This Friday, CCSL will receive a visit from Richard Matthew Stallman, at IME-USP. It is a chance to get to know better the founder of the Free Software Movement, from GNU Project and Free Software Foundation (FSF). Stallman consolidated the "copyleft" concept by writing GNU General Public License (GNU/GPL), the most used free license in the world. Since 1990, he spends most of his time as a political activist, defending free software and fighting against software patents.
Thus, IME-USP’s CCSL has the honor of inviting everyone to the lecture of this great name in computer science history that will take place this Friday at 4 p.m. Continuing the discussions currently underway on software patents in Brazil, Stallman will share his view on the matter. Anyone who has attended his lectures knows that, besides being a great speaker, his views are very well grounded and focused on the collective interest; those who have not, cannot miss this opportunity! The lecture will be in English, but it is important to note that Stallman speaks slowly and has a clear pronunciation.
Title: The Danger of Software Patents
Overview: Richard Stallman will explain how software patents obstruct software development. Software patents are patents that cover software ideas. They restrict the development of software, so that every design decision brings a risk of getting sued. Patents in other fields restrict factories, but software patents restrict every computer user. Economic research shows that they even retard progress.
About the speaker: Dr. Richard Stallman launched the free software movement in 1983 and started the development of the GNU operating system (see www.gnu.org) in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, with or without changes. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award, and the the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as several honorary doctorates.
- Date
- May 25th, 2012 at 16h