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Categories: Free software | Free Software Foundation

Free Software Foundation

Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organisation founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project.

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.

Contents

1 Current work of FSF

2 Structure

2.1 Membership
2.2 Organizational
2.3 Sister organisations

3 External links

Current work of FSF

GPL Enforcement: FSF have the resources and the will to enforce the GPL and other GNU licenses. FSF handles around 50 GPL violations per year and tries to bring the other party into compliance without involving the courts. As of January 2004, no one has yet taken FSF to court over a copyright dispute.

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 a 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 all 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.

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.

FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software: An annual award.

Structure

Membership

On November 25, 2002 the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. In April 2004 they had over 2044 members. On March 5 2003 they launched a Corporate Patronage program for commercial entities. As of April 2004, they have 45 corporate patrons.

Organizational

FSF has a board of directors with six members:

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 and author of the GNU GPL, Versions 1 and 2
Gerald Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Other positions held:

Richard Stallman: President
Bradley Kuhn : Vice President, CEO
Eben Moglen: General Counsel
Dan Ravicher: Senior Counsel
Peter Brown: Financial Controller
Lisa "Opus" Goldstein: Business Manager
David "Novalis" Turner: GPL Compliance Engineer
Janet Casey, Free Software Directory maintainer
John Sullivan, programs administrator
Ted Teah, Copyright Assignments clerk
Ravi Khanna
Ted Teah

Previous employees:

Leslie Proctor Public Relations
Robert J. Chassell: Founding Director and Treasurer
Tim Ney CEO 1998-2001
Thomas Bushnell GNU hacker, GNU Hurd
Roland McGrath GNU hacker, GNU Libc , Make, GNU Hurd
Leonard Tower 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
there was a "Steve"
and a "John" (he organised the digital-speech wing)

There are usually around 12 employees in the headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The office is managed by Bradley Kuhn.

Sister organisations

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. On the 20th anniversary of the GNU Project (January 5 2004), the Irish Free Software Organisation was founded to promote free software in Ireland.

External links