Richard Stallman Delivers Speech at NYU, Countering Mundie's Attack on Free Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

Fri May 25 21:00:54 EDT 2001

X-URL: http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-05-25-NYU.html

   A plain text version of this press release is
    available.

   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
   Media Contact: Free Software Foundation
   Bradley M. Kuhn <pr at gnu.org>
   Phone: +1-617-542-5942

   Richard Stallman Delivers Speech at NYU,
    Countering Mundie's Attack on Free Software

   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.
     __________________________________________________

  About Richard M. Stallman:

   Richard Stallman is the founder of the GNU project,
    launched in 1984 to develop the free operating
    system GNU (an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"), and
    thereby give computer users the freedom that most
    of them have lost.

    GNU is free software:
    everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it,
    as well as to make changes either large or small.

   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.

  About the Free Software Foundation:

   The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is
    dedicated to promoting computer users' right to
    use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer
    programs.

    The FSF promotes the development and use of free
    (as in freedom) software---particularly the GNU
    operating system (used widely today in its
    GNU/Linux variant)--- and free documentation.

    The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the
    ethical and political issues of freedom in the use
    of software.

    This web site, located at
http://www.gnu.org

    is an important source of information about
    GNU/Linux.

    The FSF is headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.

  About GNU:

   GNU is a Free Software Unix-like operating system.

    Development of GNU began in 1984. GNU is used most
    commonly today as GNU/Linux.

   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.,
   59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

   Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
    article is permitted in any medium, provided this
    notice is preserved.

   Updated: $Date: 2001/05/25 17:57:31 $ $
   Author: bkuhn $
     __________________________________________________
http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-05-25-NYU.html