Law & Disorder / Civilization & Discontents  “Your criticisms
are completely wrong”: Stallman on software patents, 20 years in
Free software guru makes a still-unpopular plea with new
urgency—just ban them.  Richard Stallman, father of the free
software movement.  The large, bearded man bounded to the front
of the room last Friday, hand thrust into the air, fingers
shaking. It was a question-and-answer session, but he clearly
wouldn't be able to wait long. He began speaking just before a
conference organizer moved to hand him the microphone.  "So many
stupid insults—and mistakes!" shouted Richard Stallman, the
father of the free software movement. "I proposed a way to solve
the problem! It's elegant, and it gets right to the point. Your
criticisms are completely wrong."  The speaker he was
denouncing, Professor John Duffy of the University of Virginia,
had been defending software patents to the assembled crowd a
moment ago. Duffy was actually proposing reforms, but as was the
case with most speakers at this