I attended yesterday in Brisbane a public lecture for Richard M. Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation entitled “Education across the Nation – Free Software in Ethics and in Practice”.
Stallman spoke for almost two hours on the philosophy and history of free software. He noted the several misconceptions about the movement that usually people have (such as using “Linux” not GNU/Linux and “open source” to refer to free software).
He believes that allowing people to study and use the software would let them develop and given them independence. Stallman criticised the approach of many businesses including Microsoft and Apple and many others that use “proprietary software” to block the freedom of the people and invade their privacy.
Stallman acknowledged that the movement has gone through various phases including difficult time and invited the public to help in supporting it. After giving the presentation, he presented his “other self” and then ran an auction for Freedom Software foundation (selling a gnu toy). He later answered questions that were mostly technical in nature. The full video of the event will be available shortly here.
ACS and NICTA QRL Big Picture Seminar – Presentation by Richard Stallman
NICTA Queensland Research Laboratory
Big Picture Seminar Series
Seminar:
Education across the Nation – Free Software in Ethics and in Practise
Speaker:
Richard M. Stallman
Date:
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Agenda:
5.30pm – 6:00pm Registration
6.00pm – 8:30pm Seminar Presentation (including Q&A Session)
Venue:
Mezzanine 3 (M3), Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Merivale Street, South Bank, Brisbane
For more information about the seminar, please visit the NICTA’s website here.
