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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, and is tax-exempt under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows donors who file US Federal Income Tax returns to get a deduction on their taxes for their donations.
From its founding until the mid-1990s FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software. Since the mid- to late 1990s there are now many companies and individuals writing free software, so FSF's employees and volunteers mostly work on legal and structural issues for the free software community.
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Current work of FSF
- The GNU Project
- The original purpose of the FSF was to promote the ideals of free software but the organization was also charged with developing the GNU operating system.
- GPL 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.
- GNU Licenses
- The GNU GPL is the most widely used license for Free Software projects. The current version (version 2) was released in 1991 but FSF are working on version 3. FSF have also published the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).
- 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 in to many languages in the future.
- Maintaining the Free Software Definition
- FSF maintain 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 provide project hosting via their Savannah website.
- Campaigns
- FSF holds a number of campaigns against what it perceives as a danger to software freedom, including software patents and Digital Restrictions Management. 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"
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Structure
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Membership
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.
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Organizational
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Current Board of Directors
- Geoffery Knauth, Senior Software Engineer at SFA, Inc.
- Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University
- Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University
- Henri Poole, Founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm.
- Richard Stallman, Founder of FSF and the GNU Project, Founding President, former maintainer of various GNU software, and principal author of the GNU GPL, Versions 1 and 2
- Gerald Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Founding Board of Directors
- Richard Stallman, Founder of FSF and the GNU Project, Founding President, former maintainer of various GNU software, and principal author of the GNU GPL, Versions 1 and 2
- Hal Abelson, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Robert J. Chassell, Founding Director and Founding Treasurer
- Gerald Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Len Tower Jr.
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Former members of the Board of Directors
- Hal Abelson, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Robert J. Chassell, Founding Director and Founding Treasurer
- Len Tower Jr.
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Current staff
Some of staff, both current and past, were neither paid employees nor paid contractors.
At any given time, there are usually around 10 employees in the headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.
- Richard Stallman: President and founder of the Free Software Foundation
. RMS is not paid by the FSF.
Richard M Stallman - Peter T. Brown: Executive Director (was GPL Compliance Manager and Controller until February 2005)
- Eben Moglen: General Counsel
- Dan Ravicher: Senior Counsel
- David "Novalis" Turner: GPL Compliance Engineer
- John Sullivan, Programs Administrator
- Ted Teah, Free Software Directory maintainer
- Joshua Ginsberg, Senior Systems Administrator
- Justin Baugh, Senior Systems Administrator
- Ward Vandewege, Senior Systems Administrator (part-time)
- Tony Wieczorek, Program Assistant
- Jonas Jacobson, Copyright Administrator
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Former employees
- Jonathan Arcenaux, GNU hacker, GNU Emacs
- James E. Blair, Senior Systems Administrator (2003-2005)
- Bradley M. Kuhn, Assistant to Stallman (2000-2001), Executive Director 2001- February 2005
- Robert J. Chassell, Founding Director and Treasurer
- Tim Ney Office Manager, 1998-2001
- Thomas Bushnell, BSG GNU hacker, GNU Hurd
- Roland McGrath GNU hacker, GNU Libc, Make, GNU Hurd
- Noah Friedman GNU hacker and FSF Founding System Administrator
- Daniel Hagerty GNU hacker and FSF Second System Administrator
- Ian Murdock GNU hacker
- Mike Haertel GNU hacker, diff, grep
- Pete TerMaat GNU hacker, GDB
- Phil Nelson GNU hacker
- Jay Fenlason GNU hacker, sed
- Brian Fox GNU hacker, Bash
- Noboyuki Hikichi GNU hacker
- Paul Rubin GNU hacker, cpp
- Ariel Rios GNU hacker, Guile
- Randy Smith GNU hacker, GDB
- Melissa Weisshaus GNU documentation hacker
- Jonathan Watterson, digital-speech project organizer
- Lisa "Opus" Goldstein: Office Manager, (et al) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Manager of GNU Press 2001-2005
- Paul Fisher, Senior Systems Administrator, (2001-2004)
- Peter Salus, Vice President, (mid/late 1990s)
- Carol Botteron, Office Manager, (et al), (mid/late 1990s)
- Tom Lord, GNU hacker, GNU arch, sed, regular expression engine, GNU Oleo features
- Janet Casey, Free Software Directory maintainer, 2000 - August 2005
- Brian Youmans, Office Employee, 1996-2002
- Jim Blandy, GNU hacker, GNU Emacs version 19
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Former contractors
- Leslie Proctor Public Relations
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Former employee of the Zimmer Foundation assigned to the FSF
- Len Tower Jr., who became a Founding Director
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Sister organizations
In 2001, Free Software Foundation Europe was founded in Germany to act as a "hub" for the Free Software organisations of Europe.
In 2003, Free Software Foundation India was founded in Kerala.
In 2005, it was announced that work is in progress to set up a Free Software Foundation Latin America.
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Recognition
- 1999: Linus Torvalds Award for Open Source Computing [1]
- 2005: Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in the category of "Digital Communities" [2] [3]
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