2003 Free Software Awards

Call for Nominations for the 2003 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software

The FSF and the GNU project request nominations for the 2003 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. We want to give this award to a person who has 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 CDs, 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.

People such as Miguel de Icaza, Donald Knuth, Larry Lessig, Brian Paul, Guido van Rossum, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Larry Wall who have already received this or other awards for their contributions, are not eligible for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Among those who are eligible, the award committee will try to choose whoever has made the greatest contribution.

Please send your nominations to <award-nominations@gnu.org>, on or before Friday 31 October 2003. 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.