（题图来自：wikimedia）

理查德·马修·斯托曼 （ Richard Matthew Stallman ） (RMS) – 神级程序员之一。他是一名程序员，是 GCC、GDB、Emacs 的构建者，软件自由的传教士，GNU Project 和 FSF 的创办人。

GNU 是 “GNU’s Not Unix!”的递归缩写。GNU 是一系列用于基于 Unix 的操作系统的自由软件集合。它能用于 GNU/Hurd 和 Linux 内核。于1983年9月27日公诸于众。常用组件有：

• GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)
• GNU C library (glibc)
• GNU Core Utilities (coreutils)
• GNU Debugger (GDB)
• GNU Binary Utilities (binutils)
• GNU Bash shell
• GNOME desktop environment

自由软件基金会 （ Free Software Foundation ） (FSF) – 一个自由软件的非营利组织，致力于推进计算机用户的自由和捍卫他们的权力。于 1985年10月4日成立。阅读更多。

许多人不理解 开源代码 （ open source code ） 和 自由软件 （ free software ） 的区别。每个程序都应该是自由软件：

• 与目的无关，随心运行程序的自由（自由0）。
• 学习程序如何运作，并改变它为你所用的自由（自由1）。可以访问源码是这一条的前提。
• 重新发布副本的自由，如此你便可以帮助你周围的人（自由 2）。
• 发布自己修改版本给他人的自由（自由 3）。这样能让整个社区有机会从你的改变中受益。可以访问源码是这条的前提。

以上为自由软件的四项自由原则。

以下为理查德·斯托曼关于自由、软件、社交、哲学等方面的名言摘引。

关于 Facebook：

Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine.

Facebook 不是你的朋友，是监控引擎。

关于 Android：

Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel.

Android 和 GNU/Linux 有很大的区别，因为其中几乎没有 GNU。的确，Android 和 GNU/Linux 之间仅有一个共同组件，那就是内核 - Linux。

关于计算机行业：

The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.

计算机行业是唯一一个比女性时尚业更容易受潮流影响的行业了。（LCTT 译注：感谢 BIAOXYZ 的修正意见。）

关于云计算：

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.

关于云计算，有趣的是我们已经重新定义了云计算来包含我们曾干过的所有事。

关于伦理：

Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.

无论神存在与否，都没有绝对的伦理道德。没有这份理所当然，我们该如何？也唯有尽善吧。

关于自由：

Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.

自由软件是尊重个人自由和社会团结的软件。所以才能如自由般自由自在。

关于目标和理想：

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.

如果你想为这世界做些什么，仅有理想是不够的，你需要找条通往目标的道路并走完。

关于分享：

Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy.

分享很棒，而且数字化技术也使分享变得容易。

关于 facebook（进阶版）：

Facebook mistreats its users. Facebook is not your friend; it is a surveillance engine. For instance, if you browse the Web and you see a 'like' button in some page or some other site that has been displayed from Facebook. Therefore, Facebook knows that your machine visited that page.

Facebook 蹂躏它们的用户。它不是你们的朋友；它就是个监控引擎。举个例子，你是否曾在一些网页或网站上看到 Facebook 的 “like” 按键。对，Facebook 知道你的电脑曾访问过那些网页。

关于 web 应用：

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control.

给你个为什么不应该使用 web 应用的理由，因为你失去了计算机的控制权。

If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

如果你使用私有程序或他人的 web 服务器，那么你只能任人鱼肉。被软件的开发者轻易操纵。

关于书：

With paper printed books, you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash, which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.

印刷出来的书，当然是自由的。你可以付现金匿名买书，这也是我一直买书的方式。我绝不会使用信用卡，我买书时不会被任何数据库记下。是亚马逊把自由夺走了。

关于 MPAA：

Officially, MPAA stands for Motion Picture Association of America, but I suggest that MPAA stands for Malicious Power Attacking All.

MPAA 其实是 美国电影协会 （ Motion Picture Association of America ） ，但我认为叫做 攻击万物的邪恶力量 （ Malicious Power Attacking All ） 更为合适。

关于金钱与职业：

I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

我可以找份工作赚钱，并沉浸在编码的快乐中。但在职业生涯结束后，回首目睹自己筑就的高墙将人与人分隔开，我会觉得我耗尽毕生精力只换来了一个更糟糕的世界。

关于私有软件：

Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does. So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power.

私有软件使用户孤立、无助。因为禁止将软件给他人使用所以孤立，因为无法改变源码所以无助。他们不能学习其中真正的工作方式，所以整个私有软件体系就是一种不公的力量。

关于智能手机：

A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smart phones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.

智能手机就是电脑 —— 虽然做的和常用的电脑不同 —— 但是却能干电脑能干的活。所以我们所说的一切有关于电脑上的软件应该能自由运行 —— 必须坚持这一点 —— 在智能手机上也是这样，当然也包括平板。

关于 CD 和数字内容：

CD stores have the disadvantage of an expensive inventory, but digital bookshops would need no such thing: they could write copies at the time of sale on to memory sticks, and sell you one if you forgot your own.

