A Rare Glimpse Into Richard Stallman's WorldA Rare Glimpse Into Richard Stallman's World

Even in a special school, Richard Stallman was unique.

Surrounded by students with behavioral problems – many of them with learning disabilities -- he was headed for Harvard.

Stallman is credited with founding the free software movement, the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. He authored text editor GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler and the GNU Debugger.

Rather than earning a living as an accomplished software programmer, he spends much of his time crusading against what he claims are unjust restrictions. Those include: copyrights, patents, digital rights management and uses of RFID that can allow people to be tracked. This year, he is spearheading efforts to revise the GPL, the most popular free software license.

To some, Stallman's strict adherence to his own belief system inspires. Others find him annoying.

"He's a very major figure, and he's also a very controversial one of course," said MIT artificial intelligence researcher Chris Hanson.

Hanson, who works next to office space Stallman uses, said he believes Stallman is "driven by a need for a world with some real kindness in it."

Though Stallman's outspoken views, unusual behaviors and intellectual achievements draw plenty of followers, he has spent most of his life feeling lonely – like there was no place he really belonged.

For most of his life he has been unable to unravel and conform to social norms, he said. Often, he just doesn't want to. That feeling of being an outsider, different, and disconnected began in one of the most diverse cities in America, New York City.

Fresh from an early December visit with his mother, Stallman said that as a child he felt controlled by the adults around him. Stallman said his father was cutting and he quarreled about "substantive issues" with a mother who seemed like a bit of a "tyrant" and often "frantic."

"Children often rebel for the sake of rebelling," he said during one of several interviews in Manhattan. "I never did that. I had lots of disputes with my mother because she was trying to make me do things I couldn't stand."

His parents divorced. He thought often about a desire to go home, as if the space he lived in lacked the comfort and refuge he sought. His discomfort didn't stop at the door to his mother's Upper West Side apartment. Until he was about 13, Stallman found that he could connect with other children by wiring electrical circuits and doing science-related experiments. Once the other children lost interest in that, he was uncomfortable around his classmates and quarreled with his peers.

That landed him a seat in a school for children with behavioral problems.

"I found it tremendously humiliating to be there because most of the kids there were brain dead or psychotic," Stallman said.

When he returned to a regular public school for his senior year, Stallman had a defining moment.

His teacher divided the class into two teams to compete for the most correct answers. He said he not only disliked competing but was stunned at how easily everyone accepted the idea as natural. Stallman's classmates were disappointed when he, a student preparing to graduate fourth in class of nearly 800, refused to answer the questions.

"For me, that was a mental exercise in resisting manipulation," he said.

Until he later found comfort for several years in academic environments, at Harvard and MIT, Stallman withdrew. He immersed himself into math, science and reading.

He said he doesn't have a favorite book or piece of music because he can't compare literature, music or life's joys in a linear way. He dislikes novels and enjoys science fiction, but his music preferences are more traditional.

He used to dance to upbeat folk music and enjoys classical. He shuns American pop, with few exceptions.

Despite a nearly lifelong affinity for computers and electronics, he said didn't plan to obtain any recordings of the high-tech, synthesized ambient sounds of Brian Eno's (Roxy Music) that were being played at the time.

Stallman's crusade for free software ("Free as in free speech, not free beer") extends into the world of music. During a recent lecture at Cooper Union, he said the laws favor the big music companies, not the artists or fans.

RMS, as he calls himself, stood at a microphone explaining the history of copyright laws and attempts to strengthen copyright protections worldwide. He wore socks, no shoes, and scratched when and where he itched. During a question and answer period, he spoke abruptly and in a flat tone when he appeared to disagree with a listener's statement or when he didn't understand it.

When a messy-haired young man with glasses, acne and nasal speech asked a question, Stallman's posture and tone softened.

His message was that artists and fans should exchange music and money directly and voluntarily via the Web. Among his friends, Stallman counts famous classical musicians and composers, including composer Richard Einhorn who regularly speaks on National Public Radio and whose works have been performed around the world.

As he met with Einhorn at Sapphire, a swank Indian restaurant near Columbus Circle on a cold and rainy December night, Stallman approached the table, dripping wet and announced that a man was following him and bothering him. The man, who quickly followed, turned out to be a restaurant employee trying to remove Stallman's wet coat. After a little indignant questioning about whether there was a reason he wouldn't be allowed to dine in the restaurant, Stallman settled into relaxed conversation.

Einhorn, who praised Stallman as one of the most intelligent people he knows and clearly enjoys his company, recalled a time when Stallman produced the recorder he carries around in his pocket, showed a piece of tape that was patching it up and called it his "tape recorder."

Stallman talked about his trip to Tunisia, plans for revising the General Public License (GPL version 3) and a couple of things that have been puzzling him for some time.

He asked Einhorn if he could remember a version of Jefferson Airplane's Today played in an orchestral style by another band on a New York City radio station in 1970 or 1971. He also wanted to know whether Einhorn could recall a piece with a title similar to "Electric Indian." He recalled lyrics that went: "I can't walk down the sidewalk because I'll fall through the crack. It's me, no doubt. Fade in. Fade out, every time I think I know what it's all about."

Giving the impression of someone who may have difficulty sleeping as long as unanswered questions occupy his mind, Stallman said he can find no evidence the songs ever existed though he has looked everywhere. Einhorn promised to ask his friends at NPR.

At a Christmas party about a week later, he was drawn immediately to a drum set linked to a computer, a rack full of sound engineering tools and speakers. He told the host and equipment owner who he just met that he'd like to play it sometime. Other musicians at the party were astounded to learn that the man using his hands to lift and eat lettuce from a large party salad bowl wrote GNU and founded the free software movement.

"He could have been a billionaire," one said.

Instead, Stallman lives frugally, without a real home, spending most of his time traveling and lecturing. One man, upon learning about Stallman's run-in in November with security over an RFID badge in Tunisia, asked about tracking technology. Stallman, taking breaks from munching on shrimp as he sat beside a serving plate at the buffet table, talked to the man about fighting it, protesting and refusing to wear badges with RFID.

He explained that cell phones can also be used for tracking people and that he won't use one until someone makes one that works entirely on free software.

Though Stallman takes a tough tone when he criticizes what's being done with technology, he and his friends and supporters were cheerful and smiling as they stood in the cold outside a record store at Union Square for several hours, displaying signs that read: "Sharing is Friendship."

Though clearly tired from several days of speaking, working at the Software Freedom Law Center, he said: "I'm always happy when I'm protesting."

Bruce Perens, vice president of Sourcelabs said he admires Stallman but sometimes finds himself on the opposite side of issues – something he said is almost impossible to avoid. He recalled a lecture in which he credited Stallman with being the giant upon whose shoulders the open source movement is founded. Stallman, who insists on a distinction between free and open software, covered his shoulders protectively.

"He's entirely consistent and uncompromising and I think the world needs someone like that," Perens said.