Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/02/gnu-birthday.html

Twenty-five years ago this month, I had just gotten my first computer,
a Commodore 64, and was learning the very basics (quite literally) of
programming. Unfortunately for my education, it would be a full eight
years before I’d be permitted to see any source code to a computer
program that I didn’t write myself. I often look back at those eight
years and consider that my most formative years of programming learning were
wasted, since I was not permitted to study the programs written by the
greatest minds.

Fortunately for all the young programmers to come after me, something
else was happening in an office at an MIT building in September 1983
that would make sure everyone would have the freedom to study code, and
the freedom to improve it and contribute to the global library of
software development knowledge. Richard
Stallman announced
that he would start the GNU project, a complete operating system
that would give all its users freedom.

I got involved with Free Software in 1992. At the time, I was the one
student in my university who had ever heard of GNU and the recently
released kernel named Linux. My professors knew of “that Stallman
guy” but were focused primarily on academic research. Fortunately
for me, they nevertheless gave me free reign over the systems to turn
them into what might have been, in late 1992, one of the first Computer
Science labs running entirely Free Software.

Much more has happened since even then. To commemorate all that has
come since Stallman’s announcement, my colleagues at the FSF, home of
the GNU project, released a video for
this historic 25 year anniversary. It took twenty-five years, and a
fight at the BBC over DRM, but now even a famous, accomplished actor
like Stephen Fry
is interested in the work that Stallman began way back in a year when
Michael Jackson was a musical phenomenon and not merely a punchline of a
joke.

These days, I have almost weekly moments of surprise that people
outside of the Software Freedom Movement have actually heard of what I
do for a living. When Matt Lee (whom I got to know when he came up through the
ranks in the 2000’s as I did in the 1990’s as a new FSF volunteer) told
me a few months ago that Stephen Fry had enthusiastically and
immediately agreed to make this video, it was yet another moment of
surprise. We now live in a movement that impacts everyone in the
industrialized world, because nearly everyone who has access to
electricity also must use a computer to interact with daily life. So
many people are impacted by the problems of proprietary software that
Stallman noticed in 1983 impacting his small developer community.
Thanks to the work of thousands, we now have the opportunity to welcome
new groups into a computing world that can give them freedom. I’m happy
that the friendly face of a talented and accomplished entertainer and
world-class actor is here to welcome them.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.