Award for the Advancement of Free Software

This award is presented annually by FSF president Richard Stallman to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software.

Individuals who describe their projects as "open" instead of "free" are eligible nonetheless, provided the software is in fact free/libre.

Last year, Werner Koch was recognized with the Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his work on GnuPG, the de facto tool for encrypted communication. Koch joined a prestigious list of previous winners including Sébastien Jodogne, Matthew Garrett, Dr. Fernando Perez, Yukihiro Matsumoto, Rob Savoye, John Gilmore, Wietse Venema, Harald Welte, Ted Ts'o, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Alan Cox, Larry Lessig, Guido van Rossum, Brian Paul, Miguel de Icaza, and Larry Wall.

Award for Projects of Social Benefit

Nominations are also sought for the 2016 Award for Projects of Social Benefit.

This award is presented to the project or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, in a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society in other aspects of life.

The award recognizes projects or teams that encourage people to cooperate in freedom to accomplish tasks of great social benefit, and those that apply free software ideas and lessons outside the free software community. A long-term commitment to one's project (or the potential for a long-term commitment) is crucial to this end.

This award stresses the use of free software in the service of humanity. The FSF has deliberately chosen this broad criterion so that many different areas of activity can be considered. However, one area that is not included is that of free software itself. Projects with a primary goal of promoting or advancing free software are not eligible for this award (the FSF honors individuals working on those projects with its annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software).

The award committee will consider any project or team that uses free software or its philosophy to address a goal important to society. To qualify, a project must use free software, produce free documentation, or use the idea of free software as defined in the Free Software Definition. Projects that promote or depend on the use of non-free software are not eligible. Commercial projects are not excluded, but commercial success is not the metric for judging projects.

Last year, the Library Freedom Project received the award. A partnership among librarians, technologists, attorneys, and privacy advocates which aims to make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries, the Library Freedom Project teaches librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and offers digital tools to stop surveillance, all with the aim of creating a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the local communities they serve. Notably, the project helps libraries launch Tor exit nodes.

Other previous winners have included Reglue, the GNOME Outreach Program for Women (now Outreachy), OpenMRS, GNU Health, Tor, the Internet Archive, Creative Commons, Groklaw, the Sahana project, and Wikipedia.

Eligibility

In the case of both awards, previous winners are not eligible for nomination, but renomination of other previous nominees is encouraged. Only individuals are eligible for nomination for the Advancement of Free Software Award (not projects), and only projects can be nominated for the Social Benefit Award (not individuals). For a list of previous winners, please visit https://www.fsf.org/awards.

Current FSF staff and board members, as well as award committee members, are not eligible.

Winners will be decided by a committee to be announced, including several previous winners. Last year's committee was:

• Suresh Ramasubramanian
• Rob Savoye
• Jonas Öberg
• Fernanda Weiden
• Wietse Venema
• Matthew Garrett
• Vernor Vinge
• Hong Feng
• Andrew Tridgell
• Marina Zhurakhinskaya
• Richard Stallman

Instructions

After reviewing the eligibility rules above, please click on the links below to submit your nominations. All nominations need to be submited before Sunday, November 6th, 2016 at 23:59 UTC.

• Nominations for the Award for Projects of Social Benefit

• Nominations for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software

Information about the previous awards can be found at https://www.fsf.org/awards. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the LibrePlanet conference, March 25-26 2016, in the Boston area.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information for journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.

Media Contacts

Georgia Young Program Manager Free Software Foundation +1 (617) 542 5942 campaigns@fsf.org