[WARC] Richard Stallman speaking at UofM

[Lance Tagliapietra]

Date of Event: 
Tue, 10/21/2008 18:30 
Location: 
Willey Hall 175, West Bank campus

Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_16 ), 1953 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953 )), often abbreviated "rms",[2] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-initials-1 ) is an American ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States ) software freedom ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software ) activist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism ), hacker ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(free_and_open_source_software) ) (programmer),[3] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-2 ) and software developer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_developer ). In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project )[4] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-3 ) to create a free Unix-like ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like ) operating system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system ), and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he started the free software movement ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement ) and, in October 1985, set up the Free Software Foundation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation ).
Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft ) and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License ), the most widely used free software license ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license ).[5] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-4 ) Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software ), as well as campaigning against both software patents ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent ) and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ) laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs ), the GNU Compiler Collection ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Compiler_Collection ), and the GNU Debugger ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Debugger ). He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom ) in 1989
 
 
The announcement is at 
http://www.umsec.umn.edu/events/Richard-Stallman-Free-Software-Movement-and-GNULin