Richard M. Stallman's Seminar
I visited Malaya University today to attend a seminar on software freedom and software patents by Richard Stallman, who is the founder of the free software movement, the GNU project, and the Free Software Foundation. The seminar began with speeches of the organizers and a MAMPU representative. Stallman's speech was about two and a half hours in length. That might be a long speech, but with the useful information and his modest sense of humor, he successfully kept me awake for his whole session.
In his speech, he explained what software patents are, how they are different from copyrights, and how difficult it is to create software without infringing software patents. We have three choices when we encounter a patent that covers the software we're developing: avoid the patent, get a license of the patent, or invalidate the patent. Avoiding patents means finding other ways to implement functionalities. If we can't think of algorithms that are as good as the patented ones, we will end up either using relatively bad algorithms or removing the functionalities; either way of which, we will degrade our software. Getting a license is a very costly option, and having the money doesn't mean that the patents holders are willing to license their patents. The final option left for us is to try to invalidate the patents, which may also be costly as well as time-consuming. One way to invalidate a software patent is by finding a piece of software that used the patented design and was created at an ealier time by someone else. This may not be that easy. Software patent law is bad in the large picture. Its consequences can be unimaginably terrible. If you are living in a country without this law, you are lucky, and you should make sure that it never becomes a law of your country.
Stallman also talked about proprietary software used in education and in the governments. He gave this example: Computer Science students are supposed to study the details of how things work within the computers. If the schools use proprietary software, those students will not be able to know how the software works internally. This means that the schools are restricting their students from doing what they want their students to do. Stallman also said that governments have the responsibility to keep citizens' information private, but when the governments use proprietary software, they can't have full control over the software, and neither do they know whether the software sends the information back to the creators of the software or someone else.
There are a lot more in Stallman's speech, but I won't write them all down here. You can learn more about them from Philosophy of the GNU Project. After Stallman's speech, there was about an hour of Q&A session. After that, there were free "GNU & Linux" stickers given to the attendees. I took six pieces as a souvenir. The trip was a gain for me. At least, I met a great person in the IT field. The only regret was that I didn't have a camera (poor me), so I couldn't take any picture.
Picture: The "GNU & Linux" stickers each featuring a GNU's flying wildebeest and a Linux's flying penguin in their armors. I couldn't hold my laughter when I first saw these stickers.
Update (Tuesday, August 30, 2005. 2:49 AM)
See what other attendees had to say:
In his speech, he explained what software patents are, how they are different from copyrights, and how difficult it is to create software without infringing software patents. We have three choices when we encounter a patent that covers the software we're developing: avoid the patent, get a license of the patent, or invalidate the patent. Avoiding patents means finding other ways to implement functionalities. If we can't think of algorithms that are as good as the patented ones, we will end up either using relatively bad algorithms or removing the functionalities; either way of which, we will degrade our software. Getting a license is a very costly option, and having the money doesn't mean that the patents holders are willing to license their patents. The final option left for us is to try to invalidate the patents, which may also be costly as well as time-consuming. One way to invalidate a software patent is by finding a piece of software that used the patented design and was created at an ealier time by someone else. This may not be that easy. Software patent law is bad in the large picture. Its consequences can be unimaginably terrible. If you are living in a country without this law, you are lucky, and you should make sure that it never becomes a law of your country.
Stallman also talked about proprietary software used in education and in the governments. He gave this example: Computer Science students are supposed to study the details of how things work within the computers. If the schools use proprietary software, those students will not be able to know how the software works internally. This means that the schools are restricting their students from doing what they want their students to do. Stallman also said that governments have the responsibility to keep citizens' information private, but when the governments use proprietary software, they can't have full control over the software, and neither do they know whether the software sends the information back to the creators of the software or someone else.
There are a lot more in Stallman's speech, but I won't write them all down here. You can learn more about them from Philosophy of the GNU Project. After Stallman's speech, there was about an hour of Q&A session. After that, there were free "GNU & Linux" stickers given to the attendees. I took six pieces as a souvenir. The trip was a gain for me. At least, I met a great person in the IT field. The only regret was that I didn't have a camera (poor me), so I couldn't take any picture.
Picture: The "GNU & Linux" stickers each featuring a GNU's flying wildebeest and a Linux's flying penguin in their armors. I couldn't hold my laughter when I first saw these stickers.
Update (Tuesday, August 30, 2005. 2:49 AM)
See what other attendees had to say:
posted by jim at
8:45 PM
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