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03.10.08

Richard Stallman Explains Software Patents (Video)

Posted in FSF, Videos, Patents at 12:09 am by Roy Schestowitz

With apologies for the use of Flash, here is Richard Stallman’s talk about software patents, which has just been uploaded to YouTube.

If someone knows the URL (if any) of an Ogg Theora equivalent, please share.

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9 Comments »

  1. akf said,

    March 10, 2008 at 7:52 am

    I don’t know what is in this video, for I cannot watch it.
    But the video archive of the fsf is under http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html

  2. Roy Schestowitz said,

    March 10, 2008 at 8:02 am

    Thank you, akf, and I apologise for making this available only in a proprietary format (I know how much Stallman dislikes this too). I have taken a look at the URL you provided and this one seems likely to intersect, unless it’s the same talk (from around the same time):

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#UNSW04

    There is an Ogg file available.

    PyTube used to enable me to covert YouTube videos to Ogg (which I did for a while), but Google made changed that rendered PyTube incompatible again. :-(

  3. akf said,

    March 10, 2008 at 8:53 am

    For those, who prefer a video:
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#CALG

  4. Roy Bixler said,

    March 10, 2008 at 10:34 am

    Since the Youtube video seems to be from a speech given in Ireland sometime in 2004, I don’t see it listed in GNU’s page of OGG audio-video links. The closest one appears to be the following:

    Richard M. Stallman’s speech, The dangers of software patents , given at University of South Wales, Australia
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#UNSW04

  5. Roy Schestowitz said,

    March 10, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Oh, that’s exactly the one that I identified earlier. :) It’s likely to contain pretty much the same content if it’s from around the same ‘world tour’ of 2004 (I don’t mean that in an offensive sense).

  6. Roy Bixler said,

    March 10, 2008 at 11:57 am

    No offence taken. It was my mistake.

    While I’m at it, another reason to listen to the audio from the GNU site is that it is not broken up in 11 parts. It didn’t appear to me like all that many people watched the whole Youtube video because the number of views seemed quite low for the latter part of the talk. The point is that this talk (whether the Youtube one or the GNU site one) is well worth hearing. Even though it’s years old, it’s quite a good summary of why software patents are, on the whole, harmful.

  7. Roy Bixler said,

    March 10, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    I’ve just finished listening to the Australian talk about software patents found in the links to the “gnu.org” site above and I can say that it is substantially similar to the Irish talk as seen in the YouTube video referenced in the base article.

  8. Robert Millan said,

    March 10, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    Hi,

    You might like to know that Youtube can be played with free software now:

    http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

  9. Roy Schestowitz said,

    March 16, 2008 at 8:10 am

    I’ve found another series of Flash-based videos. They show an RMS talk on software patents. It’s a newer talk uploaded just 4 days ago. Part 1 is here

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