The Lonely Rebel

Twirling his generous mop of curls absently, he effortlessly utters profound

principles, while getting up every now and then to multitask–pour out some

tea, answer the phone... He is absent-minded enough to forget his visiting cards

or walk around the nondescript guest house in his socks. Dr Richard M Stallman,

founder of the Free Software Movement, strikes you as the quintessential

intellectual. Brilliant, idealistic and perhaps a bit removed from today’s

practicalities. He passionately explains the philosophy behind the free software

movement and patiently explains that this stems from a much-deeper political

affiliation for total individual freedom. "It is to do with the way people

live their lives and not allow others to trample on their rights to do things

the way they want to."

Having

graduated in Physics in 1985, Stallman worked with MIT for a long time before he

gave it all up because he was ‘disgusted’ with the way people were working

towards individual, personal success. "The moment success becomes your

objective, you start talking of proprietary software, which implies controlling

other people’s lives...that’s not correct," he says.

Stallman started the Free Software Movement in 1985 with the intention of

developing a complete range of free software applications on the platform called

GNU/Linux, and making proprietary software redundant in the process.

"When we develop software, we assume it will help people do things in

different ways so that at the end of it, we have a better world to live in. If

we make software proprietary, it will limit the options before people and not

provide them freedom," he believes. According to him, proprietary software

reflects an inherent desire to control and run people’s lives and that is

wrong.

"The Free Software Movement is a social goal," he says.

Not surprisingly, Stallman’s views do not go down too well with

multinational software companies. He is clearly a man under scrutiny. And he is

used to his philosophy being questioned. And he hates words like pirated

software. "A word like piracy is a smear. Piracy is about attacking ships

and robbing people. If you make a copy of your software for your neighbor, that’s

sharing, not piracy! Using proprietary software is bad enough. If you make a

copy of the proprietary software and give it to your neighbor, at least you will

not be party to the predators who make money by trampling on people’s

freedom."

He rejects phrases like human capital because they have inherent economic

connotations. Economic considerations bring about social inequality creating

conditions where exploiting people for making profits becomes acceptable.

Success in such a context is assessed by how much material fulfillment can be

achieved through such means.

Stallman has set a very tall philosophical ideology, which many of his

associates have found difficult to live up to. He was disappointed when he found

that Debian–one of the companies he had chosen to work with, had used

expressions that had ambiguous meanings. Debian eventually led the way for the

distortion of the free software movement leading to the emergence of the Open

Source movement. Stallman denounces any links with the Open Source movement.

So, can ideology compensate for the basic needs, which can be derived only

through money? "There is nothing wrong in making profits but you have to

find ways, in which you do not impinge on the freedom of others," is his

pat reply. For instance, one could make customized software for specific needs

of users and charge for it.

Stallman could have minted money from his inventions. His first achievement

was developing the E-Max Editor in 1975, which was the first program to allow

users to make changes according to individual needs. But Stallman says that

money was certainly not high on his list of priorities. Stallman, a bachelor, is

a man of simple tastes. He likes good music, food and appreciates butterflies.

"I am particularly fond of parrots, tamed ones. Sometimes, I play my flute

and they listen. Imagine playing music to a bird. I like that," he muses.

He has visited India several times in recent years and believes that Indians

have responded better to his ideology than a lot of other people. He attributes

this to India’s cultural and philosophical heritage, along with the popularity

of the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal in New Delhi