Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman[6] on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("share alike") terms,[7] such as with its own GNU General Public License.[8] The FSF was incorporated in Boston,[9] Massachusetts, US, where it is also based.[10]

Free Software Foundation
AbbreviationFSF
FormationOctober 4, 1985 (1985-10-04)[1]
FounderRichard Stallman
Type501(c)(3) non-profit organization
Legal status501(c)(3)
PurposeEducational
HeadquartersBoston, Massachusetts, US
Region served
Worldwide
Membership
Individuals
President
Geoffrey Knauth
Executive director
Zoë Kooyman[2]
Revenue (2020)
$1,149,602[3]
Expenses (2020)$1,809,358[4]
Staff
13[5]
Websitewww.fsf.org

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.

Consistent with its goals, the FSF aims to use only free software on its own computers.[11]

History

The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985 as a non-profit corporation supporting free software development. It continued existing GNU projects such as the sale of manuals and tapes, and employed developers of the free software system.[12] Since then, it has continued these activities, as well as advocating for the free software movement. The FSF is also the steward of several free software licenses, meaning it publishes them and has the ability to make revisions as needed.[13]

The FSF holds the copyrights on many pieces of the GNU system, such as GNU Compiler Collection. As holder of these copyrights, it has the authority to enforce the copyleft requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL) when copyright infringement occurs on that software.

From 1991 until 2001, GPL enforcement was done informally, usually by Stallman himself, often with assistance from FSF's lawyer, Eben Moglen. Typically, GPL violations during this time were cleared up by short email exchanges between Stallman and the violator. In the interest of promoting copyleft assertiveness by software companies to the level that the FSF was already doing, in 2004 Harald Welte launched gpl-violations.org.

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.[14][15][16]

GPL enforcement and educational campaigns on GPL compliance was a major focus of the FSF's efforts during this period.[17][18]

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.[19] 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.[20][21]

From 2003 to 2005, FSF held legal seminars to explain the GPL and the surrounding law.[22] 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.[21][23][24]

In 2007, the FSF published the third version of the GNU General Public License after significant outside input.[25][26]

In December 2008, FSF filed a lawsuit against Cisco for using GPL-licensed components shipped with Linksys products. Cisco was notified of the licensing issue in 2003 but Cisco repeatedly disregarded its obligations under the GPL.[27] In May 2009, Cisco and FSF reached settlement under which 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.[28]

In September 2019, Richard Stallman resigned as president of the FSF after pressure from journalists and members of the open source community in response to him making controversial comments in defense of Marvin Minsky on Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking scandal.[29] Nevertheless, Stallman remained head of the GNU Project and in 2021, he returned to the FSF board of directors.[30][31][32][33]

Current and ongoing activities

The GNU Project
Main article: 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."[34][35]

The Free Software Directory
Main article: Free Software Directory

This is a listing of software packages that have been verified as free software. Each package entry contains up to 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.

Maintaining the Free Software Definition
Main article: The Free Software Definition

FSF maintains many of the documents that define the free software movement.

Project hosting

FSF hosts software development projects on its Savannah website.

h-node

An abbreviation for "Hardware-Node", the h-node website lists hardware and device drivers that have been verified as compatible with free software. It is user-edited and volunteer supported with hardware entries tested by users before publication.[36][37][38]

Advocacy

FSF sponsors a number of campaigns against what it perceives as dangers to software freedom, including software patents, digital rights management (which the FSF and others[39] have re-termed "digital restrictions management", as part of its effort to highlight technologies that are "designed to take away and limit your rights",[40]) and user interface copyright. Since 2012, Defective by Design is an FSF-initiated campaign against DRM.[41] It also has a campaign to promote Ogg+Vorbis, a free alternative to proprietary formats like AAC and MQA. FSF also sponsors free software projects it deems "high-priority".

Annual awards
See also: FSF Free Software Awards

"Outstanding new Free Software contributor", "Award for the Advancement of Free Software" and "Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit"

LibrePlanet wiki

The LibrePlanet wiki organizes FSF members into regional groups in order to promote free software activism against Digital Restrictions Management and other issues promoted by the FSF.

High priority projects
Parabola GNU/Linux-libre is a distribution officially endorsed by the FSF.

