Free software campaigner Richard Stallman said that the move to control social networking sites amounted to censorship.
Talking to media persons here on Tuesday, Mr. Stallman said that the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act' of the United States, was tyranny and intolerable. If the Act is passed, anyone can shut down any site with a false accusation. There was also the possibility of a person's website being shut down at the will of someone who wants to do it, he said.
Mr. Stallman said that one should have the freedom to run the programme as the person wished. One should also have the freedom to study the source code and change it. He also highlighted the need for using free software by the government and educational institutions. If the government decides to buy software from an outside company, there is the risk of the security of the country being compromised, he said.
Free software can be installed in many computers. It will help schools in saving money. The students taught in free software, will tend to use it when they graduate. It will also help the society escape from being dominated by others. Free software will also give users the freedom to cooperate with each other, he said. Mr. Stallman said that he was looking forward to developing free software that can be used in smart phones as a large number of people were using mobile phones as computers.
He inaugurated the lecture series organised by the KMEA Engineering College as part of its anniversary celebrations. He also launched the FTP server set up on the campus for free software and christened it as Infinity.
