RMS in KL, Malaysia
Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement and Foundation as well as the GNU project is in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia today (20 Oct 2004) courtesy of the UNDP-APDIP IOSN programme to deliver a talk to anyone interested. And boy were they interested if we are to just go by the pre-event email registration numbers. Over 200 emails were received expressing interest in attending the event but the lecture hall in KMDC can only accomodate 120 (standing room). So the co-organisers MNCC had to inform over 100 of those registered that they should not turn up since there was no space to accomodate them. However the actual turnout was a bit of a disappointment as only about 100 people showed up altogether! Maybe it is because the organisers actually told half of those responded that there are no more seats available, but hey where are the rest who had emailed in weeks in advance that they will be coming along to see RMS? Has it ever occured to those who were accepted but did not show up that they may be actually denying a place to others who are genuinely interested? Such is the local (Malaysian) culture/way of wastage and apathy!!!

The talk itself was good. Although most of what RMS said had been covered by the local FOSS people in one way or another at the various local FOSS events, there is nothing like hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, from someone who has been there from day 1 and more importantly from someone who has all this time held on steadfastedly to the Free Software ideals and philosophy. RMS as expected stressed on the freedom aspect of Free Software and how important it is to emphasise this philosophical aspect even in an initial advocacy effort as opposed to highlighting the non-philosophical and economical benefits as many OSS advocates tend to do in order to make it easier for the uninitiated to understand and accept the benefits and ideas behind Free Software. The evils of software patents were also re-iterated and their threats to software development (both free and non-free) emphasised especially for developing countries.

The Q&A was quite lively. It was kicked off by some lawyer dude from Microsoft (I was told) who challenged that the FSF's 4 fundamental software freedom can be restated based on the user's right to choose to use non-free software and that others should respect the user's decision and the licensing rights of the non-free software and not try to get others to act against it. To all these, RMS brushed them off as akin to saying that a person has a right to say that she believes in slavery and that it is good for the people and therefore people should not do anything to question this. The usual questions on how to increase local FOSS capacity as well as make the local software developer community more responsive to FOSS development came up and to which RMS was of the opinion that basically if there is greater FOSS awareness, usage and deployment in the school/education system, the kids later on will by nature become more accustomed and atuned with the FOSS culture of sharing and community collaboration and this problem should resolve itself naturally.

So all-in-all it was quite an exciting morning seeing the MAN himself in action! However, I could not help feeling a bit disappointed in that RMS's delivery was somewhat subdued. While he spoke well (without the aid of any written notes or slides), I had expected more fire and passion from him. Perhaps I was expecting too much, perhaps all those years of struggle have taken their toll or maybe even perhaps he had been advised to tone down a bit and not be so straight-talking.