Richard Stallman announces that he has cancer
During the celebration organized by the FSF in commemoration of the 40th anniversary announced the development of the operating system GNU, at the GNU Hacker's Meeting in the closing speech, Richard Stallman revealed that he has cancer.
The appearance of the father of the GNU movement impressed more than one, because despite being a 70-year-old person, seeing Richard Stallman without his long hair or beard worried more than one, since in the comments of many people in the community on the Internet, one of the most comments realized, is that Richard Stallman «"It's totally unrecognizable!".
During the GNU 40th anniversary ceremony, there was a moment of surprise and admiration when Richard Stallman revealed a personal battle he had been fighting in silence: cancer.
He joked about not having hair, He confirmed that he is still working and added that nothing has changed in his life. With his characteristic candor, Stallman stated:
“Now I have the worst problem: I have cancer. It is a type of lymphoma. Fortunately, it can be managed and I will be here for many, many years.”
In his speech, Richard Stallman spoke about his health problems and clarified that it is a form of follicular lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a malignant tumor of the lymphatic system, which can be treated. During his speech he appeared weakened by the illness, but announced that he had not changed anything in his life and that he would be there for many more years. In his speech he also covered other topics.
The key figure of the free software movement, He received support from the community in his fight against cancer, as well as wishes for a speedy recovery, as his words were received with loud applause and technology enthusiasts seemed to respect his brave and resilient spirit.
It is mentioned that Richard Stallman He wore a mask throughout his speech. and he also asked the audience to use them as well and although partly because of this, his voice was basically covered by the mask, his voice no longer helped him much, as it sounded tired and dull, making it impossible for the audience will hear it clearly.
Richard Matthew Stallman RMS for beginnerss, is an emblematic figure of open source and free software. Born on March 16, 1953 in the state of New York, United States, RMS is a computer programmer and veteran defender of free software, a movement that he promoted in 1983.
And is that On September 27, 1983, Richard M. Stallman published the initial announcement of GNU, his project to develop a totally free operating system (as in freedom). Although the GNU Project would not officially begin until January 1984, the RMS announcement outlined the initial development plan and core components of GNU. Two years later, in 1985, he created the Free Software Foundation, a non-profit organization that initially focused on supporting its GNU project.
At the first Hacker Conference in Sausalito, California, Richard Stallman made his first known public statement that all software It should be free and “accessible to all as freely as possible.”
Among other things, RMS also released the GNU General Public License, known as GPL, and popularized the English term "copyleft." He is the developer of famous software such as GNU Emacs text/code editor, GNU Project C compiler. (GCC), the GNU Debugger (gdb), the GNU Make production engine, etc.
Many of these software, including the GNU Emacs Editor, the GNU Compiler, and the GNU Debugger, were later combined with the kernel developed by Linus Torvalds to produce the GNU/Linux, or Linux, operating system in 1994. At the time, Torvalds was computer science student at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can find excerpts and even Richard Stallman's entire speech on YouTube, although it is also available in webm format, at the following link