Richard Stallman

Our lord and savior.

Richard Matthew Stallman (rms) is a software freedom activist, computer programmer, autist, philosopher, hacker, freethinker, prophet, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. He is the principle author of the GPL family of licenses and was the initial author of GNU project.

Who is he, though?

In 1984, Richard Stallman began working hard on GNU, which intended to replace all proprietary OS's, including Unix, with free software, which meant that anyone could use, read, modify or distribute the software, in binary and source code forms. Once this was combined by Linus Torvalds with Torvalds' kernel, GNU/Linux was born. Ever since, he has been tirelessly working hard to promote the freedoms of use, reading, modification or distribution of software everywhere. He is also one of the original legendary MIT hackers.

If you wish to learn more about Richard Stallman, check out his book, Free as in Freedom. If you want to learn more about his views, check out his other book Free Software, Free Society.

Relationship with /g/

Richard Stallman attempts to answer every email he gets, and at the very least he reads them if he can't answer. This has led to a rocky "relationship" of sorts with /g/ that has been chronicled on pages of his website. Among these, very recently, he created a page addressed "to 4chan" (but very clearly /g/) in which he "clears up some erroneous information" about himself. /g/ has often made things for Richard Stallman as a token of appreciation, such as the composite of images pictured below to the left.

Interjection Copypasta

Main Article: Interjection

I'd just like to interject for a moment.  What you're referring to as Linux,
is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component
of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day,
without realizing it.  Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU
which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are
not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a
part of the system they use.  Linux is the kernel: the program in the system
that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run.
The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself;
it can only function in the context of a complete operating system.  Linux is
normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system
is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux.  All the so-called "Linux"
distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

Controvesy

Richard M Stallman has been slandered for defending Marvin Minsky, a co-founder of MIT, who was accused of assaulting a victim of Epstein's harem. In reality, the victim was directed to have sex with Minsky (although it is unclear if that occurred). He pointed out the situation appeared to not meet the criteria for "assault", as the article did not say that "he applied force or violence", rather "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing" [1]. He also made people uncomfortable by his early hippy politics, such as his previous skepticism of the concept that children cannot consent and having a mattress in his room like a 70s IT office.

He previously resigned from the FSF organization, although he has now been re-elected.

A campaign was begun to ensure the libel was exposed. You can see the details by going to one of the mirrors.

Gallery

"A sort of drawing of me, a composite of photos, made by people at 4chan." - Richard Stallman
The man himself gracefully eats something from his foot.
Our holy saviour