CD 商店有一个弱势就是需要昂贵的库存，但是电子商店就没有这方面的需求：他们只需要将售卖的副本写入记忆棒，并在你忘带自己的记忆棒时卖你一个就是了。

关于 竞争范式 （ paradigm of competition ） ：

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.

竞争范式就像是赛跑：奖励胜者，鼓励每一个跑得更快的人。当资本主义真的这样运作时，当然是件好事；但是维护它的人若是假设它一直这样运作的话那就大错特错了。

关于 vi 和 emacs：

People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.

有时会有人问我在 Emacs 的阵营使用 vi 是不是一种罪过。使用自由版的 vi 并不是一种罪过；是一种自我惩罚。所以好好享受其中乐趣吧。

关于自由和历史：

Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.

历史告诉我们不珍惜自由便失去自由，然而有的人不懂吸取教训，只知道说“别拿政治烦我们”。（LCTT 译注：感谢 肖岚 的修正意见。）

关于专利：

Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.

和专利一个一个的战斗并不能解决软件专利带来的危害，就像打再多的蚊子也消灭不了疟疾一样。

Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.

软件专利对于软件的开发者来说十分危险，因为它们加剧了对于软件理念的垄断。

关于版权：

In practice, the copyright system does a bad job of supporting authors, aside from the most popular ones. Other authors' principal interest is to be better known, so sharing their work benefits them as well as readers.

其实，版权制度对作者也没有什么好处，撇开最受欢迎的那个，其他作者的主旨可能更好理解，所以分享无论对他们还是你的读者都是一件好事。

关于工作与报酬：

There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive.

劳有所得，或寻求收入的最大化并没有什么错，只要不是不择手段。

关于 Chrome OS：

In essence, Chrome OS is the GNU/Linux operating system. However, it is delivered without the usual applications, and rigged up to impede and discourage installing applications.

Chrome OS 确实是 GNU/Linux 的操作系统。但是，它在发布时没有安装常用应用，并为安装他们设置了阻碍。

关于 Linux 用户：

Many users of the GNU/Linux system will not have heard the ideas of free software. They will not be aware that we have ideas, that a system exists because of ethical ideals, which were omitted from ideas associated with the term 'open source.'

许多的 GNU/Linux 用户并没有听过自由软件。他们并没有意识到，这个系统是因为道德理想才存在的，与此一起被忽视的还有所谓的“开源”。

关于 facebook 的隐私：

If there is a Like button in a page, Facebook knows who visited that page. And it can get IP address of the computer visiting the page even if the person is not a Facebook user.

如果页面上有 “like” 按键，Facebook 就能知道谁访问了页面。即使不是 Facebook 的用户，也可以得到访问该页面电脑的 IP 地址。

关于编程：

Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.

编程不是科学，编程是手艺。

My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.

Lisp 和 C 语言是我的最爱。然自 1992 年以来我主要工作在自由软件活动上，导致我太忙了，没法做更多的编程。大概在 2008 年我便停止了做编程项目。

C++ is a badly designed and ugly language. It would be a shame to use it in Emacs.

C++ 设计的真糟糕、真丑陋。在 Emacs 上用它应该觉得羞愧。

关于 钻研 （ hacking ） 和学习编程：

People could no longer learn hacking the way I did, by starting to work on a real operating system, making real improvements. In fact, in the 1980s I often came across newly graduated computer science majors who had never seen a real program in their lives. They had only seen toy exercises, school exercises, because every real program was a trade secret. They never had the experience of writing features for users to really use, and fixing the bugs that real users came across. The things you need to know to do real work.

(时过境迁，)人们没法再像我当初那样通过改进实实在在的操作系统来学习编程了。上世纪 80 年代，我常遇见计算机专业的毕业生，有生以来没见过真正的程序。他们接触的到的只有小玩意和学校的作业，因为每一个程序都是商业机密。他们没有机会为用户去写真正实用的特性，修复用户真正遭遇的问题。而这些正是真正的工作中你需要掌握的(东西)。（LCTT 译注：感谢 肖岚 的改进意见。）

It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value".

对于如“hacking”这般多样化的东西真的很难简单的下定义，不过在我看来诸如此类的行为都会有以下的这些共同点：嬉乐、智慧和探索。因此，hacking 意味着对可能的极限的探索，一颗向往快乐与智慧的心。能带来快乐与智慧的行为就有 “hack 的价值” 。

关于浏览网页：

For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have no net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a daemon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.

出于个人原因，我不会在我的电脑上浏览网页。（大部分时间处于没有网络连接的状态。）要浏览网页，我需要给一个守护进程发 mail，然后它会运行 wget 并把页面通过 mail 发还给我。这对我而言已经是最效率了，但那真的比实时慢太多了。

关于音乐共享：

Friends share music with each other, they don't allow themselves to be divided by a system that says that nobody is supposed to have copies.

朋友之间彼此分享音乐，绝不会希望因为系统的一句：“禁止私下拷贝！”而生分。