From: lfa1@cec2.wustl.edu (Lorrie Faith Ackerman)
Subject: host an RMS talk
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 20:53:38 GMT

The ACM student chapter at Washington University in St. Louis is
sponsoring a lecture by Richard Stallman on January 22.  In order to
make efficient use of his time, RMS has asked me to find out if there
are any other groups who would like him to speak while he is in the
midwest.  WashU will be paying his transportation to St. Louis,
your group would have to pay his transportation from St. Louis to
wherever you are.  If you are interested, please contact me by
email.  (Also, if you are in St. Louis and would like to attend
the talk at WashU, contact me for details.)  The following is
excerpted from infor RMS sent me about his talk:

Title:

Protecting the Freedom to Write Software
 The new software monopolies, and what we can do about them


Abstract:

New monopolies threaten the freedom of programmers to continue doing
their work.  Copyrighted interfaces prohibit supporting the commands
users know and expect.  Patented algorithms and techniques make each
design decision carry the risk of a lawsuit.

Richard Stallman will talk about how these monopolies originated and
why they are bad for computer users and programmers.  He will then
suggest what you can do to help eliminate them.


Bio:

Richard Stallman is one of the founders of the League for Programming
Freedom, a grassroots organization whose aim is to protect the freedom
to write programs.  Specifically, the League aims to abolish two
recently established forms of monopoly which restrict programmers'
freedom to do their work: interface copyright and software patents.

The 800 or so League members include programmers, professors,
students, entrepreneurs, users, and software companies.

In the field of software, Richard Stallman is best known for
developing the extensible editor, Emacs, while working at the MIT
Artifical Intelligence lab between 1971 and 1984.  Today he is working
to develop the free UNIX-compatible software system known as GNU.
Like many other software developers, he fears that the new monopolies
will make his work impossible to continue.

In 1990, Stallman received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship; he also
received the 1990 ACM Grace Hopper Award for his work on Emacs.


Additional info:

To cover the two topics of copyrighted languages and software patents
properly takes two hours (including time for discussion).  If
necessary, I can make the talk shorter by cutting things out, but then
the talk won't be as good.  With just an hour, I can talk about either
interface copyright or software patents, but not both.

The facilities I need are a transparency projector and a whiteboard or
blackboard.  But I can do without them if you can't arrange for them.


Charging admission:

I give talks on this subject to help make the public aware of a threat
to their freedom.  Limiting the admission to the talks partially
defeats their purpose.

I don't mind if you ask people to contribute to defray costs, but
please admit people even if they cannot pay.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Lorrie Ackerman  --  Washington U. engineering and policy grad student
  6645 University Dr. Apt 2-W, St. Louis, MO 63130  (314)727-4910
  lorracks@informatics.wustl.edu  lfa1@cec1  lorracks@maria  lorracks@cs1 
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.dreams