Stallman Attacked by Ninjas 524
vivIsel writes "When RMS took the stage to address the Yale Political Union, Yale's venerable parliamentary debate society, it was already an unusual speech: instead of the jacket and tie customary there, he sported a T shirt, and no shoes. But then he was attacked by ninjas. Apparently some students took it into their head to duplicate an XKCD webcomic before a live audience — luckily, though, Stallman didn't resort to violence. Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM."
Re:In a perfect world... (Score:5, Informative)
The simplest way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away. [gnu.org]
Re:Yale Political Union web design (Score:3, Informative)
Re:this guy is a liability to the community (Score:3, Informative)
> above something as petty as a dress code.
The saddening truth is that dress code pettiness is to be obeyed when you want to address people that count (their money).
Free software wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today if its only promoters wore only jeans and T-shirts.
The concept (Score:2, Informative)
Re:T-shirts are communist? (Score:5, Informative)
So: those of you who are accusing the Political Union of some kind of sartorial elitism; fine, fine. We have a dress code. But, clearly, we didn't let it get in the way of good debate. (Actually, we have it because we *want* good debate.)
Re:Quick! Someone warn Eric and Linus!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Text of the Minutes (converted from .doc) (Score:3, Informative)
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MINUTES OF THE FLOOR MEETING OF
THE YALE POLITICAL UNION
October 17, 2007
The Floor Meeting of the Yale Political Union held on October 17, 2007 was called to order at 7:42 p.m. in LC 102 with the Speaker, Noah Mamis, presiding.
The chairmen report the results of their last debates and announce their upcoming debates and events.
The President of the Union, Miss April Lawson, welcomes the body to the debate and introduces Richard Stallman, founder and leader of the free software movement. She summarizes a few of the terms involved in the debate.
The President moves the topic "Resolved: Digital Restrictions Management should be illegal."
Mr. Stallman believes that all software should be free, but he is instead here to argue for something less extensive: that software should not be designed to restrict their users under the control of companies. He defines Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) as the practice of making products to restrict their users. DVDs are an example: they are designed by a conspiracy of companies to restrict the users. Any company that wants to make a DVD player has to agree to restrict users in the same way; this is a matter of public record. Free software is illegal in the US, because the conspiracy won't allow it. It is legal to copy all or part of a book for some purposes; you can borrow it, sell it to a used bookstore, lend it to a friend, buy it anonymously, or keep it and use it as much as you'd like. Publishers want to take these rights away with DRM. No one could pass a law taking these freedoms away, but e-book formats prevent you from doing this, and publishers want to encourage consumers to use e-books instead of traditional books. Companies want more power over their consumers.
DRM appears in a wide range of products from a wide range of companies: Apple uses DRM as part of iTunes, Google uses DRM in the Google Earth client. Mr. Stallman does not believe we ought to force any company to make a certain product with a certain feature, but he does not want companies to deny us access to technology to prevent us from doing things they don't want us to do. Companies are using laws to deny our rights, but there is no reason to use the laws in these particular ways. Anti-trust laws prevented companies from having too much power over the marketplace, but they didn't go far enough. An oligopoly can be almost as bad as a monopoly. However, high prices are not the only problem. Now, companies want power, which is even worse. Mr. Stallman thinks we should use democracy to defend the interests of the many against the interests of the rich few. (At the body's response, Mr. Stallman asks, "Is there a doctor in the house? I think we need to perform a hiss-terectomy.")
The first part of this solution is to remove those parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that do not deal with copyright. The US government is under the thumb of the corporate conspiracy. Software that can, for instance, play a DVD, is illegal: the distributors face prosecution. The censorship system must be abolished. Corporations are extremely powerful. AACS (the follow-up to DVD technology) is used in HD-DVD and in Blu-Ray to restrict the users; the conspiracy wants to outlaw analog video outputs, which cannot be sufficiently controlled.
The "perpetrators" of this conspiracy typically argue that the consumers have agreed to buy these products, and so shouldn't complain, but this argument has been used to justify exploitative practices like low pay, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. These regulations are extremely important, because they prevent businesses from trampling us. The richest and most powerful people win politically and in the marketplace. No one can find a better product - all the DVD players on the market restrict the user.
The many should be able to work together to limi