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Matthew Garrett joins Free Software Foundation board of directors
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Matthew Garrett joins Free Software Foundation board of directors
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Free Software Foundation
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Published on
Oct 16, 2014 05:10 PM
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, October 16, 2014 -- The Free
Software Foundation (FSF) today announced the addition of Matthew
Garrett to its board of directors.
He becomes the eighth director on the FSF's board. The full list of
their names and biographies can be found at
"Matthew Garrett is a truly committed defender of users' freedom. The
FSF is fortunate to have him on the board of directors," said FSF
president Richard M. Stallman.
A developer specializing in the interactions between operating system
kernels, platform firmware and system security, much of Garrett's work
has focused on mechanisms for avoiding the oft-suggested tradeoff
between user security and user freedom, ensuring that users have
ultimate control over which software their devices will and will not
run.
FSF executive director John Sullivan said, "Matthew has generously
donated his time and expertise to advise the FSF on many issues in
recent years, especially
Restricted Boot
and other disconcerting
trends at the intersection of hardware and proprietary software
distribution. His willingness to increase his involvement in FSF
technical and policy leadership is fantastic news for our members and
supporters."
Earlier this year, Garrett won the
Free Software Foundation Award
for the Advancement of Free Software. He holds a PhD in genetics from
the University of Cambridge, and presents frequently around the world
on the topic of free software in wider society.
On accepting the invitation to join the board, Garrett said, "It's
been almost thirty years since the Free Software Foundation was
founded, and in that time free software has become an indispensable
part of computer use everywhere, creating an entire new generation of
users and developers for whom free software has always been
ubiquitous. Unfortunately, the number of threats to user freedom has
also increased over that time. The FSF continues to campaign against
attempts to restrict the rights of users and developers to be in
ultimate control of the software that they use and the devices that
they own, and I'm proud to be able to be a part of that."
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, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
More information about the FSF, as well as important information for
journalists and publishers, is at
Media Contacts
John Sullivan
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org
The above image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 by nekonoir on Flickr.
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