The Free Software Foundation's annual Associate Members Meeting is always an inspiring event for me. It serves as a sort of State of The Free Software Union; where members gather to discuss ideas and listen to speakers. Most of the FSF Board of Directors were there to speak.
I attended the meeting today (Saturday 03/24/2007) for the 4th time in the past 5 years.
It was held at MIT (Cambridge, Massachusetts):
I arrived during Joshua Ginsberg's (FSF Senior System Administrator) speech on “FSF Systems Administration”. He gave an overview of some of the systems and internal work going at the FSF offices. Some highlights:
Next up was Brett Smith, the new GPL Compliance Engineer at the Compliance Lab. One thing Brett mentioned was that GPL license violations are pretty much kept secret and not disclosed to the community. FSF prefers to negotiate with violators and talk them into compliance behind closed doors. I'm not sure I agree with this practice. I asked Richard Stallman about this during his Q&A Session... stating that I thought this information should be released to the public. I don't see it as an overly aggressive move and I think publicly outing companies that are GPL violators would be a good way to give exposure to Free Software and help curb future violations. RMS doesn't quite agree with my standpoint, but he asked some FSF staff to explore generically publicizing more types of violations.
Next was Gerald Jay Sussman, speaking about "Robust Design". Gerry was the author of my first Computer Science book, the venerable Wizard Book (SICP), and one of the authors of Scheme (a programming language dialect of LISP). I was able to thank him for the pain and enlightenment his texts brought me during my CS studies.
Gerry is a complete madman when he gives presentations. Forget the powerpoints and fancy presentation gear... he just slings around old school projector slides at blazing speed. Admittedly, the stuff he talks about is far over my head. I'm just a lowly computer programmer. This guy has been at MIT since 1964 studying the cutting edge of computer science, mechanics, and electrical engineering. Watching him ease through functional programming and Scheme code is a little intimidating, but the entertainment value alone is worth it.
OK.. now the person most people came to see speak... the GNU Project founder, FSF President, former MIT AI Lab hacker, Emacs/GCC/GDB author, Chief GNUisance, and St. Gnucius himself... Richard Stallman:
RMS was in a surprisingly jovial mood. He is usually sorta moody and prone to outbursts. I saw him shout at, and absolutely berate Larry Lessig a few years ago in front of a large audience at an FSF meeting. However, today he was in fine form and gave his speech "Free Software and Software Patents". He delivered well and really punched home the point about the absurdity of patents when applied to software.
After RMS was Eben Moglen, FSF Chief Council, Columbia Law Professor, and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center. Eben is my favorite speaker.. bar none. He speaks with passion and insight that is truly inspiring to watch. He gave his "After GPLv3" speech. It was an update on the current state of the GPL revision process. Stallman and Moglen are leading the massive effort to complete GPLv3. I am very thankful that people like Eben Moglen are on the front lines protecting our freedom.
Eben Moglen:
Bruce Perens was in attendance:
He seems to have taken a very strong interest in the GPLv3 recently.
... and of course there were the obligatory FSF activist signs:
RMS listening to Moglen's speech:
Now... everyone... go join the FSF and become an Associate Member.... or at least continue your Free Software hacking and advocacy.
Goldberg... out!
Copyright © 2006-2008 Corey Goldberg
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.