Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium

4:15PM, Wednesday, October 23, 2002
NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B03
http://ee380.stanford.edu

The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System

Richard Stallman
Free Software Foundation
About the talk:

Richard Stallman will speak about the purpose, goals, philosophy, methods, status, and future prospects of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by an estimated 17 to 20 million users world wide.

Richard Stallman's lecture on the Free Software Movement is scheduled to last two hours with questions following, somewhat longer than the usual CSL Colloquium. This is a unique opportunity to learn the history behind a significant element of computer systems today. Please arrange your schedule so you can participate fully in this event.
The Stanford Bookstore will have a selection of Free Software Foundation available in the foyer in front of the lecture hall. Literature about the FSF will be available as well.

About the speaker:

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. today, linux-based variants of the gnu system, based on the kernel linux developed by Linus Torvalds, are in widespread use. there are estimated to be some 20 million users of gnu/linux systems today.

Richard Stallman is the principal author of the gnu compiler collection, a portable optimizing compiler which was designed to support diverse architectures and multiple languages. The compiler now supports over 30 different architectures and 7 programming languages. stallman also wrote the gnu symbolic debugger (gdb), gnu emacs, and various other gnu programs.

Stallman graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in Physics. During his college years, he also worked as a staff hacker at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, learning operating system development by doing it. He wrote the first extensible emacs text editor there in 1975. In January 1984 he resigned from MIT to start the gnu project. Stallman received the Grace Hopper Award for 1991 from the Association for Computing Machinery, for his development of the first emacs editor. 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 award. In 2001 he received a second honorary doctorate, from the University of Glasgow, and shared the Takeda award for social/economic betterment with Torvalds and Ken Sakamura. In 2002 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

(adapted from Stallman's web page)

Contact information:

Richard Stallman
rms@gnu.org