One of the founding fathers of “free software” and an esteemed elder of the hacking community, Richard Stallman has made defending people’s freedoms his life’s work. That usually means supplying hackers with software and attacking copyright law. But as he tells Michael Reilly, his advocacy of personal freedoms extends to the protection of true democracy and of the human rights increasingly being trampled on in the US and elsewhere

Is it true you used to live in your office?

Yes it is. I lived there for half of the 1980s and most of the 1990s.

What made you do that? …