Biografies
From 4freedom
Richard Matthew Stallman - RMS
Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms",[1] is an American software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project[3] to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project he started the free software movement, and in October 1985 set up the Free Software Foundation.
Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license.[4] Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989.
From Wikipedia
Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African entrepreneur who was the second self-funded space tourist and first African in space.[1][2] He is now best known for his leadership of the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
He currently lives in London and holds dual citizenship of South Africa and the United Kingdom
Shuttleworth founded Thawte in 1995, which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security and then sold it to VeriSign in December 1999, earning R 3.5 billion (about 575 million US dollars at the time).
In September 2000, Shuttleworth formed HBD Venture Capital, a business incubator and venture capital provider.
In March 2004 he formed Canonical Ltd., for the promotion and commercial support of free software projects.
From Wikipedia
Eben Moglen
Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation.
