The Stallman cometh! Check out our latest speaker for DevBeat

We are quietly punching the air while spinning around in our wheelie-chairs this morning in the VentureBeat newsroom. Guess who’s coming to DevBeat, our first-ever developer conference?

If you guessed Richard Stallman, the Last Hacker, you’d be correct. He’s going to give a talk about software patents — something about which every developer should be well-informed.

Stallman, for the less-informed, founded the Free Software Foundation and created GNU, which in turn gave birth to the Linux operating system. (Stallman prefers the title “GNU/Linux.”) The man is a hero in the world of free software and is one of the most committed, passionate people I’ve ever met.

He’s also got an amazing sense of humor and is generally great to listen to.

To learn more about Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, please sign up to receive information about his upcoming events.

We’re still in the process of confirming a bunch of other speakers for DevBeat, and if you love the one and only rms, you’re going to flip your lid for the rest of the lineup.

If you think you’ve got something interesting to say, yourself, you can also submit a speaking proposal.

Register now for the earlybird rate — and be sure to expense that; you’re going to be learning a lot to further your career — and we’ll see you in November!