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Williams, Sam

"Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software"


"I'm eternally grateful that MIT let me and many other
people use their computers for free," says Hopkins. "It
meant a lot to many people."
This so-called "tourist" policy, which had been openly
tolerated by MIT management during the ITS years,See "MIT AI Lab Tourist
Policy."
http://catalog.com/hopkins/text/tourist-policy.html
fell by the wayside when Oz became the lab's primary
link to the ARPAnet. At first, Stallman continued his
policy of repeating his login ID as a password so
outside users could follow in his footsteps. Over time,
however, the Oz's fragility prompted administrators to
bar outsiders who, through sheer accident or malicious
intent, might bring down the system. When those same
administrators eventually demanded that Stallman stop
publishing his password, Stallman, citing personal
ethics, refused to do so and ceased using the Oz system
altogether.3
"[When] passwords first appeared at the MIT AI Lab I
[decided] to follow my belief that there should be no
passwords," Stallman would later say.


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