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Richard Stallman was born
often known by his initials, rms. Stallman, Richard (n.d.). "Humorous Bio". Richard Stallman's 1983 biography. First edition of "The Hacker's Dictionary". 'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms' -
Freshman at Harvard
In 1971, as a freshman at Harvard, he had begun working at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he wrote the Emacs text editor in the C computer programming language with James Gosling (who later developed Java). "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Graduated from Harvard
Stallman earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University in 1974. "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Published a paper
Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking.[15] This paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems. As of 2009, the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Start of GNU
In 1983, Stallman started an open-source programming project called GNU (a reflexive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”) "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/copyleft/627504. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Left MIT
In 1984 Stallman left MIT over concerns about changes to the university’s software copyright rules—he was one of the last of the “hackers,” i.e., computer programmers who strongly believed in freely modifying and sharing computer code. "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
GNU Project
In 1985 Stallman created the nonprofit Free Software Foundation, which initially focused on supporting his GNU Project. "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Cofounder
In 1989 he co-founded the League for Programming Freedom. "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/copyleft/627504#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Awarded McArthur Fellowship
In 1990 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called “genius award” that gives recipients a substantial financial stipend with no strings attached. "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Worked on Code for the GNU Project
The award helped free Stallman to write various utilities for the GNU Project, such as the GNU Emacs editor, which would later be combined with the kernel developed by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish CS student, to produce the GNU/Linux, or Linux, operating system in 1994. "Richard Matthew Stallman." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2010. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Richard-Matthew-Stallman/474253#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Free Encyclopedia
In 1999 Stallman published The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource, a paper calling for the creation of an open-source encyclopaedia. Almost as soon as he set up the GNUpedia Project, another open-source encyclopaedia project, Nupedia, the predecessor of Wikipedia, appeared -
Appeared in Documentary
True to his hacker roots, Stallman continued to promote free software around the world, though he had limited success in convincing governments to move completely to free software. He was one of the principal people interviewed and profiled in the 2001 documentary Revolution OS by American director J.T.S. Moore. -
Pushes Open Source forward
In August 2006, at his meetings with the government of the Indian State of Kerala, he persuaded officials to discard proprietary software, such as Microsoft's, at state-run schools. This has resulted in a landmark decision to switch all school computers in 12,500 high schools from Windows to a free software operating system. "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/copyleft/627504#. -
Opening Speech
On November 30, 2012, Stallman gave the opening lecture at the Goiano Free Software Forum in Brazil, talking about successful cases of switching to free software in government, business and at universities. "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/copyleft/627504#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017. -
Honorary Doctorate
Honorary doctorate, from Pierre and Marie Curie University "Copyleft." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Jul. 2016. academic.eb.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/levels/collegiate/article/copyleft/627504#. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017.
