WATERLOO - An American computer software pioneer, Richard Stallman, will discuss the global free software movement during a public lecture this week at the University of Waterloo.

Stallman, founder of the GNU collaborative project, will talk about the campaign that gives computer users the freedom to co-operate and control their own computing activities. His talk, sponsored by UW's computer science club, takes place Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre, J. G. Hagey Hall of the Humanities. Free admission.

The free software movement developed the GNU operating system, a free Unix-like system often erroneously referred to as Linux. It aims to promote a user's right to access and modify software.

"Richard Stallman revolutionized the perception of software and information freedom through the establishment of the GNU Project in 1984," said Edgar Bering, vice-president of the undergraduate club. "Worldwide the support for the free software movement is growing with practical applications being developed everyday."

Stallman, who has received honorary doctorates from several universities, was the recipient of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1990. The annual award is given to outstanding young computer professionals. In 1998, he won the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award for founding and developing the GNU Project.