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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organization supports the free software movement, with its preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("share alike") terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Boston where it is also based.

From its founding until the mid-1990s, FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software for the GNU Project and its employees and volunteers have mostly worked on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the free software community. Consistent with its goals, the FSF aims to use only free software on its own computers.

The FSF holds the copyrights on many pieces of the GNU system, such as GNU Compiler Collection. As the holder of these copyrights, it has authority to enforce the copyleft requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL) when copyright infringement occurs. The FSF is also the steward of several free software licenses, meaning it publishes them and has the ability to make revisions as needed.