Richard Stallman's First Talk in a U.S. College Since 2018
Invited by "LibreTech Collective, Georgia Tech's only Free & Open-Source club"
Having carefully read the message below, even twice just to ensure it contains no sensitive personal information, I've made the decision that ahead of the Stallman talk (3 weeks from now) it would be OK to reproduce. It explains how the first public talk in a US college in nearly 8 years came about. We hope the whole theatre/auditorium will be occupied, though that relies on word of mouth because Stallman (RMS) does not give a headsup (to reduce the ease at which online mobs/brigades contact organisers to cancel/intercept his talks).
Hello Mr. Schestowitz,My name is Kenneth (Alex) Jenkins, and I hope I’m reaching out to the right person regarding the recent post on Techrights. I’m the president and founder of LibreTech Collective at Georgia Tech - the world’s first college free software and hardware student club!
I mainly wanted to say thank you for absolutely making my night. This was genuinely one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. For context, the official venue capacity is around 380 people - the largest room we could reserve as a student organization without incurring additional university fees. After speaking with RMS by phone, we confirmed that this will be his first talk at Georgia Tech and his first talk at a U.S. college since 2018.
The event is funded by the College of Computing as well as the ANAK Society - Georgia Tech’s campus secret society, whose public alumni include figures such as Jimmy Carter and over a dozen NASA astronauts. The state of Georgia has laws designed to curb “social control media” and cancel culture, including strong free-speech protections for student organizations like ours. To our genuine surprise, when we spoke with the Dean of the College of Computing, we learned that he is a lifelong Emacs user - he immediately knew exactly who RMS was and fully appreciated the value that bringing him to Georgia Tech provides.
Interestingly, this entire event traces back to about a year ago, when I first reached out to RMS to ask for feedback on a free AI and machine learning textbook authored by my research advisor and me for a course at GT. To my amazement, he replied within a week, offering detailed critiques that we incorporated into subsequent editions of the book!
Once the event concludes, I will absolutely send you the videos. We’ll be hosting them on our own servers (with zero nonfree JavaScript), alongside YouTube mirrors for convenience and sharing. We’ve also built a website dedicated to showcasing libre hardware and software projects at Georgia Tech - feel free to visit https://LibreLinker.us to see our ongoing work.
In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. It was truly an honor to be featured in the article!
Best regards, and Happy New Year,
The talk will take place on January 23rd between 2PM and 5PM (for questions and answers). If you cannot attend but know somebody who lives around Georgia, give him/her a shout. █