If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
Richard StallmanRead
EMACS could not have been reached by a process of careful design, because such processes arrive only at goals which are visible at the outset, and whose desirability is established on the bottom line at the outset. Neither I nor anyone else visualized an extensible editor until I had made one, nor appreciated its value until he had experienced it. EMACS exists because I felt free to make individually useful small improvements on a path whose end was not in sight.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The development of EMACS was an organic process of experimentation rather than a structured plan.
Richard Stallman's quote reflects on the nature of innovation, particularly in technology, emphasizing that groundbreaking tools like EMACS often arise not from meticulous plans or goals, but from a willingness to explore and make incremental improvements without a fixed endpoint. This illustrates how creativity and discovery can lead to significant advancements that were not initially envisioned or deemed valuable.
Themes
EmacsInnovationExperimentationCreativityTechnology
In practice
Example use cases
In a tech conference, during a talk on software development, to highlight the importance of creativity in coding.
More from Richard Stallman
All quotes →Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does. So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power.
Richard StallmanRead
One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless.
Richard StallmanRead
Proprietary software is an injustice.
Richard StallmanRead
Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware.
Richard StallmanRead
People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.
Richard StallmanRead
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