Tuesday, 28 February 2006

Od 11. do 14. marta će u Beogradu gostovati Richard M. Stallman, osnivač GNU projekta i Fondacije za slobodan softver. Tokom svoje posete će održati sva govora:

* 11.03.2006 The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System

Pogon Doma omladine Beograd, 19h, Makedonska 22/IV

* 12.03.2006. Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks

Pogon Doma omladine Beograd, 19h, Makedonska 22/IV

Ulaz na pomenute događaje je slobodan. Organizacija Free Software Network, Dez.org iz veliku pomoć Doma omladine Beograda i gradskog sekretarijata za kulturu grada Beograda.

Kontakt: ivan.jelic _at_ gmail.com

Vest preuzeta sa http://www.fsn.org.yu/

I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

Medical marijuana grower and activist Steve McWilliams killed himself last June, rather than face 6 months in prison with no marijuana to relieve his chronic pain. If you are ever in a situation like this, don't kill yourself in private. Make your death itself be a blow against the tyrant. Plead innocent; then kill yourself in the courtroom, with the jury and journalists watching, after defying the judge by shouting, "I'm a medical marijuana grower. You were going to make those 12 honest citizens your tools for evil, but I will save them from you. May my death be on your conscience for as long as you live."

I don't have a problem with someone using their talents to become successful, I just don't think the highest calling is success. Things like freedom and the expansion of knowledge are beyond success, beyond the personal. Personal success is not wrong, but it is limited in importance, and once you have enough of it it is a shame to keep striving for that, instead of for truth, beauty, or justice.

If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism.
My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.