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Godfather of the free software movement now connects to websites from his own computer - via Tor and using a free software browser

According to Richard Stallman, godfather of the free software movement, Facebook is a "monstrous surveillance engine," tech companies working for patent reform aren't going nearly far enough, and parents must lobby their children's schools to keep data private and provide free software alternatives.

The free software guru touched on a host of topics in his keynote at the LibrePlanet conference, a Free Software Foundation gathering at the Scala Center at MIT. Excoriating a "plutocratic" corporate culture and warning of severe threats to freedom and privacy around the world, he nevertheless said his own positions on the technology issues of the day had evolved.

For one thing, he said, he now connects to websites from his own computer - via Tor and using a free software browser. Previously, he used a complicated workaround to more or less email webpages to himself. The announcement brought a surprised gasp and a round of applause from the 300-plus attendees.

"At one point, I used to believe that the Firefox trademark license was incompatible with free software, I found out I was mistaken -- it does allow the redistribution of unmodified copies," he said.

Stallman also walked back criticism of Google Play, saying that he'd erroneously believed that the software's automatic update feature couldn't be deactivated by the user.

But he also advocated strongly for user privacy and his own view of software freedom in his address, which covered a broad range of subjects.

On patents

"Big companies that don't really want to get rid of software patents but do want to get rid of nuisance patents have launched a competing, weak, not-worth-bothering campaign to quote 'improve patent quality,' unquote," Stallman said, presumably in reference to the lobbying group United for Patent Reform, which launched in January.

On the DMCA

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Stallman joins the Internet, talks net neutrality, patents and more