[Acm] Free Software Foundation Awards

[Matt]

Hi all -

Please find below the 2 awards that the Free Software Foundation gave out recently.

Cheers -
Matt

-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Joshua Gay <jgay at gnu.org>
>Sent: Mar 19, 2008 5:06 PM
>To: info-fsf at gnu.org, info-press at gnu.org
>Subject: [FSF] Harald Welte and Groklaw announced as winners of the FSF's	annual free software awards
>
>
>BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- March 19, 2008 -- The Free Software
>Foundation (FSF) announced the recipients of its Award for Projects of
>Social Benefit and its Award for the Advancement of Free Software.
>Groklaw (http://groklaw.net) received the social benefit award, and
>Harald Welte (http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/) received the
>advancement award. FSF president Richard Stallman handed out the
>awards at the conclusion of the FSF's annual associate members meeting
>in Cambridge, MA.
>
>The Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented annually to a
>free software project that intentionally and significantly benefits
>society. Since its start in 2003, Groklaw has evolved into an
>invaluable source of legal and technical information for software
>developers, lawyers, law professors, and historians.
>
>Groklaw's founder and editor Pamela Jones could not make it to the
>ceremony in person, but Groklaw contributor Dan Bricklin was present
>to accept on her behalf. In a prerecorded audio message, Jones
>described Groklaw as "a place where lawyers and geeks could explain
>things to each other and work together, so they'd understand each
>other's work better". Jones also emphasized the importance of
>Groklaw's free software approach to its success, "[W]hen you have an
>idea you hope might work, and then to implement it, tweak it, and
>morph it, because other people show up and have ideas that are better
>than yours...and then have people you care about and admire tell you
>that what you are doing matters -- I can't think of a more satisfying
>feeling."
>
>In receiving this award, Groklaw joins previous winners Sahanna (2006)
>and Wikipedia (2005).
>
>The Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to Linux kernel
>hacker and founder of http://gpl-violations.org, Harald Welte. The
>awards committee honored both Welte's technical contributions to
>projects like the Linux kernel and the OpenMoko mobile platform
>project, and his community leadership in safeguarding the freedom of
>free software users by successfully enforcing the GNU General Public
>License in over one hundred cases since the gpl-violations.org project
>began in 2004.
>
>In a prepared statement read on his behalf by Jacob Applebaum, Welte
>described the motivation behind his work. "I believe the copyleft
>principle creates a fair equilibrium between taking existing works and
>giving back whatever extensions and modifications were made. When I
>first heard of certain commercial corporations not playing by the
>rules, by taking GPL-licensed code but not releasing the source code
>of their derivative works, I was outraged -- big business, who usually
>are the first to enforce their own copyright and related rights if
>anyone dares to infringe them, suddenly violating copyright
>themselves."
>
>Harald Welte joins a distinguished crowd of previous winners:
>
>  * 2006 Ted Ts'o
>  * 2005 Andrew Tridgell
>  * 2004 Theo de Raadt
>  * 2003 Alan Cox
>  * 2002 Lawrence Lessig
>  * 2001 Guido van Rossum
>  * 2000 Brian Paul
>  * 1999 Miguel de Icaza
>  * 1998 Larry Wall 
>
>This year's award committee was Peter H. Salus (Chair), Raj Mathur,
>Hong Feng, Lawrence Lessig, Andrew Tridgell, Jonas Oberg, Verner
>Vinge, Richard Stallman, Suresh Ramasubramanian, Alan Cox, and
>Fernanda G. Weiden.
>
>About the FSF
>-------------
>
>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 and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free
>software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
>political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
>located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
>about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
>http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
>
>
>Media Contacts
>--------------
>
>John Sullivan  
>Operations Manager  
>Free Software Foundation  
>+1 (617) 542 5942 x23  
><johns at fsf.org>  
>###
>
>
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