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Birth
Richard Stallman was born March 16, 1953 in the Stallman household, headed by breadwinner Daniel Stallman and his wife, Alice Lippman (Richard Stallman's Personal Site). After his parents split, Stallman pursued his education. -
IBM Internship
After high school, Stallman began his escapades as a programmer in a paid internship for IBM. His work consisted of analyzing given numbers using FORTRAN, which he hated. (Free as in Freedom) -
Enrolled at Harvard
After his internship, Stallman went to school at Harvard University. He became an icon quickly, developing a following after displaying his skill in Harvard's Math 55. (Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution). -
MIT Artificial Intelligence Labratory
Stallman joined the MIT lab late into his first year at Harvard. He would continue to stay there until 1984. (Richard Stallman's Personal Site) -
The SAIL Lab
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution focuses on the time when many of today's legends were still developing their ideas. Stallman became a frequenter of the labs and officially became a lead researcher in 1972. -
Graduated Harvard
Stallman graduated Harvard with a Bachelor's in Physics in 1974. He graduated magna cum laude. (Stallman's Personal Site) -
Truth Maintenance
In 1975, Stallman and his employer developed technology that allowed for what Stallman calls "truth maintenance". (An Evening with Richard Stallman) Truth maintenance revolves around helping AI hold information and be able to backtrack through decisions. -
Emacs
Stallman's first encounter with Emacs was during his time at MIT, where he provided supporting software that allowed Emacs (a text editor) to become extensible. (Richard Stallman's Personal Site) Some programmers today still choose to use Emacs. -
The GNU Project
1983 was the first year where Stallman openly announced the development of the GNU project, and his goal of making software as accessible as possible. (An Evening with Richard Stallman) The image provided is the logo for the GNU project, which is a ram conveniently named Gnu. -
Stallman leaves MIT
Stallman left MIT the year after declaring his intent to focus on the GNU project with several others. (Heroes of the Computer Revolution) -
The Free Software Movement
The Free Software Movement was founded by Richard Stallman in October 1985, which promoted open source development and paved the way for concepts like GNU/Linux to take the stage. (Richard Stallman's Personal Site) Though Stallman has stepped down, his ideals live on through the FSF today. -
Hackers: Wizards of the Electronic Age
In 1985, a 30 minute documentary surfaced describing the lives and events occuring within SAIL at MIT. Stallman appears on this documentary. -
The GNU General Public License
The GNU GPL incorporates Stallman's idea of copyleft, which is essentially a copyright put in place not to ensure that others can't use the software, but to insist that they can. It was published by the FSF in February 1989. (Free as in Freedom) -
MacArthur Foundation Award
In 1990, Stallman received a grant from the MacArthur Foundation commonly referred to as the "genius grant", allowing him to continue to pursue the GNU project. -
Visiting Scientist
Stallman became a "Visiting Scientist" at MIT and would regularly visit to give talks, such as "Free Software, Free Society". (Richard Stallman's Personal Site)
