The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology.

As a 501(c)3 charity in the United States, the FSF is run by a board of directors. The current board includes FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman and long-term member Henry Poole, but, in the last few years, new faces have appeared on the board.

According to director Benjamin Mako Hill, "The board's most important responsibility is to protect software freedom and to decide the FSF's goals and tactics. That means that they are ultimately responsible for the GNU General Public License, the LGPL, AGPL, and GNU Free Documentation License, for FSF-copyright-assigned software and manuals, and for much of the infrastructure of running the GNU Project. As a result, board members must first and foremost be committed to the cause of software freedom."

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