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Richard Stallman Born in 1953, New York
Richard was born to Alice Lippman and Daniel Stallman on March 16th, 1953 in New York City -
Columbia University as a Teen
Stallman attended a Columbia University Saturday program for high school students from 1967 to 1969. -
Hired by IBM Senior Year of High School
Stallman was hired by IBM Scientifc Center to write a numerical analysis program in Fortran. Stallman worked at IBM during summer as a senior in high school. He finished the project in a couple of weeks. "I swore that I would never use FORTRAN again because I despised it as a language compared with other languages"
-Richard Stallman -
Stallman Attends Harvard
In the fall of 1970, Stallman attends Harvard University. He excellend in math, finding a place that felt like home at Harvard. -
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Known by his initials, RMS, Stallman was a well known programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by the end of his first year st Harvard in 1971. -
Attends MIT and Drops out
RS: Well, actually I went to MIT first as a graduate student in Physics.
MG: Oh, for how long did that last?
RS: A year. What I noticed was that my enthusiasm for Physics was decreasing, and I believe the reason was that in programming I could do something. I could produce something that was new and that was useful and I could feel proud of, and in Physics I hadn’t seen how to do that, and I never figured out how to do that.
By Michael Gross
Interviewed in New York City and Cambridge, in 1999 -
Graduates Harvard
Richard Graduates Harvard as Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor's degree in Physics in 1974 -
Starts Working at MIT
Works as a research assistant at MIT. Working on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking. -
GNU
In 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project. -
GNU Manifesto
1985 Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, explaining the reasons behind it and letting hackers alike know it will be compatible with UNIX. -
The Free Software Foundation
October 4, 1985 Stallman started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation. The FSF was esablished to provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. -
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Today
Stallman has beein in the public 'hacker eye' since the free software movement for his tounge in cheek comments. You can find a list of his personal rejections to open source software, his battles with Apple, his personal idea on GNU/Linux and many others. Stallman is well known as an unusual guy, but that perception is left up to the individual. Today Stallman still travels the globe doing talks and obtaining honorary doctorate and lifetime achievement awards, defending the FSF.
