Which distro richard stallman uses

I reject Facebook because it requires each used i. It also insists on knowing the person's usual name, and it is starting to demand a series of different photos. I am proud to identify myself when stating my views; I can afford to do that because I am in a fairly safe position. There are people who rationally fear reprisals from employers, gangsters, right-wing extremists, or the state if they sign their name to their views.

For their sake, let's reject any social networking site which insists on connecting an account to a person's real identity. Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well. However, it does require identification in the form of a phone number. E-mail service People sometimes ask me to recommend an email service. The two ethical issues for an email service are 1 whether you can use it without running any nonfree software including nonfree Javascript code from the site , and 2 whether it respects your privacy.

For issue 1, see the FSF's page. On issue 2, I have no way to verify that any email service is satisfactory. Therefore, I have no recommendation to offer. However, I can suggest that it may be wise to use an email service that is not connected with your search engine. That way you can be almost sure that your email contents don't influence your search results.

You shouldn't identify yourself to your search engine in any case. Programming languages The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp or its variant, Scheme , you don't know what it means for a programming language to be powerful and elegant. Once you learn Lisp, you will see what is lacking in most other languages. Unlike most languages today, which are focused on defining specialized data types, Lisp provides a few data types which are general. Instead of defining specific types, you build structures from these types.

Thus, rather than offering a way to define a list-of-this type and a list-of-that type, Lisp has one type of lists which can hold any sort of data. Where other languages allow you to define a function to search a list-of-this, and sometimes a way to define a generic list-search function that you can instantiate for list-of-this, Lisp makes it easy to write a function that will search any list — and provides a range of such functions.

In addition, functions and expressions in Lisp are represented as data in a way that makes it easy to operate on them. When you start a Lisp system, it enters a read-eval-print loop. What gaping deficiencies! While I love the power of Lisp, I am not a devotee of functional programming.

I see nothing bad about side effects and I do not make efforts to avoid them unless there is a practical reason. There is code that is natural to write in a functional way, and code that is more natural with side effects, and I do not campaign about the question. I limit my campaigning to issues of freedom and justice, such as to eliminate nonfree software from the world.

Lisp is no harder to understand than other languages. So if you have never learned to program, and you want to start, start with Lisp. If you learn to edit with Emacs, you can learn Lisp by writing editing commands for Emacs. You can use the Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp to learn with: it is free as in freedom , and you can order printed copies from the FSF.

You can learn Scheme and a lot of deep ideas about programming from Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman.

Please don't buy books or anything from Amazon! My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around I stopped doing programming projects. I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C.

But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp I simply happened to be in Java at the time ;-.

However, in that case, abstract objects are equivalent to a naming convention for functions to call. The case where abstract objects add real power to a language is when the type is not known until run time. I suspect that I would find plenty of ugliness in the template library, but I don't know. I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundamentally similar to Lisp.

My conclusion is that that is not so. How to learn programming First, read a textbook about programming in some language, then manuals for several programming languages including Lisp.

If this makes natural intuitive sense to you, that indicates your mind is well-adapted towards programming. If they don't make intuitive sense to you, I suggest you do something other than programming. You might be able to do programming to some degree with a struggle, but if you find it a struggle you won't be very good at it. What's the point of programming if it is a struggle instead of a fascination?

After that, you need to read the source code of real programs or parts of them and figure out what they do. Then start writing changes in them, to add features, or fix bugs if you can find out about specific bugs to fix. Ask some good programmers who are familiar with the code of those programs to read and critique your changes.

If you fix a bug in a free program that people are developing, the developers are likely to be glad to get fixes from you and will tell you the way to write them to make them good to install. Look at their TODO list for features you would like to implement. You will find it is a great satisfaction when the developers incorporate your changes. Do this over and over and you will become good at developing software.

Please use your programming capability only for good, not for evil. Don't develop nonfree software, or service as a software substitute. Design systems not to collect personal information, and to allow anonymous use. Non-free software issues I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me. However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them.

I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this.

Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them. Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. That page explains the reasons why several well-known distributions don't meet our guidelines.

If the distribution isn't listed there either, and you think it qualifies for a listing under our guidelines, then please let the distribution's maintainers know about this page and encourage them to get in touch—we'd like to hear from them.

When you do, we'll explain more about our evaluation process to you, and get started on it quickly. We look forward to hearing from you! We defend the rights of all software users. There are also other ways to contact the FSF. Free Software Supporter :.

Set language. Copyright Infringement Notification. Since it will not receive security updates, it should be used offline. While primarily targeting routers, it offers support for a wide range of devices and use cases. ProteanOS is a new, small, and fast distribution for embedded devices. Debian is the only common non-endorsed distribution to keep nonfree blobs out of its main distribution. However, the problem partly remains. The nonfree firmware files live in Debian's nonfree repository, which is referenced in the documentation on debian.

In addition, some of the free programs that are officially part of Debian invite the user to install some nonfree programs. Specifically, the Debian versions of Firefox and Chromium suggest nonfree plug-ins to install into them.

Fedora does have a clear policy about what can be included in the distribution, and it seems to be followed carefully. The policy requires that most software and all fonts be available under a free license, but makes an exception for certain kinds of nonfree firmware. Unfortunately, the decision to allow that firmware in the policy keeps Fedora from meeting the free system distribution guidelines. Gentoo includes installation recipes for a number of nonfree programs in its primary package system.

Mandriva does have a stated policy about what can be included in the main system. It's based on Fedora's, which means that it also allows certain kinds of nonfree firmware to be included. On top of that, it permits software released under the original Artistic License to be included, even though that's a nonfree license. Manjaro includes nonfree software through its normal channels, and ships nonfree blobs with its kernel, Linux.

It includes a proprietary office suite and proprietary games with DRM. The distro also recommends the installation of nonfree drivers. Mint does not have a policy against including nonfree software, it includes nonfree binary blobs in drivers packaged with the kernel, and it includes nonfree programs in its repositories.

It even includes proprietary codecs. Red Hat's enterprise distribution primarily follows the same licensing policies as Fedora, with one exception. Thus, we don't endorse it for the same reasons. In addition to those, Red Hat has no policy against making nonfree software available for the system through supplementary distribution channels.

Slackware has the two usual problems: there's no clear policy about what software can be included, and nonfree blobs are included in Linux, the kernel. It also ships with the nonfree image-viewing program xv. Of course, with no firm policy against them, more nonfree programs could get in at any time.