Founded free software movement when he announced he was developing GNU operating system
resigned from MIT to start the GNU project
Honorary life time membership in the Chalmers Computer Society
founded the League for Programming Freedom, which campaigned against software patents and interface copyrights
Received MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
The Association for Computing Machinery's Grace Murray Hopper Award "For pioneering work in the development of the extensible editor EMACS (Editing Macros)."
Stallman called for development of a free on-line encyclopedia through the means of inviting the public to contribute articles
United States National Academy of Engineering membership
Inducted into internet hall of fame
The Association for Computing Machinery's Software and Systems Award for development of GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection.