Structure
The FSF's board of directors is:
- Hal Abelson, Founding member, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (served from inception until March 5, 1998, and rejoined circa 2005)
- Geoffery Knauth, Senior Software Engineer at SFA, Inc. (served since October 23, 1997)
- Henry Poole, Founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm. (served since December 12, 2002)
- Richard Stallman, Founding President, launched the GNU project, author of the GNU General Public License (served as President since inception)
- Gerald Jay Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (served since inception)
- Benjamin Mako Hill, graduate student at the MIT Media Lab. (served since July 25, 2007)
- Bradley Kuhn, Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy and FSF's former Executive Director (served since March 25, 2010)
Previous board members include:
- Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University (served since March 28, 2004 until 2008)
- Robert J. Chassell, Founding Treasurer, as well as a Founding Director (served from inception until June 3, 1997)
- Len Tower Jr., Founding member, served until September 2, 1997
- Miguel de Icaza (served from August 1999 until February 25, 2002.)
- Eben Moglen (served from July 28, 2000 until 2007)
The FSF Board of Directors is elected by the Voting Membership, whose powers include at least this are outlined in the by-laws:
In addition to the right to elect Directors as provided in the by-laws and such other powers and rights as may be vested in them by law, these Articles of Organization or the by-laws, the Voting Members shall have such other powers and rights as the Directors may designate. —Articles of Amendment, Free Software Foundation, Inc.There are currently no known documents available that indicate the composition of the FSF's Voting Membership.
John Sullivan is the current FSF Executive Director. Previous members that occupied the position were Peter Brown (2005–2010) and Bradley M. Kuhn (2001–2005).
At any given time, there are usually around a dozen employees. Most, but not all, work at the FSF headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.
Eben Moglen and Dan Ravicher previously served individually as pro bono legal counsel to the FSF. Since the forming of the Software Freedom Law Center, legal services to the FSF are provided by that organization.
On November 25, 2002, the FSF launched the FSF Associate Membership program for individuals. Bradley M. Kuhn (FSF Executive Director, 2001–2005) launched the program and also signed up as the first Associate Member
Associate members hold a purely honorary and funding support role to the FSF.
Read more about this topic: Free Software Foundation
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