Richard Stallman

Also known as rms

Richard Stallman is an American programmer and free software activist whose career began in AI research at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He joined the lab as a programmer in 1971, developed the Emacs editor in 1976, and published a 1977 paper with Gerald Sussman on dependency-directed backtracking, an AI truth maintenance technique. After announcing the GNU Project in 1983, he left MIT in January 1984, founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985, and wrote the GNU General Public License. A MacArthur Fellowship came in 1990, National Academy of Engineering membership in 2002, and an Internet Hall of Fame induction in 2013. He stepped down from the FSF and MIT in 2019 and returned to the FSF board in 2021; he is the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project and sits on the board of the Free Software Foundation.

Now at: Free Software Foundation
Born: 1953
Works: 165
Citations: 3,961
h-index: 27
Badges: Founder
Pioneer

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

1971–1974

Harvard physics and the AI Lab

He becomes a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard. He graduates from Harvard in 1974 with a physics degree.
1975–1977

Truth maintenance and Emacs

At the AI Lab, he develops dependency-directed backtracking, also known as truth maintenance, in 1975, and publishes a paper on it with Gerald Sussman in 1977. In 1976, he develops Emacs, the first extensible text editor.
1983–1989

Founding GNU and the FSF

He announces the GNU operating system project in 1983 and leaves his MIT job in January 1984 to write GNU software. In October 1985, he establishes the Free Software Foundation, and with lawyers he writes the GNU General Public License, whose first program-independent version appears in 1989.
1990

MacArthur and Hopper awards

In 1990, he receives a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Association for Computing Machinery's Grace Murray Hopper Award for his work on the extensible editor EMACS.
2002

National Academy of Engineering

In 2002, he becomes a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering, cited for starting the GNU project and founding the free software movement.
2013

The Internet Hall of Fame

In 2013, the Internet Hall of Fame inducts him for creating the GNU Project, writing the main GNU General Public License, and founding the free software movement.
2019–2021

Leaving MIT, returning to the FSF

In September 2019, he resigns as president of the Free Software Foundation and leaves his visiting scientist role at MIT after making comments about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and Marvin Minsky. He announces his return to the FSF board of directors in March 2021.
As of October 2026

Chief GNUisance of GNU

He is the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project and sits on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation. He focuses on political advocacy for free software and spends most of the year travelling to speak.