The GNU Manifesto, penned by Richard Stallman in 1985, is a foundational text that kicked off the GNU Project and the free software movement. Simply put, Stallman wrote it to challenge the norm of software being locked down by its creators. He wanted to make a case for software that everyone could use, change, and share without restrictions.

In January 1986, "The Hacker Manifesto" was penned by a writer known only as The Mentor, whose real name is Loyd Blankenship. Published in the underground hacker magazine *Phrack*, this manifesto quickly became a cornerstone document for the hacker community and those interested in the ethos surrounding this subculture. Written after the author's arrest for computer hacking, "The Hacker Manifesto" is both a defense and a philosophical statement that articulates a hacker’s psychological and social drivers.

In 1988, Timothy May, a former Intel physicist and a founding figure in the field of cypherpunk, composed "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto." This brief yet impactful document was first presented at a small gathering of hackers and tech enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. With prescient clarity, May articulated a vision for how cryptography and digital communications could fundamentally alter the nature of government and corporate control over individual privacy.

Hughes captures the ethos of a movement deeply concerned with privacy as a fundamental element of a free society. In an age where digital communication was becoming ubiquitous, Hughes and his fellow cypherpunks saw the immense potential—and peril—of this new landscape. They believed that without significant changes in how privacy was handled, the digital age could lead to unprecedented invasions of personal privacy.

In February 1996, amidst the burgeoning potential and regulatory challenges of the internet, John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, authored "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace." This document was a bold manifesto challenging the attempts of governments around the world to impose old-world statutes and limitations on the burgeoning digital landscape, which Barlow saw as a fundamentally new and uncharted domain.

The Agile Manifesto, unveiled in 2001 by a group of forward-thinking software developers, marked a pivotal shift in the approach to software development. Authored during a gathering of seventeen developers at a ski resort in Utah, this manifesto emerged as a response to the dissatisfaction with the traditional, rigid software development methodologies that often resulted in bloated, ineffective products delivered well past their due dates.

The Mozilla Manifesto, introduced by the Mozilla Foundation in 2007, articulates a set of principles aimed at preserving the internet as a global public resource that remains open and accessible to all. This manifesto is a reflection of Mozilla's commitment to promoting transparency, innovation, and opportunity on the internet, aligning closely with the organization's ethos as a pioneer of free, open-source web solutions like the Firefox browser.