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There is no collective freedom without you
Quoting: There is no collective freedom without you —
This quote is taken from the GNU Manifesto, which was published a few months before the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) founding (forty years ago this October). It is this philosophy that launched the free software movement. It shaped the definition of "free software" and resulted in the FSF's mission of promoting worldwide computer user freedom.
The FSF's work covers a wide range of activities. Board members and staff speak about free software all over the world and are active in campaigns on a wide variety of topics related to our cause. We educate people about free software philosophy and explain the workings of copyleft and the GNU General Public License (GPL). We work directly with organizations to increase proper use and compliance with the GPL, process copyright assignments from developers (thank you!), and steward the GPL. We get involved legally where we can, like with our amicus brief for the recent Neo4j, Inc., et al. v. Suhy, et al. case and our deposition for the Software Freedom Conservancy Inc. vs. Vizio, Inc. case, cementing our position that users should be free to enforce their right to source code under the GNU GPL licenses through any available legal mechanism, without having to rely on a copyright holder to take action. Importantly, we run our organization entirely with free software and support the GNU Project, one of the largest free software projects in the world, by maintaining its infrastructure, and do the same for several community projects.
Our work in free software advocacy is making a difference. Research shows that the GPL is the fourth most used license on one of the most popular collaborative developer platforms, and in 2023, the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) moved to the fifth position globally. Another recent statistic states that 96% of all software has free software in it.