Free Software Foundation
More info
- Creator
- Richard Stallman
- Released
- 1985
- Type
- Nonprofit organisation
- Website
- fsf.org
The Boston nonprofit that stewards the GPL, holds copyright on much of GNU and polices the word "free" with considerable rigour.
Richard Stallman founded the FSF in October 1985, two years after announcing GNU. At first it was mostly a vehicle for hiring programmers and selling tapes of the source code. Since then it has written and revised the GPL, LGPL and AGPL, and for years required GNU contributors to assign their copyright so the foundation alone could take infringers to court.
It is as much an advocacy group as a licence steward: campaigns against DRM, against Windows, and in favour of everyone saying GNU/Linux. Stallman stepped down as president in 2019 after comments about the Epstein case, then rejoined the board in 2021 – prompting several sponsors and some of the staff to head for the exit.