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Free Software Foundation

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Free Software Foundation
TypeNGO and Non-profit Foundation
Location
ServicesFunding, promotion, legal counsel
FieldsFree software
Key people
Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, Henry Poole, Gerry Sussman, Hal Abelson, Benjamin Mako Hill
Websitehttp://www.fsf.org/

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 without restriction . The FSF is incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States of America.[1]

From its founding until the mid-1990s, 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.

Being consistent with its goals, only free software is used on all of the FSF's computers.[2]

Current work of FSF

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.
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 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,"[3]) 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 sponsor also 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"

History

GPL enforcement

The FSF holds the copyrights on various essential pieces of the GNU system, such as GCC. 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, the 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.[4][5][6] GPL enforcement and educational campaigns on GPL compliance was a major focus of the FSF's efforts during this period.[7][8]

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.[9] During 2003 and 2004, FSF put substantial advocacy effort into responding to the law suit and quelling its negative impact on the adoption and promotion of free software.[10]

High priority projects

The FSF maintains a list of high priority projects; projects for which the Foundation claims that "there is a vital need to draw the free software community's attention". The FSF consider these projects "important because computer users are continually being seduced into using non-free software, because there is no adequate free replacement."

Current projects

Previous projects

After Sun Microsystems released Java with GPL (see Java (Sun)#Licensing), the GNU Java implementation is not high priority anymore.

Structure

Board of Directors

Current Board of Directors

Founding Board of Directors[11]

Other former members of the Board of Directors

Staff and employees

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.[citation needed] Most, but not all, work at the FSF headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

Legal representation

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.

Sister organizations

Associate Members

On November 25, 2002 the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals.[16] Bradley M. Kuhn (FSF Executive Director, 2001-2005) launched the program and also signed up as the first Associate Member[17].

Recognition

References

  1. ^ "Articles of Incorporation, Free Software Foundation". The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1985-10-04. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  2. ^ Stallman, Richard M. (2002). "Linux, GNU, and freedom" (HTML). Philosophy of the GNU Project. GNU Project. Retrieved 2006-12-10.
  3. ^ "Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing". Free Software Foundation. September 18 2006. Retrieved 2007-12-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Meeker, Heather (2005-06-28). "The Legend of Linksys". Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  5. ^ Gillmor, Dan (2003-05-21). "GPL Legal Battle Coming?". SiliconValley.com (a division of the San Jose Mercury News). Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  6. ^ Turner, David (2003-09-29). "Linksys/Cisco GPL Violations". LWN.net. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Kennedy, Dennis (2004-01-11). "A Great Learning Opportunity for Software Lawyers - Upcoming GPL Seminar". Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  8. ^ Lord, Timothy (2003-07-18). "Seminar On Details Of The GPL And Related Licenses". Slashdot. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  9. ^ Heise, Mark (2003-11-05). "SCO Subpoena of FSF" (PDF). Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  10. ^ Kuhn, Bradley (2004-05-18). "The SCO Subpoena of FSF". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  11. ^ The first GNU's Bulletin ("GNU'S Bulletin, Volume 1, No.1". Free Software Foundation. February 1986. Retrieved 2007-08-11.), indicates this list of people as round[ing] out FSF's board of directors.
  12. ^ The FSF annual filings with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 1998 ("1998 Annual Report for Free Software Foundation, Inc" (PDF). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2002-06-05. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help)) and 1999 ("1999 Annual Report for Free Software Foundation, Inc" (PDF). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2002-06-05. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help)) show that De Icaza was not on the board on 1998-11-01 and was as of 1999-11-01, so he clearly joined sometime between those dates. Those documents further indicate that the 1999 Annual meeting occurred in August; usually, new directors are elected at annual meetings.
  13. ^ The FSF annual filings with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 2002 ("2002 Annual Report for Free Software Foundation, Inc" (PDF). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2002-12-17. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help)) show that De Icaza has left the board. Changes to board composition are usually made at the annual meeting; which occurred on February 25, 2002.
  14. ^ The FSF annual filings with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 1999 ("1999 Annual Report for Free Software Foundation, Inc" (PDF). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2002-06-05. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help)) and 2000 ("2000 Annual Report for Free Software Foundation, Inc" (PDF). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2004-02-13. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help)) show that Moglen was not on the board on 1999-11-01 and was as of 2000-11-01, so he clearly joined sometime between those dates. Those documents further indicate that the 2000 Annual meeting occurred in July 28, 2000; usually, new directors are elected at annual meetings.
  15. ^ Moglen announced his intention to resign in his blog (Moglen, Eben (2007-04-23). "And Now ... Life After GPLv3". Retrieved 2007-08-11.). The resignation likely occurred at the 2007 annual meeting of the directors; the exact date of that meeting is unknown.
  16. ^ The site member.fsf.org first appears in the Internet Archive in December 2002, and that site lists the date of the launch as 25 November 2002 ("FSF Membership Page, as of 2002-12-20". The Internet Archive. 2002-12-20. Retrieved 2007-08-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help))
  17. ^ Kuhn has an FSF-generated member link that identifies him as the first member on his web page.("Homepage of Bradley M. Kuhn". Bradley M. Kuhn. 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2008-01-05. {{cite web}}: External link in |authorlink= (help))
  18. ^ Marsh, Ann (2002). "What I Saw at the Revolution" (HTML). Stanford Magazine. Stanford Alumni Association. Retrieved 2006-12-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  19. ^ Ars Electronica Center (2005). "Digital Communities, Distinction, Free Software Foundation" (HTML). Prix Ars Electronica. Ars Electronica Center. Retrieved 2006-12-10.
  20. ^ Free Software Foundation (2005). "FSF honored with Prix Ars Electronica award". News Releases. Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2006-12-10.

See also

External links

Sister organizations

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