Free as in Free Lecture

Richard Stallman is one of the more important and controversial figures in the tech and open source communities. 

In 1983, he started the GNU Project— an operating system wholly comprised of "free software." That's this definition of free—or, as it says: "'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'."

Since then, the free and open source world has grown into a big, important, and—somewhat ironically—lucrative industry.

But Stallman has found himself increasingly at odds much of this development—most notably with Linux and its now-Portland-based creator Linus Torvalds, who used GNU as the basis for creating the Linux kernal, but refused to use "GNU" in the name—a name that is now synonymous with the free and open source software movement. Stallman and his supporters still refer only to it as "GNU plus Linux" or "GNU slash Linux."

One of his biggest battles has been against the term "open source" itself—claiming, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement" (you can read a whole screed on it here)—a stance which has alienated him from many of his peers.

And yet, Stallman remains an important and influential player. He was involved in Hugo Chavez's television station, he persuaded the Indian state of Kerala to eliminate Microsoft from its school computers and he pioneered the concept of the "copyleft" license.

He also lives in his office at MIT (where he works for no salary), only owns one computer, and invented his own holiday to replace Christmas called "Grav-mass."

Love him or hate him (or never heard of him), Stallman's a fascinating guy and he's giving a talk and Q&A at PSU tomorrow, Thursday, April 7. It's pretty much guaranteed to be heated and controversial.

The talk will take place from 7:30-10 pm at PSU's Native American Student and Community Center, 710 SW Jackson St. See here for more info. There will be no free beer.

WWeek 2015