“On January 23rd and 24th, the European version of Linux Expo
hit the RAI building in Amsterdam. The RAI is to Amsterdam what the
Moscone Center is to San Francisco. With an entrance fee of about
US $125.00, the admission was too expensive for some famous Dutch
Linux hackers. However, some prominent people did show up,
including Mr. GNU himself, Richard Stallman. That by itself was
reason enough to check out the conference.”
“The last keynote speaker was Richard Stallman. When he got on
stage he struck me as unconventional and charismatic. As I was
taking a picture, he stepped forward and waved to the camera,
getting a laugh out of everybody. Then, Richard began talking; no
fancy slides, just Richard. It’s been 17 years since the Free
Software movement started. The goal is to make Free Software–Free
as in Freedom. This is not a story about software but about Freedom
and a helpful community. He then referred to the last part of the
project, the kernel as written by Linus Torvalds in 1991. “This
project is actually what some people ended up calling Linux.” He
then discussed the success of GNU/Linux–the GNU OS, including gcc,
glibc, and the rest of the key parts of the operating system
running on top of the Linux kernel.”
“What do “Freedom” and “Free” have to do with our lives? He
distinguishes two goals one can have with the success of Linux:
“world domination” or “world liberation”. “World domination”,
as Linus Torvalds famously put it, is the popularization of Linux.
But this vision resembles the proprietary world where the number of
users represents a certain monetary value. “World liberation” is
freedom to use the software you want to use. In this philosophy,
it’s not the number of users that matters, but the number of people
whose lives are touched by the freedom that comes with free
software. The possible monetary value of the product is not
relevant but the moral value is. What do you deliver to
mankind?”