Richard Stallman—Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project and founded the Free Software Foundation
In 1983, Stallman announced the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system. In 1985, he founded the Free Software Foundation and authored the GPL, establishing the copyleft licensing model that became foundational to open source software.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge Access & Information Freedom | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Open Source | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Open Source Licensing Integrity | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.983 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Confirms product_decision Oct 4, 1985 verified
Stallman announced GNU Project in 1983 and founded FSF in 1985
Richard Stallman announced the GNU Project on September 27, 1983 via Usenet, aiming to create a complete free operating system. He founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 and authored the GNU General Public License, establishing copyleft.