The
Free Software Foundation (
FSF) is a
non-profit corporation founded by
Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the
free software movement, a
copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to distribute and modify
computer software. The FSF is incorporated in
Massachusetts,
USA.
From its founding until the mid-1980s, FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write
free software for the
GNU Project. Since the mid-1990s, the FSF's employees and volunteers have mostly worked on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the
free software community.
Consistent with its goals, only
free software is used on FSF's computers.
GPL enforcement
The FSF holds the copyrights on various essential pieces of the
GNU system, such as
GNU Compiler Collection. As copyright holder, it has exclusive authority to enforce the
GNU General Public License (GPL) when
copyright infringement occurs on that software. While other copyright holders of other software systems adopted the GPL as their license, FSF was the only organization to regularly assert its copyright interests on software so licensed until
Harald Welte launched
gpl-violations.org in 2004.
From 1991 until 2001, GPL enforcement was done informally, usually by Stallman himself, often with assistance with FSF's lawyer,
Eben Moglen. Typically, GPL violations during this time were cleared up by short email exchanges between Stallman and the violator.
In late 2001,
Bradley M. Kuhn (then Executive Director), with the assistance of Moglen, David Turner, and
Peter T. Brown, formalized these efforts into FSF's GPL Compliance Labs. From 2002-2004, high profile GPL enforcement cases, such as those against
Linksys and
OpenTV, became frequent.
GPL enforcement and educational campaigns on GPL compliance was a major focus of the FSF's efforts during this period.
In
December 2008 FSF filed a lawsuit against
Cisco for using GPL-licensed components shipped with
Linksys. Cisco was notified of the licensing issue in 2003 but Cisco repeatedly disregarded its obligations under the GPL. In
May 2009 FSF dropped the lawsuit when Cisco agreed to make a monetary donation to the FSF and appoint a Free Software Director to conduct continuous reviews of the company's license compliance practices.
SCO lawsuit
In March 2003,
SCO filed suit against IBM alleging that
IBM's contributions to various
free software, including FSF's
GNU,
violated SCO's rights. While FSF was never a party to the lawsuit, FSF
was
subpoenaed on November 5, 2003. During 2003 and 2004, FSF put substantial advocacy effort into
responding to the lawsuit and quelling its negative impact on the adoption and promotion of free software.
Legal seminars
From 2003 to 2005, FSF held legal seminars to explain the GPL and the law around it. Usually taught by
Bradley M. Kuhn and
Daniel Ravicher, these seminars offered
CLE credit and were the first effort to give formal legal education on the GPL.
Current and ongoing activities
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 a widely used license for free software projects. The current version (version 3) was released in June 2007. The FSF has also published the
GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), the
GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and the
GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL).
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.
Project hosting: FSF hosts software development projects on their
Savannah website.
Political campaigns : FSF sponsors a number of campaigns against what it perceives as dangers to software freedom, including
software patents,
digital rights management (which the FSF has re-termed "digital restrictions management", as part of their effort to highlight their view that such technologies are "designed to take away and limit your rights,") and user interface copyright.
Defective by Design is an FSF-initiated campaign against DRM. They also have a campaign to promote
Ogg+
Vorbis, a free alternative to
proprietary formats like
MP3 and
AAC. They also sponsor some free software projects that are deemed to be "high-priority".
Annual awards: "
Award for the Advancement of Free Software" and "
Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit"
High priority projects
thumb|300px|gNewSense is an operating system officially supported by the
FSFThe FSF maintains a list of "high priority projects" to which the Foundation claims that "
there is a vital need to draw the free software community's attention".
The FSF considers these projects "
important because computer users are continually being seduced into using non-free software, because there is no adequate free replacement."
Previous projects highlighted as needing work included the
Free Java implementations,
GNU Classpath, and
GNU Compiler for Java, which ensure compatibility for the Java part of
OpenOffice.org, and the
GNOME desktop environment (see
Java: Licensing).
Recognition
Structure
The FSF's
board of directors is:
- Hal Abelson, Founding member,
[The first GNU's Bulletin (), indicates this list of people as]
round[ing] out FSF's board of directors. Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (served from inception until March 5, 1998, and rejoined circa 2005)
- Geoffery Knauth, Senior Software Engineer at SFA, Inc. (served since October 23, 1997)
- Henry Poole, Founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm. (served since December 12, 2002)
Previous board members include:
- Robert J. Chassell, Founding Treasurer,
The FSF Board of Directors is elected by the Voting Membership, whose powers include at least this are outlined in the by-laws:
There are currently no known documents available that indicate the composition of the FSF's Voting Membership.
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.
Eben Moglen and Dan Ravicher previously served individually as pro bono legal counsel to the FSF. Since the forming of the Software Freedom Law Center, legal services to the FSF are provided by that organization.
On November 25, 2002, the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. Bradley M. Kuhn (FSF Executive Director, 2001-2005) launched the program and also signed up as the first Associate Member
Associate members hold a purely honorary and funding support role to the FSF.See also
Free Software Foundations
