A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time; see Richard Stallman speak. Stallman, for those not in the know (RMS for those who are) is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project, and writer of the original General Public Licence (GPL). The lovely recursively acronymous GNU's Not Unix has arguably been the biggest contributing factor to the widespread availability of free software as it is today. Again, for those unfamiliar with GNU, it's probably safe to say that it's most of what you'd usually end up calling Linux. (I'll probably blog about the name thing later...)

Stallman, an American, doesn't get to these shores very often, so the chance to see him speak in Manchester was one not to be missed. I travelled up in the car with Dan and Zeth. Pete Ashton and Jez Higgins also went up from Brum.

I've actually been holding off posting anything about the talk, since I wanted to mull over my thoughts about it, rather than merely contribute to the flurry of "i haz seen rms omg" posts which litter the internet ;-)

I'm not quite sure when I first heard of Richard Stallman, but it was probably rather soon after I started using GNU/Linux in 1998 (PC Plus coverdisk of SuSE 5.2). Having had some rather lefty teenage years (not to say that I've grown out of it), the idea that software could be driven socially rather than by capital excited me quite a bit. As I read more, the philosophy of software being knowledge to be shared, rather than a shrink-wrapped product, seemed to be rather more obvious than I'd been led to believe by the aisles at PC World. Articles claiming that Stallman was as much a philosopher as a programmer encouraged me to look at my computer in a different way. My commitment, it seemed, had begun to develop.

So, I guess I had some rather pre-conceived ideas about what I expected Stallman to be like in real life. Sure, he's a kind of geek-monk as a person, but his speeches? This guy had inspired a movement, right?

He was actually every bit as inspiring as I had hoped; and every bit the geek-monk. The talk (the video of which is available via OneBigTorrent here) roamed all over the current state of play with free software, DRM and asserting the right to control your own computing. I won't recount the details - that's what the video is for - but the evening did give some perspective and crystalisation to a subject area which I believe I know pretty well. And it was nice to be among friends.

At the end of the almost two hour lecture, Stallman took plenty of time for questions. This was really good I think, though the guy really has to learn to let questioners finish what they're saying before jumping in with an answer. I guess this is due to his enthusiasm for the subject, even after 25 years of being evangelist-in-chief of the free software movement.

One thought provoking topic which did come up in a couple of questions was that of whether sofware is unique in its position of being able to be "freed" in this manner. Could the same principles be applied to harware, or to pharmaceuticals? The questioners almost seemed to be begging him to lead a charge from his barracks in software into the world in general, with copyleft principles becoming all-pervasive in advancing the tide of social over capital in all areas of life.

But Stallman was decidedly cautious about this, and mostly argued that software was unique in its suitability for liberation, due to the programmable nature of computers. The basic example discussed was that if you demand certain freedoms for your computer, why not for your microwave too? Stallman's argument, weak in my view, was that since computers are programmable and microwaves aren't, then the principles just don't apply to microwaves. On the one hand, I can't help but be reminded of Stan's fight for the right to have babies in Monty Python's Life of Brian, even though it was be a physical impossibility, but I really can't see that this is what's happening here. Stallman's argument to me boils down to "if you can, you should have the right to", which I think is both wrong and dangerous if applied generally. There are things which you can and both should and shouldn't have the right to do (think walk to the shop vs murder) and things which you can't physically do (yet) but likewise should and shouldn't have the right to (think swim to the bottom of the ocean vs build a nuclear bomb out of potatoes). This approach is clearly nonsensical.

The OpenMoko project is just one example of how the pricincples of free software are being transferred to hardware, and the free culture movement is borrowing heavily from free sofware too. I can't help thinking that Stallman is trying to stop himself from biting off more than he can chew with this self-imposed restriction to software-only freedom. After all, it's a big enough task in itself.

So, all in all, it was a very inspriring, thought-provoking and satisfying evening. I'd encourage anyone - free software convert or not - to take the opportunity to see Stallman if they get the chance.