Nominations are requested by 31 October 2006.
BOSTON, August 8, 2006 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project announce the request for nominations for the 2006 Award for the Advancement of Free Software. This annual award is presented to a person who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of software freedom (as defined in the Free Software Definition).
Last year's winner Andrew Tridgell was recognized for his work as originator and developer of the Samba project, and for his contributions to the Linux kernel. Tridgell joined a prestigious list of previous winners including Theo de Raadt, Alan Cox, Miguel de Icaza, Larry Lessig, Brian Paul, Guido van Rossum, and Larry Wall.
Any kind of activity could be eligible for the award -- writing software, writing documentation, publishing software, journalism -- but whatever the activity, we want to recognize long-term central contributions to the development of the world of software freedom. "Accord with the spirit" means, for example, that software, manuals, or collections of them (online or on CD), must be entirely free. Work done commercially is eligible, but we give this award to individuals, not to companies, organizations, or teams.
Previous winners of this award are not eligible for nomination, but renomination of other previous nominees is encouraged. From those who are eligible, the award committee will try to choose the person who has made the greatest contribution.
The 2005 award committee was composed of: Peter H. Salus (chair), Richard Stallman, Alan Cox (winner 2003), Lawrence Lessig (winner 2002), Guido van Rossum (winner 2001), Frederic Couchet, Jonas Oberg, Hong Feng, Bruce Perens, Raju Mathur, Suresh Ramasubramanian, Enrique A. Chaparro, and Ian Murdock.
Please send your nominations to award-nominations@gnu.org, on or before Monday 31 October 2006. Please submit nominations in the following format:
- Put the name of the person you are nominating in the email message subject line. - Please include, in the body of your message, an explanation (40 lines or less) of the work the person has done and why you think it is especially important to software freedom. - Please state, in the body of your message, where to find the materials (e.g., software, manuals, or writing) which your nomination is based on.
Information about the previous awards can be found at http://www.fsf.org/fs-award.
*** About The Free Software Foundation
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. Their Web site, located at http://www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Their headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.