The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software, with the organization's preference for copyleft (except in certain cases), such as with its own GNU General Public License, being used to license software whose modifications retain these permissions. The FSF is incorporated in Massachusetts, USA. For software for which the copyright holder insists on using a permissive free software license, the FSF recommends version 2.0 of the Apache License over other permissive licenses due to its patent protection.
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, only free software is used on FSF's computers.
Read more about Free Software Foundation: History, GPL Enforcement, Current and Ongoing Activities, High Priority Projects, Recognition, Structure, Criticism
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