Proprietary Software Quotes & Sayings

The turnaround, however, did not come without expensive failures. Apple had done a good job embracing the Internet, by making the process of getting access to the Web as simple as any other function of an iMac. But Apple's eWorld, a proprietary online subscription service bundled with new iMacs, was a flop, despite a friendly interface that suggested that going online could be as easy as walking from one neighborhood to the next. All it really offered was email services and a way to download software, and in practice it wasn't any easier to use than bigger services like EarthLink and AOL, which came bundled on Wintel PCs. — Brent Schlender

Apple has a complex suite of proprietary technologies, both in hardware (like superior touchscreen materials) and software (like touchscreen interfaces purpose-designed for specific materials). — Peter Thiel

Yahoo is free, it's fast and it's Web-centric. AOL is slow, it costs money and requires proprietary software. — Fred Wilson

So what I was essentially doing was, I compromised the confidentiality of their proprietary software to advance my agenda of becoming the best at breaking through the lock. — Kevin Mitnick

You know, if you were *really* going to starve, you'd be justified in writing proprietary software. — Richard Stallman

If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power. — Richard Stallman

To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master. And in the area of computing, freedom means not using proprietary software. — Richard Stallman

I have not seen anyone assume that all the citizens of New York are guilty of murder, violence, robbery, perjury, or writing proprietary software. — Richard Stallman

The idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing. — Richard Stallman

Proprietary software is an injustice. — Richard Stallman

Proprietary software grew up, starting really in the 1980s, as an alternative and that became the dominant model with the rise of companies like Microsoft and Oracle and the like. — Tim O'Reilly

One of the ways that Microsoft beat Apple way back in the day was that they were a lot more open; today, in the world I come from, the free software and open-source world, Microsoft is not generally viewed as open; they're viewed as proprietary. — Jimmy Wales

Proprietary software tends to have malicious features. The point is with a proprietary program, when the users don't have the source code, we can never tell. So you must consider every proprietary program as potential malware. — Richard Stallman

Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided because each user is forbidden to redistribute it to others, and helpless because the users can't change it since they don't have the source code. They can't study what it really does. So the proprietary program is a system of unjust power. — Richard Stallman

I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code. — Richard Stallman

Our mailing lists (and their repeater newsgroups) are only for the purpose of promoting proprietary software. — Richard Stallman

As the web becomes more and more of a part of our every day lives, it would be a horrible tragedy if it was locked up inside of companies and proprietary software. — Matt Mullenweg

If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software. — Richard Stallman

Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism. My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better. — Richard Stallman