The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.

The Free Software philosophy is founded in the ideals of freedom, openness, and sharing. Educational institutions support the same ideals within academic freedom and the open dissemination of knowledge and information common in academia.

"When we speak of Free Software (FS), we are speaking about the freedom it gives users, as all supporters of the FS movement understand (or, at least, are expected to know). And freedom of software cannot exist in isolation. It depends on other freedoms, such as freedom of speech..."

"Freedom matters, whether it be the file formats or the software itself. It is software freedom that allows all these devices to exist and to be sold so cheaply, and software freedom that causes Linux and other Free Software to create and expand into an ecosystem that simply wouldn't exist if proprietary software were all that was available"

Must be a US citizen. The FSF is hiring a second Campaigns Manager to be part of a team that directs and coordinates our campaigns for software freedom. This is an opportunity to take a senior role in the organization that sponsors the GNU project, publishes the GNU GPL and works to promote the message that software freedom is a civil liberty.

When explaining why Free Software is important, one question that often comes up is: “do I really need the software freedom?”

"... When the name is GNU, you should hear, «This system exists because of people who care about freedom. Join us, value your freedom, and together we can preserve it.» [...] Those companies that suppress the GNU name from their distributions are some of the worst offenders in not only distributing proprietary software, but also openly developing, promoting, and encouraging its proliferation.

"Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well. The simplest way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded.

The free software movement is one the most successful social movements to emerge in the past 25 years, driven by a worldwide community of ethical programmers dedicated to the cause of freedom and sharing. But the ultimate success of the free software movement depends upon teaching our friends, neighbors and work colleagues about the danger of not having software freedom, about the danger of a society losing control over its computing.