Visit his web
site, and you'll find diatribes on the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, the War on Drugs, and the
World Trade Organization.
Given his activist tendencies, I ask, why hasn't
Stallman sought a larger voice? Why hasn't he used his
visibility in the hacker world as a platform to boost
rather than reduce his political voice.
Stallman lets his tangled hair drop and contemplates
the question for a moment.
"I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little
puddle of freedom," he says. "Because the more
well-known and conventional areas of working for
freedom and a better society are tremendously
important. I wouldn't say that free software is as
important as they are. It's the responsibility I
undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way
I could do something about it. But, for example, to end
police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the
kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a
comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who
do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are
tremendously important issues, far more important than
what I do.
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