More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland, where GNU's 40th birthday was celebrated last autumn by a then-hairless GNU founder, who underwent cancer treatment
IT was only 4 days ago and 3 days ago that Richard Stallman gave talks in Switzerland, apparently his first public talks for this year (it's almost spring now; he talked online earlier this year). We've attempted to find videos or short clips from this week's talks, but we're still not successful. When he spoke back in January he seemed sharp and he shared personal stories about his mother. He still works on improving his and GNU's Web sites. He adds new articles and edits older ones. He has been keeping busy in spite of his illness.
Dr. Stallman himself highlighted the two talks in his homepage:
Mirko Stocker ("Professor für Software Engineering; Studiengangleiter Informatik") was among the organisers, based on this poster he shared (ironically in a proprietary Microsoft platform that spies). Here it is, thankfully in English:
Well, this links to another page where identity of attendees got collected (not obligatory though, not shared in public either).
The other organiser, Farhad Mehta, made this page to assess how many will attend and ch-open.ch announced this too (not in English): "Dr. Richard Stallman, der Gründer der freien Software-Bewegung GNU, wird am 25. März 2024 einen Gastvortrag an der FH OST Campus Rapperswil-Jona halten."
The "poll" contains outline of the talk and it is in English:
Free Software and Your FreedomAbstract: The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible in practice for computer use.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Richard Stallman launched the free software movement in 1983 and started the development of the GNU operating system (see www.gnu.org) in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, with or without changes. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux as the kernel, is used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award and the ACM Software and Systems Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award, and the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, as well as many doctorates honoris causa, and has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.
The guest lecture will take place in person on Monday 25.03.2024 in the Aula of the OST campus in Rapperswil-Jona (Oberseestrasse 10, 8640 Rapperswil). You are welcome to arrive and take your seats from 17:00. The lecture will start at 17:15. There will be a presentation of about 45 minutes, followed by sufficient time for questions and discussion. We plan to end at around 19:15.
Please register with your email address (please input your complete email address in the "Your name" field) below. Your answer to the "I will attend" poll question itself is not relevant. I will assume that everyone who registers with a valid email would like to attend.
The reason it remains important to 'rehabilitate' his image after the campaign of defamation is, the mainstream/corporate stooges are trying to stigmatise Free software people like they're a bunch of sick people (collective shaming/guilt) - and the lying Linux Foundation helps them while working with Bill Gates, who is the real sick one, surrounded by a bunch of perverts. Projection tactics by stereotyping familiar faces is an autocrat's playbook, fitting of the 'cancer culture' (or Monstering Cult) that has become a cancer inside the Free software world. Remember what China's TikTok did - and probably still does - to the image of Tibet. To quote The Diplomat: "The latest smear campaign succeeded beyond China’s wildest dreams by playing into Western ignorance about Tibetan culture – and self-righteous “cancel culture” on social media."
Here's more: (emphasis added by us)
On April 8, 2023, a new global smear campaign against the Dalai Lama was unleashed on social media.This, in itself, wasn’t news. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, has lived in exile in India since 1959, when he was forced to flee his homeland, occupied by Mao’s China. He remains deeply loved in Tibet, but the Chinese regime has made it a criminal offense even to have a photo of him. And ever since 1959, Chinese officials have been vilifying him in every medium possible.
But while this latest round is almost certainly also disinformation “Made in China,” it represents a new approach: Attempting to paint the Dalai Lama as a pedophile. The trick succeeded beyond belief, with millions of people in the United States, Europe, and beyond – due to prior prejudice coupled with the self-righteous tendency to jump to conclusions, combined with widespread ignorance about Tibet.
That's China's Communist Party for you... does anyone seriously think TikTok merits defence in the name of "free speech"?
Apropos, EFF is losing its way in a big way*.
Now, back to Switzerland.
Based on what Daniel Pocock shows, corruption remains rampant in Switzerland [1, 2] (under-reported issue; it's not just money laundering/sheltering), but it is good for medical needs such as Stallman's. █
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* A year ago the EFF was framing privacy as a sex issue and this week, citing the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the EFF sides with pedophiles (it's not about whether he is a pedophile... and the EFF does this after ACLU did worse, defending a man who had murdered his baby child and then wanted to become trans in prison). As a reminder, the EFF did not protect Techrights from copyright trolling, it only opened a ticket and then did nothing. But now it devotes resources to protecting pedophiles, so maybe the EFF as an organisation picks its battles poorly. Maybe when Peter Bright is released from prison (yes, he was Microsoft's child rapist inside the media) the EFF wants to frame his case as "freedom of the press". And since you cannot cure pedophilia many believe Microsoft's Peter Bright must never ever be released from prison. Well, maybe the EFF also wants to defend Bill Gates and his pedophile circle friends [1, 2], but then again one might wonder if perhaps the EFF simply fails to grasp what's wrong with pedophilia, or how serious a problem it really is. Remember that the EFF participated in the campaign of defamation against Stallman instead of defending him from the defamation.