The 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".[42] 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."[42]

As of 2021, high priority tasks include reverse engineering proprietary firmware; reversible debugging in GNU Debugger; developing automatic transcription and video editing software, Coreboot, drivers for network routers, a free smartphone operating system and creating replacements for Skype and Siri.[42]

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).[43]

The effort has been criticized by Michael Larabel for either not instigating active development or for being slow at the work being done, even after certain projects were added to the list.[44][45]

Endorsements

Operating systems

The FSF maintains a list of approved Linux operating systems that maintain free software by default:[46]

The project also maintains a list of operating systems that are not versions of the GNU system:

Discontinued operating systems

The following are previously endorsed operating systems that are no longer actively maintained:

Hardware endorsements (RYF)
See also: Libreboot and Coreboot

Since 2012, the FSF maintains a "Respects Your Freedom" (RYF) hardware certification program. To be granted certification, a product must use 100% Free Software, allow user installation of modified software, be free of backdoors and conform with several other requirements.[47][48]

Structure

Board

The FSF's board of directors includes professors at leading universities, senior engineers, and founders. Current board members are:[49]

Previous board members include:

Executive directors

Executive directors include:

Voting

The FSF Articles of Organization state that the board of directors are elected.[61]

The bylaws say who can vote for them.[62]

The board can grant powers to the Voting Membership.[63]

Employment

At any given time, there are usually around a dozen employees.[64] Most, but not all, work at the FSF headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.[65]

Membership

On November 25, 2002, the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals.[66] Bradley M. Kuhn (FSF executive director, 2001–2005) launched the program and also signed up as the first Associate Member[67]

Associate members are primarily an honorary and funding support role.[63] In 2023, associate members gained the ability to make board nominations, along with FSF staff and FSF voting members. There is also an annual meeting of FSF members, usually during lunch at LibrePlanet, in which feedback for FSF is solicited.

Eben Moglen and Dan Ravicher previously served individually as pro bono legal counsel to the FSF. After forming the Software Freedom Law Center, Eben Moglen continued to serve as the FSF's general counsel until 2016.[68]

Financial

Most of the FSF funding comes from patrons and members.[69] Revenue streams also come from free-software-related compliance labs, job postings, published works, and a web store. FSF offers speakers and seminars for pay, and all FSF projects accept donations.

Revenues fund free-software programs and campaigns, while cash is invested conservatively in socially responsible investing. The financial strategy is designed to maintain the Foundation's long-term future through economic stability.

The FSF is a tax-exempt organization and posts annual IRS Form 990 filings online.[70]

Criticism

Position on DRM

Linus Torvalds has criticized FSF for using GPLv3 as a weapon in the fight against DRM. Torvalds argues that the issue of DRM and that of a software license should be treated as two separate issues.[71]

Defective by Design campaign

On June 16, 2010, Joe Brockmeier, a journalist at Linux Magazine, criticized the Defective by Design campaign by the FSF as "negative" and "juvenile" and not being adequate for providing users with "credible alternatives" to proprietary software.[72] FSF responded to this criticism by saying "that there is a fundamental difference between speaking out against policies or actions and smear campaigns", and "that if one is taking an ethical position, it is justified, and often necessary, to not only speak about the benefits of freedom but against acts of dispossession and disenfranchisement."[73]

GNU LibreDWG license controversy

In 2009, a license update of LibDWG/LibreDWG to the version 3 of the GNU GPL,[74] made it impossible for the free software projects LibreCAD and FreeCAD to use LibreDWG legally.[75] Many projects voiced their unhappiness about the GPLv3 license selection for LibreDWG, such as FreeCAD, LibreCAD, Assimp, and Blender.[76] Some suggested the selection of a license with a broader license compatibility, for instance the MIT, BSD, or LGPL 2.1.[76] A request went to the FSF to relicense GNU LibreDWG as GPLv2, which was rejected in 2012.[77]

The libDWG has stalled since 2011 for various reasons, including license issues.[78]

Accusations against Richard Stallman

Stallman resigned from the board in 2019 after making controversial comments about one of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, but rejoined the board 18 months later.[79] Several prominent organizations and individuals who develop free software objected to the decision, citing past writings on Stallman's blog which they considered antithetical to promoting a diverse community.[80][81] As a result of Stallman's reinstatement, prominent members of the Free Software Foundation quit in protest and Red Hat announced that it would stop funding and supporting the Free Software Foundation.[80][82]

Recognition

Key players and industries that have made honorific mention and awards include:

See also

Notes
  1. The FSF annual filings with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 1998 and 1999 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.
  2. The FSF annual filings with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 1999 and 2000 show that Moglen was not on the board on November 1, 1999, and was as of November 1, 2000, so he clearly joined sometime between those dates. Those documents further indicate that the 2000 annual meeting occurred on July 28, 2000; usually, new directors are elected at annual meetings.

