[GNU/FSF Press] Press release: Theodore Ts'o wins the 2006 Award for the Advancement of Free Software

[Peter Brown]

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA---March 26, 2007---At the ceremony for the
2006 Free Software Awards, Richard Stallman presented Theodore Ts'o with
the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. 

Theodore Ts'o was recognized for his many and varied contributions to
free software, including his work on the kernel Linux. His role as
project leader in the development of Kerberos---the first single sign-on
authentication system---and his work on the Open Network Computing
Remote Procedure (ONC RPC) are representative of his important role in
Internet security. He was also cited for his work as maintainer and
developer of the key utilities under the project "E2fs", which are used
to maintain file systems for GNU/Linux. Ts'o has also played an
important role in community efforts, organizing the annual summit for
kernel developers and publishing educational materials and tutorials.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Ts'o said of his work, "It's been great
fun. I think a lot of people work on free software for many reasons and
that's OK, but I have always been proud of the fact that people have
been able to use the work that I have done to advance the cause of free
software".

Every year, three finalists are nominated for the award by the free
software community. This year's other two finalists were Wietse Venema,
recognized for his creation of the Postfix mail system and for his
contributions to security tools, and Yukihiro Matsumoto, recognized for
his work in designing the Ruby programing language.

Previous winners of the free software award:

      * 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), Richard
Stallman, Andrew Tridgell (winner 2005), Alan Cox (winner 2003),
Lawrence Lessig (winner 2002), Vernor Vinge, Frederic Couchet, Jonas
Oberg, Hong Feng, Raju Mathur, and Suresh Ramasubramanian.


About the Annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software
The Free Software Foundation sponsors the annual Award for the
Advancement of Free Software, to recognize and honor those that have
made a great contribution to the progress and development of free
software (free as in freedom as defined in the Free Software
Definition), through activities that accord with the spirit of software
freedom.

Any kind of activity could be eligible---writing software, writing
documentation, publishing software, even 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. You can support the award and the work of the
Free Software Foundation here.

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 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. They are
headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.

Press Contact: For more information about this announcement please
contact Peter Brown at +1-617-542-5942 or address@hidden