4 ms·

I've always been curious as to what did compel him to wear a sackcloth and live as a pauper... He's also got the MacArthur back when a megabuck was real money.

• nescioquid 6y ago
  RMS told a story about the introduction of a new printer at the AI lab. The gist was that the manufacturer of the new printer would not release the source code (which was also under claimed copyright). At the time, this was a novelty; code was released so that people could modify it to work with the rest of the hardware they happen to have. The way RMS wrote of the event, I had the impression he felt shocked and betrayed. That was the inciting incident.
• bitwize 6y ago
  Stallman is a man whose idiosyncrasies intensified over the decades. I think his current lifestyle was motivated in part by huffing his own farts (figuratively speaking) and believing his own hype. He thinks he's the free software prophet he's been cast as by admirers, and is deliberately renouncing the ways of the world, much as prophets did in times of old, and hippies do to the present day.