FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Free Software Foundation
Bradley M. Kuhn <pr@gnu.org>
Phone: +1-617-542-5942
Boston, Massachusetts, USA - May 25, 2001 - Richard M. Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation, announced today that New York University has asked him to deliver a talk that will counterbalance the speech made on May 3, 2001 at NYU by Craig Mundie of Microsoft.
Stallman, author of the GNU General Public License, will deliver this speech, entitled "Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation", at Warren Weaver Hall, Room 109 at 251 Mercer Street on the New York University campus. The speech will be held at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, May 29, 2001, and a press conference will immediately follow the speech at 12:15 PM. The press is also invited to a reception at 09:30 AM at the same location.
Stallman's speech will cover the importance of software freedom and cooperation among programmers and users, and why the GNU project developed the GNU General Public License to facilitate sharing, cooperation and freedom.
To help correct the myths propagated by Mundie's statements, the Free Software Foundation has published a frequently asked question (FAQ) list about the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). This FAQ list addresses many misconceptions about the GNU GPL. That FAQ list is available at: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html.
In Microsoft's first attack against the GNU GPL earlier this year, Jim Allchin of Microsoft, claimed the GNU GPL threatens the American Way. Stallman responded with an essay that shows how the GNU GPL reflects and embodies the American spirit. That essay is available at: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html.
Stallman received the Grace Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery for 1991 for his development of the first Emacs editor in the 1970s. In 1990 he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and in 1996 an honorary doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. In 1998 he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award along with Linus Torvalds; in 1999 he received the Yuri Rubinski memorial award.
GNU/Linux is the combination of the GNU system and the kernel named Linux, modified to work together smoothly. Although there is no way of actually counting them, this combination has millions of users, probably over twenty million.
The GNU/Linux combination is often confusingly called "Linux", which leads people to an inaccurate picture of the history and nature of the system. Distinguishing between GNU/Linux, the complete system, and Linux, the kernel, helps correct the confusion.
Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USA
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Updated: $Date: 2005/05/05 19:37:18 $ $Author: novalis $