Free software icon Richard Stallman spoke to a crowd of nearly 200 attendees of the Logiciel libre et votre liberté conference at Dawson on March 17. Often described as the inventor of what many refer to as open-source or free software, Stallman is the creator of the GNU/Linux operating system. Sponsored by the ADTE and Dawson’s Office of Academic Development, his talk was followed by a series of workshops by local experts outlining how institutions of higher education can use free software, rather than sourcing it from the corporate tech giants.

Stallman’s sometimes controversial views on government monitoring of private citizens and the voluntary sharing of personal information through social and other media, give food for thought to not only educators and technology professionals, but to the average citizen in the Information Age.

Following his talk at Dawson, Richard Stallman sat down with journalist Nikola Danaylov to discuss a variety of topics. The hour long interview can be viewed on Youtube.

ADTE’s website posted links to Stallman’s talk at Dawson. Watch his talk online.