[Fsf-friends] Few Quotes from FAIFZILLA

[Senthil_OR@Dell.com]

These are few quotes collected from http://faifzilla.org 


Members of the tight-knit group called themselves " hackers." Over time,
they extended the "hacker" description to Stallman as well. In the
process of doing so, they inculcated Stallman in the ethical traditions
of the "hacker ethic ." To be a hacker meant more than just writing
programs, Stallman learned. It meant writing the best possible programs.
It meant sitting at a terminal for 36 hours straight if that's what it
took to write the best possible programs. Most importantly, it meant
having access to the best possible machines and the most useful
information at all times. Hackers spoke openly about changing the world
through software, and Stallman learned the instinctual hacker disdain
for any obstacle that prevented a hacker from fulfilling this noble
cause. Chief among these obstacles were poor software, academic
bureaucracy, and selfish behavior.


 "I remember many sunrises seen from a car coming back from Chinatown,"
Stallman would recall nostalgically, 15 years after the fact in a speech
at the Swedish Royal Technical Institute. "It was actually a very
beautiful thing to see a sunrise, 'cause that's such a calm time of day.
It's a wonderful time of day to get ready to go to bed. It's so nice to
walk home with the light just brightening and the birds starting to
chirp; you can get a real feeling of gentle satisfaction, of tranquility
about the work that you have done that night."


The way I see it, any being that has power and abuses it deserves to
have that power taken away.


"In India many people are interested in free software, because they see
it as a way to build their computing infrastructure without spending a
lot of money," Stallman says.


"Sometimes I think that perhaps one of the best things I could do with
my life is find a gigantic pile of proprietary software that was a trade
secret, and start handing out copies on a street corner so it wouldn't
be a trade secret any more," said Stallman. "Perhaps that would be a
much more efficient way for me to give people new free software than
actually writing it myself; but everyone is too cowardly to even take
it."


Stallman implored his fellow hackers to resist the lure of easy
compromise.