[GNU/FSF Press] Stephen Fry's film "Happy Birthday to GNU" now available in 24 languages ready for Software Freedom Day

[Matt Lee]

Stephen Fry's film "Happy Birthday to GNU" now available in 24 languages
ready for Software Freedom Day

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, September 18th, 2008 -- Since
its release ten days ago, Stephen Fry's film "Happy Birthday to GNU" at
<http://www.gnu.org/fry/> has been viewed over a half-million times, and
today the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced the availability of
twenty-four translations including Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Hebrew,
that have been prepared especially for this Saturday's Software Freedom Day.

The translations, all provided by volunteers, are still coming in. In
Kathmandu, community organizer Bibek Paudel is working with his local
community to translate the text of the video into Nepali, to make the
philosophy of software freedom easily accessible to the people of Nepal.
In Buenos Aires, Franco Iacomella worked with two fellow activists to
translate Fry's message into Spanish. "Having this video available in
Spanish will help to increase awareness of free software in Latin
America," said Iacomella.

Commenting on the popularity of the film, FSF campaigns manager and
producer of the film Matt Lee added, "Stephen Fry and the FSF have been
delighted with the response the film has received so far. The speed with
which the translations were done is amazing and we're happy that this
has become such an international effort. It's great to know that
Software Freedom Day teams around the world will be able to use the film
as part of their celebration."

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
<http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About Stephen Fry and "Happy Birthday to GNU"
=============================================

Happy Birthday to GNU is a short film featuring the English humorist,
actor, novelist and filmmaker Stephen Fry, celebrating the 25th
anniversary of the launch of the GNU project. In the five-minute film,
Fry compares the free software operating system to "good science" and
contrasts it with the "kind of tyranny" imposed by the proprietary
software produced by companies like Microsoft and Apple that it
replaces. He encourages people to use free GNU/Linux distributions like
gNewSense (<http://gnewsense.org>) and free software generally, for
freedom's sake. The film is available for viewing and download from
<http://www.gnu.org/fry>.

About Software Freedom Day
==========================

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide project to celebrate software
freedom. Each community celebrates software freedom in its own way --
some groups focus on advocacy, some give away software and others use
the day for outreach and education. Their home page is
<http://www.softwarefreedomday.org>.

About the GNU Operating System and Linux
========================================

Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free
software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only
operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom.
See <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html>

In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one,
the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU
GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a
complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first
time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination is the
GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see
<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html>

Media Contacts
==============

Matt Lee
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
address@hidden