It was RMS live yesterday !!
As a part of the ongoing techfest @ [NITK](http://nitk.ac.in) all of us had a chance to hear [RMS](http://stallman.org/) :)Lemme try to put some of his words i liked most..
- Mr Stallman started his talk with the four pillars of freedom..and with a few words on the GNU philosophy..- Speaking on the right to modify the source code of softwares..rms explained the case :
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Suppose i am an user of a proprietary software n i want some
modification in the software..Now since i don't have access to the
source code..i will go to the developer and sort of beg him get the
modification done.. And here the developer (master) would \*think\*
, \*analyse\* and would say, "hmm the next modification would be
released in a few months". After a few months, when the person
(servant) approaches the developer..the developer says, "Yeah, here
is your upgrade..buy it for some 150\$ and check out if the changes
you wanted have been done !!"
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So the person buys out the upgrade only to find that still there are
some more features needed !! and with/without his knowledge he
ultimately falls into a vicious cycle which would only end if he
kicks proprietary software n enters the kingdom of free software :)
- According to rms, “Linux” is a kernel itself (most of us take Linux as an Operating System) and its the “GNU”
free softwares which bring life to the kernel. So he stressed to refer to the whole OS as **"GNU/Linux"** and not only **Linux**..indeed thats true. Unless one is a real genius..i guess working with an isolated kernel is madness :P - Finally we had a chance to see Mr Stallman as a saint of the EMACS church :D
RMS explained things in a nice humourous way n his statement "The most common Spyware that most of you must be using is called Windows XP which sends the strings you search for and the softwares you install to its master Microsoft" was greeted with a loud applause ;) It was quite fun..and inspiring to hear a prominent haker (a real hacker in fact!!)technorati tags: rms, richard stallman, gnu, linux, free software, fsf