In describing the decision in a chapter for
the 1999 book, Open Sources, Stallman cites the spirit
encapsulated in the words of the Jewish sage Hillel: If
I am not for myself, who will be for me?If I am only
for myself, what am I?If not now, when?See Richard Stallman, Open Sources
(O'Reilly &
Associates, Inc., 1999): 56. Stallman adds his own
footnote to this statement, writing, "As an atheist, I
don't follow any religious leaders, but I sometimes
find I admire something one of them has said."
Speaking to audiences, Stallman avoids the religious
route and expresses the decision in pragmatic terms. "I
asked myself: what could I, an operating-system
developer, do to improve the situation? It wasn't until
I examined the question for a while that I realized an
operating-system developer was exactly what was needed
to solve the problem."
Once he reached that decision, Stallman says,
everything else "fell into place." He would abstain
from using software programs that forced him to
compromise his ethical beliefs, while at the same time
devoting his life to the creation of software that
would make it easier for others to follow the same
path.
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