Free software is just a matter of liberty not price.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), established in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free software, particularly the GNU operating system, used widely in its GNU/Linux variant.

The FSF maintains the Free Software Definition. You can read more about free software in our essays section and in the philosophy section of gnu.org.

Here are the Free Software Foundation's current projects.

GPLv3.fsf.org

The GNU General Public License, version 3, has been released, along with the Lesser GNU General Public License, version 3. Other licenses, including the AGPL, GFDL and GSFDL are still undergoing public comment and revision.

GNU

FSF remains the primary sponsor of the GNU Project. In addition to the services provided by Savannah for GNU projects, FSF provides development systems for GNU software maintainers, including full email and shell services. We are committed to furthering the development of the GNU Operating System and enabling volunteers to easily contribute to that work.

Free Software Licensing and Compliance Lab

The commencement of the GNU project in 1984, with its goal to give users freedom, required the establishment of new distribution terms that would prevent the project being turned into proprietary software. The method used was Copyleft and the resulting license was called the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). Today the GNU GPL is the most widely used Free Software license, and as its author, the FSF works to help the wider community use and comprehend it.

Free Software Directory

The Free Software Directory was started in September 1999 to catalog all useful free software that runs under free operating systems. The Directory contains over 4,000 entries. The license of each program in the Directory is checked to verify that it is free software.

Savannah

Savannah provides software development services at no cost to free software developers around the world. Savannah provides a web front-end for hosting and maintaining project homepages, bug tracking, CVS, FTP, and mailing lists. We provide all of these services running entirely on Free Software, without ads, for the entire community.