Stallman

My last post was about someone I considered a true modern philosopher, but I didn't say who the someone was.   The person I had in mind is Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation.

Maybe it seems strange to call him a philosopher.  As far as I know, he's never said anything about the meaning of life, or the best way to live, or stuck his neck into the esoterica of more modern philosophy.  But he has a very well-defined philosophy of software code ownership.  Like all things, the modern world is all about specialization.  He doesn't have to have an opinion about everything.  The important part is he had a strong opinion, one based in morality, about a new force in our lives, and he's been fighting for his vision ever since.  His core idea is that our computers should only run software that we have the source code for.  If you don't know, and can't modify, what your own computer is doing, you shouldn't be running it.

I've been lucky enough to meet Richard Stallman.  He seems to talk like how I would imagine a philosopher would talk.  He speaks precisely (using the terms libre and gratis instead of the more generic word free), never lets something go that he considers wrong, and plainly admits when he doesn't know something.  He can forcefully argue his point, and is utterly uncompromising in his core beliefs.  For instance, he will not carry ID.  For someone who travels a lot and often goes into large institutions to speak, this has got to be inconvenient.  But he doesn't ever make that tradeoff of beliefs for convenience that we all make in so many ways.  Similarly, even though he was a legendary coder, he's never attempted to parlay that into any sort of career.  He doesn't make much money, and lives simply.

To many software engineers, his stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise is a problem.  They can't live such morally perfect lives.  The GNU licenses are seen as too constraining for business.  He's seen as someone who has some good ideas that he takes way too far.  I don't agree with that, though.  Stallman has to pursue the pure path of his ideals.  Otherwise he wouldn't be a philosopher, he'd just be a guy with opinions, and his ideas would probably have not been as influential as they are.  Due to Stallman, we have GNU/Linux, we have the GPL license, and his ideas have influenced other licenses even in non-software contexts, such as the Creative Commons license.

For further reading on Richard Stallman, I recommend his open-sourced biography, Free as in Freedom.