January was a relatively quiet month for FSF president Richard
Stallman (RMS), so we're taking this opportunity to look back on a few
speeches that RMS gave last year and that we did not get a chance to
report on.
On February 6th, 2017, RMS was at
Reykjavík University, in Reykjavík, Iceland, to give
his speech “Free software: For your freedom and privacy,”
to about 200 people.
(Copyright © 2017 Daði Sigursveinn Harðarson. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
He then took the opportunity to go on a small road trip with his
hosts, along the southern coast of the island, and take in some
spectacular sights (here, along the highway and at Vik
beach)…
(Copyright © 2017 Eyþór Máni Steinarsson. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
…as well as to get some work done, in some unusual locations and unconventional situations (at Seljalandsfoss, and atop an obliging equid, respectively)…
(Copyright © 2017 Free Software Foundation. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
A couple of months and a number of speeches later, on April 11th, RMS was at Michigan State University,
in East Lansing, Michigan, to give his speech
“A free digital society,” to a standing-room-only
crowd.
(Copyright © 2017 Irem Gokce Yildirim. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
His host, Professor Bill Dutton, was subdued when asked about the
prospects of free software adoption at MSU, mentioning
“university central purchasing schemes” as an obstacle,
and going on to cite “a lack of awareness” as the main
reason there is no migration to free software. “Too many
students and faculty accept being controlled by software,” he said. He was, however, pleased with the energy the visit had
generated, and excited that RMS's talk had “brought students and
faculty together across departmental boundaries” and that
“there was interest from across the university,” something
that gives us all reason to be hopeful.
The FSF is working hard to
move the dial on this issue. You can help by raising awareness at
your own school or university, and you might find our information on
free software in
education useful in making your case.
Later that same month, on April 28th, RMS spoke in Potsdam,
Germany, at the invitation of the Hasso Plattner Institute, at the
University of Potsdam. His talk was part of the Future Trends in
Service-Oriented Computing symposium. The lecture hall was full for RMS's
speech “Ethical Principles for Service-Oriented
Computing.”1
Andreas Grapentin, a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute who was
instrumental in organizing the visit, was pleased with the talk,
remarking,
As a long-term advocate of free software and a contributor to several
free software projects, co-organizing RMS's visit to Hasso Plattner
Institute in 2017 has been a personal highlight for me. It has also
been a unique opportunity for everyone at our institute and beyond to
meet a true hero of our field, and to learn more about the ethics of
software engineering, and the importance of freedom and privacy in
society.
After graduating, the majority of our students proceed to join a
professional work environment—or maybe found their first
startup—and it will be up to them to evaluate the social impact
of their work-life decisions and to make sensible choices that will
benefit or harm society as a whole. We invited RMS to help educate
them about the possible threats that unethical software can impose
upon the freedom and privacy of its users, and to help them make
informed decisions during their career.
We are very happy that RMS took the time to visit, and was able to
present his thoughts on the subject of free software, and possible
ethical issues of software services and dis-services in front of more
than 200 students, members of staff, professors and members of our
research school on service-oriented computing. People here were
talking about the event, the concept of free software, and about the
importance of ethical choices in software engineering for months
afterwards.
(Copyright © 2017 Toni Mattis. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
In May, RMS headed to Canada, to take part in “Freeing
science—From software to medicine,” a colloquium sponsored
and hosted by McGill University, in Montreal. He gave
his speech “Free software and your freedom,” on May 12th to an audience of students and
researchers and people from the information technology, biotechnology,
and pharmaceutical industries.
(Copyright © 2017 Owen Egan. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
The following month, while he was in Argentina, he went to
Salta, to speak at the Universidad Nacional de Salta.
It was his first time back since 2004, when the university awarded him
an honorary doctorate.
His talk, on June 13th, 2017, was
part of a one-day “Jornada de Software Libre,” or free
software conference. Following Diego Saravia, who spoke on
“Software libre y democracia,” he gave his free software
speech “Software libre y tu libertad,” to an audience of
about 500 people.
(Copyright © 2017 Universidad Nacional de Salta. Photos licensed under CC BY 4.0.)
Thank you to everyone who made all these trips possible!
Please fill out our contact form, so that we can inform you about
future events in and around Reykjavík,
East Lansing,
Potsdam,
Montreal,
and Salta.
Please see www.fsf.org/events for a full
list of all of RMS's confirmed engagements,
and contact rms-assist@gnu.org if you'd like
him to come speak.
1. The recording will soon be posted on our audio-video archive.↩