GNU is 25 by Matt Lee

We spent most of May working in close contact with a well-known celebrity, shooting the first of what we hope will be a series of short videos about GNU and free software. The first video, which will be airing on gnu.org to coincide with the anniversary, explains free software to a new generation of people, and encourages them to download and try gNewSense. These videos, coupled with a fresh new look for gnu.org and upcoming membership events in Portland and San Francisco, promise to make the 25th anniversary something really special.

You can help too! We are looking for any relics of GNU and FSF history that you may have lying around. If they're something you can email, feel free to send them to campaigns@fsf.org, and if they're something a little more tangible, drop us a line and if they're something of interest, we'd love to see them.

The most important thing of course is that GNU continues to grow, and continues to stand up for freedom in a potentially hostile world. Twenty-five years ago, the threats to our freedom came from proprietary operating systems. Thankfully these days, we have a few completely free distributions of the GNU operating system, but we must not become complacent. Proprietary software in the form of popular programs like Flash and Skype are constantly seducing many in our community to use proprietary software, and we must stand up to it, first by installing and using a distribution of GNU that values freedom, such as gNewSense, but also by encouraging others to do so, even if it is at the cost of some convenience.

Our past experience gives us every reason to believe that we will succeed, but it's going to take a lot of work.

Here's to another twenty-five, GNU!