Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.

Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

Now that corporations dominate society and write the laws, each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users.

I never imagined that the Free Software Movement would spawn a watered-down alternative, the Open Source Movement, which would become so well-known that people would ask me questions about "open source" thinking that I work under that banner.

If you can find a host for me that has a friendly parrot, I will be very very glad… DON'T buy a parrot figuring that it will be a fun surprise for me. To acquire a parrot is a major decision: it is likely to outlive you. If you don't know how to treat the parrot, it could be emotionally scarred and spend many decades feeling frightened and unhappy. If you buy a captured wild parrot, you will promote a cruel and devastating practice, and the parrot will be emotionally scarred before you get it. Meeting that sad animal is not an agreeable surprise.

GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it.

Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.