallman over time. Finally, it requires an understanding of Stallman’s genius as a programmer and his failures and successes in translating that genius to other pursuits.

When it comes to offering his own summary of the journey, Stallman acknowledges the fusion of personality and principle observed by Moglen. “Stubbornness is my strong suit”, he says. “Most people who attempt to do anything of any great difficulty eventually get discouraged and give up. I never gave up”.

He also credits blind chance. Had it not been for that run-in over the Xerox laser printer, had it not been for the personal and political conflicts that closed out his career as an MIT employee, had it not been for a half dozen other timely factors, Stallman finds it very easy to picture his life following a different career path. That being said, Stallman gives thanks to the forces and circumstances that put him in the position to make a difference.

“I had just the right skills”, says Stallman, summing up his decision for launching the GNU Project to the audience. “Nobody was there but me, so I felt like, `I’m elected. I have to work on this. If not me, who?’”

Chapter 3. A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man

Richard Stallman’s mother, Alice Lippman, still remembers the moment she realized her son had a special gift.

“I think it was when he was eight”, Lippman recalls.

The year was 1961, and Lippman, a recently divorced single mother, was wiling away a weekend afternoon within the family’s tiny one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Leafing through a copy of Scientific American, Lippman came upon her favorite section, the Martin Gardner-authored column titled “Mathematical Games”. A substitute art teacher, Lippman always enjoyed Gardner’s column for the brain-teasers it provided. With her son already ensconced in a book on the nearby sofa, Lippman decided to take a crack at solving the week’s feature puzzle.

“I wasn’t the best person when it came to solving the puzzles”, she admits. “But as an artist, I found they really helped me work through conceptual barriers”.