Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organisation founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free softwaremovement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project.
From its founding until the mid-1990s FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software. Since the mid- to late-1990's there are now many companies and individuals writing free software, so FSF's employees and volunteers mostly work on legal and structural issues for the free software community.
; Guardian of copyrights : FSF holds the copyrights to all GNU software and some non-GNU Free Software. They require copyright assignment papers from each contributor to GNU packages so that they can defend the software in court if a dispute arises, and so that if there is a need to change the license of a work, it can be done without having to contact all contributors that have ever worked on the software.
; Maintaining the Free Software Definition : FSF maintain many of the documents that define the Free Software movement
; Legal Education : FSF hold seminars about legal aspects of using the GPL, and offers a consultancy service for lawyers.
; Project Hosting : FSF provide project hosting via their Savannah website.
On November 25, 2002 the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. In April 2004 they had over 2044 members. On March 52003 they launched a Corporate Patronage program for commercial entities. As of April 2004, they have 45 corporate patrons.