References
  1. "Corporations Division Entity Summary for ID Number: 042888848". Secretary of Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-10-04.
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  3. Roberts, Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Andrea Suozzo, Brandon (2013-05-09). "Free Software Foundation Inc – Nonprofit Explorer". ProPublica. Retrieved 2022-09-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Roberts, Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Andrea Suozzo, Brandon (2013-05-09). "Free Software Foundation Inc – Nonprofit Explorer". ProPublica. Retrieved 2022-09-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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  35. List of books published in GNU Press home site
  36. "FSF and Debian join forces to help free software users find the hardware they need". September 8, 2014.
  37. "FSFとDebian、GNU/Linuxハードウェア情報サイト「h-node.org」を共同支援へ | OSDN Magazine". OSDN.
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  39. Stross, Randall (January 14, 2007). "Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
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  45. Larabel, Michael (2012-04-22). "Many FSF Priority Projects Still Not Progressing". Phoronix. Retrieved 2014-12-29. Most of the projects are basically not going anywhere. Many of them at the time were not really advancing in their goals, haven't had releases in a while, or coding hasn't even started. It's been more than a half-year and still there's no significant work towards clearing many of projects from the FSF list.
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  53. 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.
  54. 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.) 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.
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  61. Article II, Sec. 1 - Number, Election and Qualification: The present members of the corporation shall constitute the voting members. Thereafter the voting members annually at its annual meeting shall fix the number of voting members and shall elect the number of voting members so fixed. At any special or regular meeting, the voting members then in office may increase the number of voting members and elect new voting members to complete the number so fixed; or they may decrease the number of voting members, but only to eliminate vacancies caused by the death, resignation, removal or disqualification of one or more voting members.
    — Amended By-laws, Nov. 25, 2002, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  62. In addition to the right to elect Directors as provided in the bylaws and such other powers and rights as may be vested in them by law, these Articles of Organization or the bylaws, the Voting Members shall have such other powers and rights as the Directors may designate.
    — Amended By-laws, Nov. 25, 2002, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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  75. Larabel, Michael (2013-01-24). "FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project". Phoronix. Archived from the original on 2016-11-09. Retrieved 2013-08-22. Both LibreCAD and FreeCAD both want to use LibreDWG and have patches available for supporting the DWG file format library, but can't integrate them. The programs have dependencies on the popular GPLv2 license while the Free Software Foundation will only let LibreDWG be licensed for GPLv3 use, not GPLv2.
  76. Prokoudine, Alexandre (26 January 2012). "What's up with DWG adoption in free software?". libregraphicsworld.org. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013. [Assimp's Alexander Gessler:] "Personally, I'm extremely unhappy with their [LibreDWG's — LGW] GPL licensing. It prohibits its use in Assimp and for many other applications as well. I don't like dogmatic ideologies, and freeing software by force (as GPL/GNU does) is something I dislike in particular. It's fine for applications, because it doesn't hurt at this point, but, in my opinion, not for libraries that are designed to be used as freely as possible." [Blender's Toni Roosendaal:] "Blender is also still "GPLv2 or later". For the time being we stick to that, moving to GPL 3 has no evident benefits I know of. My advice for LibreDWG: if you make a library, choosing a widely compatible license (MIT, BSD, or LGPL) is a very positive choice."
  77. Prokoudine, Alexandre (2012-12-27). "LibreDWG drama: the end or the new beginning?". libregraphicsworld.org. Archived from the original on 2016-11-09. Retrieved 2013-08-23. [...]the unfortunate situation with support for DWG files in free CAD software via LibreDWG. We feel, by now it ought to be closed. We have the final answer from FSF. [...] "We are not going to change the license."
  78. Prokoudine, Alexandre (26 January 2012). "What's up with DWG adoption in free software?". libregraphicsworld.org. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013. GPLv3 license. It doesn't work for end-user software, because they tend to use 3rd party components under different licenses that impose restrictions. FSF who are sole copyright holders of LibreDWG objected to relicensing. With regards to FreeCAD project and Yorik van Havre, its contributor, Richard Stallman stated:" You should not change the license of your library. Rather, it is best to make it clear to him what the conditions are." [...] Personally, I'm extremely unhappy with their [LibreDWG's — LGW] GPL licensing. It prohibits its use in Assimp and for many other applications as well. I don't like dogmatic ideologies, and freeing software by force (as GPL/GNU does) is something I dislike in particular. It's fine for applications, because it doesn't hurt at this point, but, in my opinion, not for libraries that are designed to be used as freely as possible.
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