FSF turns forty with a groundbreaking new project and a new president

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA (Saturday, October 4, 2025) — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) celebrated its fortieth birthday today and presented the new president, the LibrePhone Project, and a vision for 2026 to the free software community.

The FSF's fortieth birthday celebration, FSF40, was an action-packed event. The day began with a conversation between board members Christina Haralanova, Geoffrey Knauth, Gerald J. Sussman, Ian Kelling, and Richard M. Stallman, who discussed the FSF's mission and their vision for the FSF's future. It was during this discussion that Ian Kelling was presented as the new FSF president. When Kelling was later asked about his plans as president, he stated: "I aim to strengthen the FSF's ability to combat new threats to computer user freedom, as well as welcome more free software supporters into the movement than ever before."

After the new FSF board panel, the microphone was passed to prominent free software activists to offer their stories and experiences with free software. Three volunteers had a lot to say about their extensive work on free software projects. Amin Bandali, a computing scientist, has worked on various programs in the GNU project, EmacsConf, Debian development, Trisquel GNU/Linux distribution contributions, and with the the FSF SysOps team for many years. Corwin Brust, a Savannah Hacker since 2020, spoke mostly about his work with the Savannah Hackers and Emacs. Panos Alevropoulos, a lawyer from Thessaloniki, Greece, shared his experiences with the FSF as an intern and as a volunteer with the FSF’s Licensing & Compliance Lab as well as the FSF's End Software Patents campaign.

In the afternoon, FSF executive director Zoë Kooyman announced an exciting new project: Librephone.

Librephone is a new initiative by the FSF to bring full computing freedom to mobile computing environments. The LibrePhone Project is a partnership with Rob Savoye, a developer who has worked on free software (including the GNU toolchain) since the 1980s. "Since mobile phone computing is now so ubiquitous, we're very excited about LibrePhone and think it has the potential to bring software freedom to many more users all over the world."

Kooyman briefly commented on the FSF's plans to continue hosting multiple smaller free software local events around the world and also gave an update on the FSF's work to develop free machine learning criteria.

In theme with the FSF's continued focus on community and more localized free software events, LibreLocal group leaders Delta Shahinpoor, Ryan Petroff, Dakota, and Zack each gave a brief lightning talk. They covered topics including what the free software community in their country/region looks like, what activities do they engage in, what works well, and what challenges they face.

The event wrapped up with a panel featuring speakers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), F-Droid, FSF, and Sugar Labs. Paige Collings, Senior Speech and Privacy Activist from EFF, answered questions around software freedom and privacy. Marc Prud'hommeaux, F-Droid board member, discussed how the free software movement has adapted to threats to mobile freedom. Devin Ulibarri, executive director of Sugar Labs, covered the importance of software freedom in education, and FSF campaigns manager Greg Farough talked about how the FSF, EFF, F-Droid, and Sugar Labs complement each other.

It was a day filled with engaging talks and exciting announcements, aimed at bringing motivation for the future of the free software movement, while expressing gratitude to the many contributors to free software over the years.

"We feel incredibly grateful for the work of countless free software developers and advocates who have gotten us to forty years," said FSF program manager Miriam Bastian when asked to reflect on FSF40. "Neither the FSF, nor the free software movement, would be here today without so many people working tirelessly to make living in freedom possible. We cannot thank you all enough."

About the Free Software Foundation

The FSF, 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 websites, located at https://www.fsf.org and https://www.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. The FSF is a remote organization, incorporated in Massachusetts, US.

MEDIA CONTACT

Greg Farough
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org