nion's blog

Today RMS gave talk in Berlin with the title "Richard Stallman presenting Free Software".
And I have to admit I don't see any reason why people visit this talk apart from the typical fanboy thing.

I mean ok, he's RMS and he did great things for the world of Free Software. But this is mostly a philosophy not some software he can present nice nifty features for. I assume most of the people visiting this already know about Free Software so what do they expect from this talk apart from a quick glance on their "star"? They shouldn't get any information they don't know already and thus the gain of this is close to zero.

Sure you also want to see your favorite artist live on stage some time too but that's a totally different thing because bands do stuff with tones. It's also a totally different experience to be on a concert waving people all around you and you listen to great music. That's a different thing than watching a DVD of a concert at home. But what is it here, sitting around with other "nerds" listening to software philosophy you already know. Yeah!

So the fanboy thing is the only (of course a valid) reason I can see here but hey, would you attend a Bruce Schneier talk if its about rot13? I hope not unless the next step is asking him for an autograph
Oh and before someone comes up with this (sure it's a matter of taste), he is not a great entertainer always having a good joke in the queue ;-P

People who didn't know about Free Software yet, I hope you enjoyed the show and start to think about it