On the 24th of October Richard Stallman visited Sheffield and gave a lecture about the history of the GNU project and GNU/Linux.  Sheffield Linux User's Group was able to get some help from USIT at Sheffield University to organise a lecture theatre at the Students Union building.  This is a very nice venue that provides a warm and comfortable room for 400 people to sit down and listen to a speaker.

On the way up from London on the train to Sheffield I had a phone call from RMS explaining that he was two hours behind me on another train.  When we finally picked him up from the station he looked as though he was dying from exhaustion and jet lag.  In spite of this he did his best for us as is his customary way of doing things.   We had to feed him on Caffeine mints and lots of tea.

RMS started out with an explanation of how the idea for the Free Software Foundation came to him and how he gradually developed the idea of the GNU project and other related projects.  This made for a fascinating speech which held the audience in their seats from the start of the lecture at 6.45 p.m. to the end at about 8.45 pm.

He gave us a very thorough explanation of all of his efforts to help people to understand that free software is not only desirable but an essential part of the world around us.  It is a fact that something like 67% of the internet runs on Apache server software which is freely available from anywhere on the internet.   It even works on Microsoft platforms when they aren't falling over and crashing or just blue-screening for something to do in the intermission.

The issues surrounding more recent events were also briefly discussed and RMS was very helpful in pointing out some basic facts and figures to us.  At the end of the lecture we had an extended question and answer session which was just about everything that everyone wanted.  After this we were able to sell most of the books and t-shirts that the Free Software Foundation sent to us.   About 150 people attended and they did show their great appreciation by giving RMS a really good round of applause.   They all said that they would like to see another one.

I was able to get RMS back to London in a hired Mercedes.  The driver was very helpful.  I think it was at about that point that RMS got a good snooze in the back of the car.  We arrived in London at about 1 a.m. and he was able to get straight off to his great dreaming place in the sky.

We do hope that he comes back at some time and we do look forward to being able to meet him again.