Long-haired,renegade hacker... coming to Goa (Nov 5-7)

Hi Fred,
Good  to   know  about Richard Stallman's visit to India and that too in
Delhi  and Goa.
I   got the opportunity to meet   and listen to  him during  GCNP's
recently  held
International  congress in Montreal ( 7-12th Oct.).

FYI: content/gist  of  his   2 hrs speech   can be  found  at
"http://www.globalcn.org/",  in case any one is interested.

Regd.,
Anil Jaggi




Frederick Noronha wrote:

> Stallman is visiting Bangalore, Goa and Delhi in early November. FN
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> "FREE AS IN FREEDOM: RICHARD STALLMAN'S CRUSADE FOR FREE SOFTWARE"
>
> Sebastopol, CA--Why would Microsoft executives lie awake at night
> worrying about the antics of a long-haired, renegade hacker named
> Richard Stallman? Why do some of the smartest programmers on the planet
> revere this man as "St. Ignucius"? And how did a stubborn, precocious
> boy obsessed with creating the perfect model rocket grow up to play
> David to the software industry's Goliath? A new book, "Free as in
> Freedom," (Sam Williams, O'Reilly, US $22.95) traces Stallman's
> evolution from gifted, solitary child to teen outcast to revered and
> reviled crusader.
>
> As the leader of the free software movement, Stallman is one of the
> most influential and controversial personalities in hacker culture
> today. Through extensive interviews with Stallman, his family, and
> fellow hackers, author Sam Williams has created an intimate portrait of
> this freedom fighter.
>
> No one is apathetic about Stallman, the controversial founder of the
> Free Software Foundation (FSF). A brilliant coder, MacArthur "genius
> grant" recipient, and self-described borderline autistic, he
> single-handedly launched the movement that threatens to beat Microsoft
> by radically changing the rules of the software game.
>
> To Stallman, free software--"free as in speech, not beer"--is a moral
> imperative. From the moment he encountered "unfree" printer software in
> 1980, he has dedicated his life to ridding the world of proprietary
> code. Equipped with a messianic zeal, world-class programming chops,
> and a fair measure of geek charisma, he set out to enlist every last
> programmer in his crusade for freedom.
>
> "Nobody but Richard could have had the patience, and the stubbornness,
> and the will to build something this big," says Williams. "There are
> other people writing free software, but he's the one that made it an
> issue. He's the one that provided the initial gravitation that
> everybody else could gather around."
>
> This provocative chronicle offers fans and foes alike perspective on
> this inscrutable high-tech Robin Hood--as well as new understanding of
> the issues that promise to shape the future of the software industry.
>
> "Richard has developed a coherent philosophy that has forced all of us
> to reexamine our ideas of how software is produced, of what
> intellectual property means, and what the software community actually
> represents."--Ed Schonberg, Professor, NYU Computer Science Department
>
> "Stallman's ideals will define our future--if we are lucky."
> --Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School and author of "Code and Other
> Laws of Cyberspace"
>
> "I think if you want to understand Richard Stallman the human being,
> you really need to see all of the parts as a consistent whole. All
> those personal eccentricities that people see as obstacles to getting
> to know Stallman, really are Stallman: Richard's strong sense of
> personal frustration, his enormous sense of principles, his ethical
> commitment, his inability to compromise, especially on issues he
> considers fundamental. These are all the very reasons Richard did what
> he did when he did."
> --Eben Moglen, Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School and
> legal counsel to The FSF
>
> "He was special. A clear thinker and a clear designer."
> --Gerald Sussman, MIT faculty member and former A.I. Lab researcher
>
> "We were all geeks and nerds, but he was unusually poorly adjusted. He
> was also smart as sh*t. I've known a lot of smart people, but I think
> he was the smartest person I've ever known."
> --Dan Chess, Mathematics Professor, Hunter College, and fellow math
> prodigy
>
> "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can
> put three man-years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his
> product, and distributing it for free?"
> --Bill Gates in his "Open Letter to Hobbyists"
>
> "I saw in Richard the stereotypical hacker type. We don't have much of
> them in Helsinki."
> --Linus Torvalds, seeing Richard for the first time in 1990
>
> "Richard was the first to take up what is now a very important
> battle...He was an early, lone voice warning of how the concept of
> software intellectual property could undermine, rather than support,
> the programmer."
> --Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and Director of the
> World Wide Web Consortium
>
> "Unquestionably one of the great seminal figures of hacker
> culture."
> --Eric Raymond, author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
>
> "A long overdue book on a fascinating person who, by sheer force of
> character, has changed how the world looks at technology."
> --Bob Young, Co-Founder, Red Hat, Inc.
>
> "Happy hacking, folks."--Richard M. Stallman