The father of the free software movement Richard M. Stallman (also known simply as "RMS") will be in New Zealand for a couple of weeks in August. He'll be giving speeches and interviews in Auckland and Wellington, and -- hopefully -- taking some time out to see the country. You'll find the full itinerary here.

RMS launched the GNU Project in 1983 with the aim of creating a free Unix-like operating system. (The recursive acronym actually stands for "GNU's Not Unix" and is pronounced ga-nu.) In 1985 he started the Free Software Foundation, and has been a thorn in the side of Big Software ever since. His revolutionary "copyleft" concept -- the idea that computer software is of such fundamental importance its use and distribution should be equated with freedom of speech -- came at a time when softwares' robber barons were building fortunes advocating the opposite.

A life-long freedom activist, one of his most recent articles appeared on the BBC website following Bill Gates retirement from Microsoft. Titled "It's not the Gates, it's the bars", it's a pithy summation of all that the free software movement stands for:

Microsoft's software is distributed under licenses that keep users divided and helpless. The users are divided because they are forbidden to share copies with anyone else. The users are helpless because they don't have the source code that programmers can read and change. If you're a programmer and you want to change the software, for yourself or for someone else, you can't. If you're a business and you want to pay a programmer to make the software suit your needs better, you can't. If you copy it to share with your friend, which is simple good-neighbourliness, they call you a "pirate". Microsoft would have us believe that helping your neighbour is the moral equivalent of attacking a ship.

You'll find more of Stallman's writings here. And do try to get to see him. Here's that itinerary link again.