[WSIS CS-Plenary] Opening Ceremony Speaker PCT proposal : Richard Stallman

[Richard Stallman]

    Dear Adam
    > To be honest, and with no disrespect to Richard Stallman, I would 
    > much prefer to have the opening speaker (5 minute slot) be someone 
    > who speaks on overarching issues: basically on rights essential to 
    > information society.

That sounds like a description of what I do.  For 20 years I have
fought for the rights essential to those who live in an information
society.  For instance, the freedom to control your own computers
("you" meaning both individually and collectively).  The freedom to
share and to help your neighbor.  Sustainable development also depends
on these rights.

Human rights are under threat everywhere today, even the classical
ones that most governments profess to support.  The struggle to
sustain them is of primary importance.  But using the occasion of WSIS
to reiterate the importance of these classical human rights will only
remind the delegates of principles they have already decided either to
heed or to ignore.  Such a speech might be a nice gesture, but it
would not be effective action.

New issues of freedom arise in cyberspace--new ways for people to be
kept helpless and divided, new forms of electronic colonization.
Despite 20 years of the free software movement, its ideas are unknown
to most of the WSIS delegates.  A speech about these issues might
actually do some good.  That is what I can do.

    > Stallman's one of the leading technologists of our age, 

I have to suspect that the person who wrote those words knows about my
work only by rumor.  It is true I have developed several respected
software packages--but that is not the important part.

When I set out in 1983 to reclaim the freedom to share with others,
the way I went about it was by developing software.  As a minority of
one, I stood little chance of changing copyright and contract law so
as to free the existing non-free software; the only way to live in a
world of free software was to write it.  So I used my skill as a
programmer to bring about the social change that I sought.  Because I
was the author of these programs, I could release them with a license
that respects your freedom, where other developers designed their
licenses to take away your freedom.

That social advance, rather than the various technical advances, is
the purpose and the importance of my software work.

For those who are unfamiliar with the issue of free software, I
recommend articles such as
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html,
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html,
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html.
Other articles in the directory http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
can give further information.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html extends
some of the issues beyond software to other kinds of information that
may be on a computer.