Richard Stallman Timeline By Jordanlindner Mar 16, 1953 Rochard Stallman is born in New York city 1971 Joins MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab as a programmer while still an undergraduate. 1981 First release of the Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds; GNU tools help form GNU/Linux. Sep 27, 1983 Stallman announces the GNU Project on net.unix-wizards and net.usoft newsgroups. 1984 Leaves MIT to work full-time on GNU, citing the rise of proprietary software. Oct 4, 1985 Founds the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to support the GNU Project. 1989 Releases GNU General Public License (GPL) v1, defining "copyleft" and software freedom. 1992 Awarded honorary doctorate from the University of Pavia, Italy 1993 First alpha release of GNU Hurd, GNU’s own microkernel project. Jun 29, 1998 GPL Version 3 is released, addressing DRM and patent issues. 2001 Biographical book Free as in Freedom by Sam Williams is published. Sep 16, 2002 Resigns from MIT and FSF after controversial statements surface. 2006 Stallman begins world lecture tours promoting free software ethics. Mar 21, 2021 Rejoins the FSF Board of Directors during LibrePlanet conference. 2023 Continues to speak on digital rights and free software, despite controversy.
