Free Software Foundation

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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement ("free" as in "freedom"), and in particular the GNU project. The FSF is incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

From its founding until the mid-1990s FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software. Since the mid-1990s there are more and more companies and individuals writing free software, so FSF's employees and volunteers mostly work on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the free software community.

Being consistent with its goals, only free software is used on all of the FSF's computers.^[1]

Current work of FSF[edit]

The GNU Project

The original purpose of the FSF was to promote the ideals of free software. The organization developed the GNU operating system as an example of this.

GNU Licenses

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is the most widely used license for Free Software projects. The current version (version 2) was released in 1991 but FSF is working on version 3. FSF have also published the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

GNU License Enforcement

FSF has the resources and the will to enforce the GPL and other GNU licenses, but only for software for which it owns the copyrights; GPL'd software owned by others must be defended by its owners, since the FSF has no legal standing to enforce the GPL for them. FSF handles around 50 GPL violations per year and tries to bring the other party into compliance without involving the courts.

Guardian of copyrights

FSF holds the copyrights to most GNU software and some non-GNU Free Software. They require copyright assignment papers from each contributor to GNU packages so that they can defend the software in court if a dispute arises, and so that if there is a need to change the license of a work, it can be done without having to contact all contributors that have ever worked on the software.

GNU Press

The FSF's publishing department, responsible for "publishing affordable books on computer science using freely distributable licenses."

The Free Software Directory

This is a listing of software packages which have been verified as free software. Each package entry contains 47 pieces of information such as the project's homepage, developers, programming language, etc. The goals are to provide a search engine for free software, and to provide a cross-reference for users to check if a package has been verified as being free software. FSF has received a small amount of funding from UNESCO for this project. It is hoped that the directory can be translated into many languages in the future.

Maintaining the Free Software Definition

FSF maintains many of the documents that define the Free Software movement.

Legal Education

FSF hold seminars about legal aspects of using the GPL, and offers a consultancy service for lawyers.

Project Hosting

FSF hosts software development projects on their Savannah website.

Campaigns

FSF sponsors a number of campaigns against what it perceives as dangers to software freedom, including software patents, Digital Restrictions Management, and user interface copyright. Defective by Design is an FSF-initiated campaign against DRM.

Annual awards

"Award for the Advancement of Free Software" and "Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit"

Structure[edit]

Membership[edit]

On November 25, 2002 the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. In March 2005 they had over 3400 associate members.

On March 5, 2003 they launched a Corporate Patron program for commercial entities. As of April 2004, they have 45 corporate patrons.

Founding Board of Directors[edit]

• Richard Stallman
• Hal Abelson, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Robert J. Chassell, Founding Director and Founding Treasurer
• Gerald Sussman
• Len Tower Jr.

Staff and Employees[edit]

Some of the Free Software Foundation staff, both current and past, are unpaid volunteers. At any given time, there are usually around a dozen employees. Most, but not all, work at the FSF headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sister organizations[edit]

In:

• 2001, Free Software Foundation Europe was founded in Germany to act as a "hub" for the Free Software organisations of Europe.
• 2003, Free Software Foundation India was founded in Kerala.
• 2005, it was announced that work is in progress to set up a Free Software Foundation Latin America.

Recognition[edit]

• 1999: Linus Torvalds Award for Open Source Computing^[2]
• 2005: Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in the category of "Digital Communities"^[3][4]

Attribution[edit]

Some content on this page may previously have appeared on Wikipedia.

Footnotes[edit]