When RMS visited MIT I put the following invitation on my home page.
During my 2nd year B.Tech at MIT (Chennai), I was reading the OS book by Andrew S Tanenbaum and he mentioned about a Free Kernel called Linux written by an Undergrad at Univ. of Helsinki, Finland, called Linus Torvalds following the MINIX. Almost at the same time, I read an article on IEE magazine about the GNU project and Free Software Foundation work by Richard M Stallman at MIT, AI Lab. I was so inspired by that article. I found from google that already a big GNU/Linux community exist in India and I found one at chennai also and started attend it regular monthly meetings where they discuss various free and open source software available. The very first day after I joined AU-KBC, i decided to use GNU/Linux in my machine instead of MS-WINDOWS. Fortunately i was among one of the audience at Tata auditorium, IISc bangalore when RMS first visited India in 2000 and gave a lecture on Free Software at IISc. That brought me a great change in me, the way i write and use software. I thought every student should listen his speech. I thought if RMS deliver a lecture on "Free Software and GNU/Linux OS" at chennai that will create a great impact among many students.
RMS is visiting India in March 2002 and he will be at Bangalore around 7th March. So i wrote a mail to RMS that i will take care of the sponsor of his Bangalore to chennai visit and requested him to deliver a lecture at MIT, Chennai. RMS happily agreed my invitation. I expect many students from ILUGC, IITM, Main Campus (AU), other Engg. colleges, for this event and I will be happy if it create a change in atleast one student w.r.t to the way we use and write the software, software manuals and s/w documentation. So All are welcome for the following event:
Date: 13th March 2002 (Wednesday)
Time: 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Rajam Hall, MIT (Madras Inst. of Tech.), Chromepet, Chennai
Topic: Free Software Movement and GNU/Linux Operating System
Speaker: Richard M Stallman
Those who want to have an understanding of who is RMS, what is GNU project etc.., you can visit http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
Suraj of ILUGC came up with an excellent transcript of RMS speech at MIT, Chennai.