Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project, through the use of GNU Licenses (see below).

Structure

Membership

On November 25, 2002 the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. In March 2005 they had over 3400 associate members. On March 5 2003 they launched a Corporate Patron program for commercial entities. As of April 2004, they have 45 corporate patrons.

Related Topics:
November 25 - 2002 - March 2005 - March 5 - 2003 - April 2004

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Organizational

Board of Directors

• 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, former maintainer of various GNU software, and coauthor of the GNU GPL, Versions 1 and 2
• Gerald Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Other positions

• Richard Stallman: President
• Peter T. Brown: Executive Director (was GPL Compliance Manager and Controller until February 2005)
• Eben Moglen: General Counsel
• Dan Ravicher: Senior Counsel
• : GPL Compliance Engineer
• John Sullivan, Programs Administrator
• Ted Teah, Free Software Directory maintainer
• Joshua Ginsberg, Senior Systems Administrator
• , Senior Systems Administrator
• , Senior Systems Administrator (part-time)
• Tony Wieczorek, Program Assistant

Former employees

• Jonathan Arcenaux, GNU hacker, GNU Emacs
• James E. Blair, Senior Systems Administrator
• Bradley M. Kuhn: Executive Director until February 2005
• 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
• Ian Murdock GNU hacker
• 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"
• Jonathan Watterson, digital-speech project organiser
• Lisa "Opus" Goldstein: Manager of GNU Press
• Paul Fisher, Senior Systems Administrator
• Peter Salus, Vice President
• Tom Lord, GNU hacker, GNU arch, sed, regular expression engine, GNU Oleo features
• Janet Casey, Free Software Directory maintainer until August 2005

There are usually around 10 employees in the headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The office is managed by Peter Brown.

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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 2001-04-19, The Free Software Foundation France was founded in France.

Related Topics:
2001 - Free Software Foundation Europe - Germany - 2003 - Free Software Foundation India - Kerala - 2001-04-19 - Free Software Foundation France

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