Free Software Movement Founder to Speak at IUPUI

Richard Stallman

INDIANAPOLIS – An advocate for the Free Software Movement will speak on the IUPUI campus Wednesday, Nov. 1.

Richard Stallman will present “Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Network” at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 1 in the Wynne Courtroom of the IU School of Law-Indianapolis, 530 W. New York St.

“Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it,” Stallman says.

“The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote progress, for the benefit of the public--then we must make changes in the other direction.”

Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system (www.gnu.org) in 1984. GNU is free software: everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU operating system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the IUPUI Copyright Management Center, the Democracy Plaza Program, the International Human Rights Law Society and the Intellectual Property Law Society.

For additional information, contact Josh Sullivan: jossulli@iupui.edu .