July 18^th. An-Najah President, Prof. Rami Hamdallah, received in his office at the Old Campus Scientist, Richard Stallman, an American software freedom activist, computer programmer and founder and President of the Free Software Foundation, in addition to Dr. Sabri Saidam, Information Technology Advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas.

At the beginning of the meeting, Prof. Hamdallah welcomed the scientist and appreciated his visit to the University and his interest to meet with its professors and scientists. He also regarded his visit as an indication of Palestine’s position in the world of information technology.

Moreover, Prof. Hamdallah emphasized the University’s concern with developing information technology in Palestine through focusing on the field of computer programming and computer software in general.

Stallman said he welcomes the development of free software in Palestine emphasizing the importance of freedom as a major choice in the way the Palestinian society deals with internet and software. He also stressed the fact that in order for a community to develop, software sector must be developed continuously based on the principles of justice and humanity.

Following the meeting, Stallman gave a lecture at Zafer Al-Masri Auditorium, attended by members of the faculty staff at the Faculty of Information Technology and hundreds o students. In his lecture, Stallman spoke about the mechanism of developing software by their owners in a way that serves producers. Moreover, he discussed how software work and used by users, in addition to many related issues.

After the lecture, the Public Relations Department at the University organized a tour for Stallman on the New Campus that included the Media Center and the Faculty of Information Technology. Stallman expressed his admiration by the advanced level that the University has achieved.

Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and he is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license. He has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, the GNU Debugger, and many tools in the GNU Coreutils. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989.