A recent attack piece against Richard Stallman was written by Linus Torvalds on the eve of Obama’s election.

Black and white by Linus Torvalds

Linus begins with this:

Interview with Richard Stallman about various topics; about the difference between the free software movement and open source, why Stallman rejects the term "intellectual property", the GPLv3 and Torvalds view on it, Microsofts patent claims, and about the Microsoft-Novell deal.

In one of my earliest blog posts here I called Richard Stallman, a father of the open source movement and almost immediately got a personal nastygram. From Richard Stallman. I appreciated it and have sought to be more careful. Stallman believes in free software, which he calls Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). (It’s also called Free Open Source Software (FOSS).)

In celebration of Software Freedom Day 2008, I would like to share to you all some of my favorite quotes about Free and Open Source Software from no less than the two pillars of FOSS, Linus Torvalds and Richard M. Stallman. Enjoy and be inspired.

This was amusing and odd. The presenter mistakenly gives the award to the "Free Software Association". The donation was modest but the cardboard check was huge.

Upon receiving the award, Stallman said "Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is sort of like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Fleet."

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, has, along with others like Richard Stallman, literally changed the world of software forever.

"In 1984, Richard Stallman founded a social movement known as the free software movement. The free software movement fights for the ability to control our computers as a cooperative community (as opposed to being under the rule of software proprietors where users have only as much control over their computers as the proprietor allows).

Eric S. Raymond is one of the three big figures in open source, together with Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman. During a talk for the Long Island Linux User Group, he made some interesting statements about the GPL, namely that the GPL is no longer needed due to the way the open source movement works.

You may have read our collection of mythical and humorous facts about Linus Torvalds. This time around, we will give tribute to another living legend by the name of Richard M. Stallman. Since this free software evangelist has tons of loyal fans, it didn't take long for me to gather some of the whimsical facts that are being said about him. Here are some of my favorites...