BOSTON, November 10, 2006 -- Today the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Compliance Lab unveiled its updated web site, at <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/>. The site aims to help people find the information they need about licenses published by the FSF, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL), and to provide more information about the Lab's work.
The FSF's licensing compliance engineer Brett Smith explained, "As the free software community looks for authoritative licensing support, they know they can rely upon the FSF to answer their questions about their particular situations. We want them to know we're here to help." The Compliance Lab has been an informal activity of the FSF since 1992 and was formalized in December 2001. It is involved in all licensing-related issues for the Foundation. It serves the public and the media by providing a knowledge infrastructure surrounding the GNU GPL and free software licensing, whilst it enforces the licenses on its large body of copyrighted software against distributors that try to restrict users' rights. It is run by FSF staff, with the help of several knowledgeable volunteers, and continues this work while the GPLv3 process is underway. Smith added, "People are very curious about our enforcement efforts, the successes we have had and what cases we are working on -- we've always been able to cooperatively negotiate compliance with violators which means that we rarely need to take legal action. But we're looking for ways to share more details about our work, and this new site is our first step towards that." Media contact: Brett Smith Licensing Compliance Engineer Free Software Foundation 617-542-5942 [EMAIL PROTECTED] About the FSF 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. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Their headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. _______________________________________________ GNU Announcement mailing list <info-gnu@gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu
