I attended this. Here are a few notes:<p>* This was organized like any other guest talk held at Microsoft Research, of which there are ~5/week, mostly by academic guests.<p>* His host was Microsoft's Chief Economist, Michael Schwarz. Michael did his PhD work on free software and got to know Stallman then.<p>* After hooking his computer up to the projector 10-15 minutes before the talk began he displayed a quite provocative political cartoon of his regarding the invasion of Iraq.<p>* As mentioned elsewhere he prefaced his talk with a number of requests for Microsoft.<p>* At one point he did state "Sometimes there is a use for windows."<p>* That statement was immediately preceded by "It's getting rather hot in here. Can we do something like adjust the temperature or open some windows?" :)<p>* Someone in Q&A questioned whether he would have come to Microsoft a few years ago and asked what has changed for him. He said he's just hadn't been invited and would have been happy to if he had been.<p>For those in the Seattle area, he appears to be speaking at the central branch of the Seattle library this afternoon: <a href="https://www.fsf.org/events/richard-stallman-free-software-and-your-freedom-seattle-wa-1" rel="nofollow">https://www.fsf.org/events/richard-stallman-free-software-an...</a><p>Related article from 2005: <a href="http://suseroot.com/rms.php" rel="nofollow">http://suseroot.com/rms.php</a> (note well the date)
An English language article: <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-richard-stallman-spoke-at-microsoft-research-this-week/" rel="nofollow">https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-richard...</a><p>Also Pedro Paulo explained what the content of the talk was:<p>> Mostly standard talk. Importance of free software, GPL v3, GNU vs Linux. However, he had a list of "small requests": make Github push users to better software license hygiene, make hardware manufacturers to publish their hardware specs, make it easier to workaround Secure Boot.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/pedrovc/status/1169616695935172608" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/pedrovc/status/1169616695935172608</a>
Without sounding too sacrilegious, Dr. Stallman is the Free Software Jesus--he preaches the gospel of Free Software to the whole world and associates with "sinners" calling them to repentance. If he can bring "the truth" of Free Software to Microsoft employees and help them "see the light", why wouldn't he?<p>He certainly looks the part of Free Software prophet when dressed as Saint Ignuicius: <a href="https://stallman.org/saint.html" rel="nofollow">https://stallman.org/saint.html</a><p>Having met him in person, he is extremely sincere about his beliefs and practices and really does "practice what he preaches".
I am a huge fan of Stallman.He is as close to 100% correct on software ethics as anybody has ever been. His contribution to computing has been immense. However, in a world where your social status can go down easier than it can go up, I think it's nearly impossible for younger, non-established programmers to live by these rules. We should push society, and the powerful, towards FOSS. But until that happens, the individual will not have a chance.
If Microsoft hadn't embraced open source around the time Satya Nadella took over, by now they would have probably imploded and become irrelevant (I mean in the sense of how Bing is more or less irrelevant to most website owners even though it apparently makes a lot of money).<p>Its not as if they decided to open source Windows XP.
Good example of combining what you believe the most in and the ability to talk to the "enemy".<p>Too many people does not even see that as an option.
The only thing more ironic than that is if he had his office in (Bill) Gates Hall (ie a building Bill Gates dontated a lot of money to have built). <a href="https://m.slashdot.org/story/44316" rel="nofollow">https://m.slashdot.org/story/44316</a>
Photographic evidence :)<p><a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/ItalyPaleAle/status/1169354916281778176" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/ItalyPaleAle/status/1169354916281...</a><p>(Not mine, via Mark Russinovich)
Microsoft has come a long way.<p>Obligatory Richard Stallman website reference: <a href="https://rms.sexy/" rel="nofollow">https://rms.sexy/</a>
copy paste from RMS: open source != free software, and GitHub has already done enough damage to encourage developers to ignore the existence of software lincences
Monumental moment in both free software and Microsoft’s history. A decade ago he was probably the most persona non grata.<p>Look at how far we’ve come.<p>To all the people who were bashing them in the comments a few days ago about the OIN patent grant, you guys still bitter? Cause it looks like RMS isn’t.
I hope they've complied with all the requirements of his rider<p><a href="https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/mysociety-community/zkyZpOXjgoQ/_8xyXSxv9zYJ" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/a/mysociety.org/forum/m/#!msg/myso...</a>