Free Software: Current status and challenges

Speaker: Richard Stallman
Date: 19th August 2006
Venue: Faculty Hall, IISc.
Capacity: 160
Attendance: 120 at 11 a.m. to 140 by 11:10 a.m. to 120 by 12:40 p.m. to 80 by 1:35 p.m.

11:03 a.m. - 12:40 p.m. -> Talk
What was said: The usual. Humorous in parts, as expected.
Jokes like:
"GNU is often mispronounced as gnu or Linux."
"It's a moral duty. If there was a person drowning, and I knew swimming, and the person wasn't Bush, I'd have tried to save him."
Always expanded DRM as "Digital Restrictions Management", and TRIPES as "The Restrictions and Impediments to Profession, Education, and Society".

The 12:35 p.m. Saint IGNUcius act with the black overgarment, halo, and pose with one arm raised blessing the audience and the other carrying a laptop had the audience in splits.

Stuff I'm more convinced of than before:
The use of free software even if it is less powerful than propreitery software, because it means freedom.
To not use propreitery software _at all_ even if we have not paid for it.


12:40 p.m. - 1:35 p.m. -> Q & A.

1:35 p.m. - 1:40 p.m. -> Distribution of Gnu/Linux stickers for free, and Rs. 200 pins (to donate to the FSF so that they can hire more programmers / pay them).

Things to do:
Spend a few minutes a day advocating the goals of freedom to people using software, and if that's not possible, at least spend a few seconds a day calling GNU/Linux by it's correct name.

Notes:
Try pronouncing guh-noo, knew, new, gnu. The last 3 are pronounced the same by Americans (at least).
The right pronounciation of GNU is guh-noo, but one doesn't need to stress tooo much on the guh. Also, EMACS is pronounced e-max (not ee-max, e.m.a.c.s. etc.).

Richard Stallman doesn't get too tired even after 2 hours of speaking standing, doesn't need a prepared speech, wants a good mic and the air conditioner turned on high, and thinks his speech is the best at the start and will wait for people to enter so that they get to hear it as well. Pauses in the middle at times, but as expected, is very fluent and has an understandable accent.