High Priority Free Software Projects
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| Abbreviation | FSF |
|---|---|
| Formation | October 4, 1985 |
| Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit organization |
| Legal status | Foundation |
| Purpose | Educational |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
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Region served
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Worldwide |
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Membership
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Private individuals and corporate patrons |
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President
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Richard Stallman |
| Affiliations | Software Freedom Law Center |
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Budget
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$1,136,393 in FY 2014 |
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Staff
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14 |
| Website | www |
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, which promotes the universal freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("share alike") terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Massachusetts, US, where it is also based.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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