Staff and Board
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Zoë Kooyman, Executive Director
GPG key: B102 017C CF69 8F79 423E F9CC 069C 04D2 06A5 9505
Kooyman joined the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as program manager in 2019, in charge of public activities and communications, and became the executive director in February 2022. As program manager, she led the FSF to new records for attendance and submissions at the annual LibrePlanet conference, organizing and leading the conference for three years (2020-2022). The 2020 event was converted into a successful virtual conference in just five days at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues virtually for the time being. Kooyman directed the development of a series of animated videos highlighting and increasing awareness of important free software issues. She also drove successful efforts in associate member recruitment and fundraising.
Prior to coming to the FSF, she was already a highly experienced international project manager and event producer. She has demonstrated skills in leading technology and social justice initiatives.
Kooyman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Culture and a Master of Arts in the Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image, both from the University of Amsterdam. Born in the Netherlands, she has lived in seven countries and worked in twenty-two countries on four continents, soaking up life lessons along the way. She has a deep interest in the visual and digital nature of modern society, is always up for an adventure outdoors and, in true Dutch style, prefers to travel by bicycle.
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Craig Topham, Copyright & Licensing Associate
GPG key: 36C9 950D 2F68 254E D89C 7C03 F9C1 3A10 581A B853
For general licensing questions: licensing@fsf.org
Craig has been an Associate Member since 2007, and he came to work for the Free Software Foundation as a Copyright and Licensing Associate at the end of 2018. Prior to the FSF, Craig worked as a PC/Network Technician for the City of Eugene, Oregon for twelve years. Some of Craig's FSF duties include: handling copyright assignments, GPL compliance for FSF-copyrighted works, and helping with the Respect Your Freedom program. Besides the desire to see free software thrive, Craig also envisions a world where everyone's inner light shines bright. You can find him every Friday hosting the Free Software Directory meeting on libera.chat #fsf from 12:00-15:00 Eastern time.
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Dawn Bryanton Peterson, Business Operations Manager
GPG Key: 2D13 0405 6F4F 061D ADEA E299 A2C7 6C54 25EF 14E8
Dawn joined the Free Software Foundation in 2019, bringing a diverse set of skills to the Foundation. With a degree in accounting, she worked in investment banking as project manger, for accounting, data, and payroll systems, before moving to work in the nonprofit sector. At the FSF, she handles incoming and outgoing accounting activities for all its member projects as well as finance, budgeting, human resources, and risk management for the Foundation.
In her free time, Dawn can be found in a yoga studio, swimming, or spending time with her family.
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Eko K. A. Owen, Outreach & Communications Coordinator
GPG Key: 44BC 4C41 7572 906B 0308 B01A 5E85 814E 300A 1177
Eko K. A. Owen (they/them) joined the Free Software Foundation as the Outreach and Communications Coordinator (OCC) in 2024. As OCC, they use their editing skills and creativity to help push FSF publications and events forward. Prior to working with the FSF, Eko worked in continuing legal education programming, diversity and inclusion education, and coffee crafting. They advocate for user freedom because it is a human right, and a vital tool for securing and protecting other human rights. In their spare time, Eko reads science fiction and horror novels, tries out new recipes with their partner, and writes moody fiction.
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Greg Farough, Campaigns Manager
GPG key: 7CCC 7ECD 3D78 EB38 4F6C 02C8 9669 5161 7A14 9C73
Greg's introduction to free software came by way of the Punkcast video blog in 2006, when intending to see a concert bootleg, they saw an RMS speech instead. From that moment forward, they resolved to use an exclusively free system. Greg has previously worked as a goat herder, labor organizer, and tutor of Attic Greek. Greg is a straight edge vegan, and is an emeritus of many loud and talentless bands in the American Midwest. They have a special fondness for glitchy guitar pedals, horror movies, and GNU Emacs (which gives some people just as many nightmares).
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Ian Kelling, Senior Systems Administrator
GPG key: B125 F60B 7B28 7FF6 A2B7 DF8F 170A F0E2 9542 95DF
Ian was an FSF volunteer before joining the FSF in May 2017 as a senior systems administrator. He's also a free software developer and has contributed to various projects including GNU Emacs.
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Jeanne Rasata, Membership Coordinator
GPG key: EF66 43D6 E1F1 15D1 A9B7 D59C 92D1 6583 E1E7 C532
Jeanne Rasata started at the FSF in 2006 as the program assistant. She is now the membership coordinator.
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Krzysztof Siewicz, Licensing and Compliance Manager
GPG key: 6DC9 E663 36DB 9588 81AB 7E43 2671 24EF FC9C D84E
Krzysztof (Chris) started as the Free Software Foundation's licensing and compliance manager in October 2023. He holds a doctorate in legal studies from Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands, for a thesis which discussed the optimal framework for the protection of software freedom. His experience includes practicing law in Poland, advocating, and educating in the area of free and permissive licensing in various projects carried out by NGOs, educational, academic, and cultural institutions from Poland and other EU member states. Krzysztof also worked as a project coordinator, including in software development.
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Michael McMahon, GNU/Linux Systems Administrator
GPG key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
Michael joined the FSF tech team as Web Developer in January 2019 after working with GNU/Linux in manufacturing, gaming, and education. Michael became a Systems Administrator in September 2023. He enjoys tinkering, board games, TTRPGs, DJing, public speaking, parenting, and cats.
Staff
Miriam Bastian, Program Manager
GPG key: 005D 0372 4A11 C08A 5A35 3D2C 906D B6E3 98AA 6CF6
Miriam fell in love with GNU/Linux when her old, slow computer could no longer process the bloated and inefficient operating system that came preinstalled. She was not going to accept that throwing away the otherwise good computer was the only option. Free software gave the old computer new life!
Prior to coming to the FSF, Miriam completed her PhD in ancient history at the University of Zurich and worked as a freelance journalist and teacher.
Miriam loves being in nature, playing Dungeons & Dragons, riding her bike to work, mountains, vegan food, and a (not so vegan) latte with espresso from the portafilter.
GPG keyring of the FSF staff and board and GPG signature.
Board of directors
(Alphabetized by first name.)
More about the role of the FSF's board of directors
Geoffrey Knauth, FSF President and Treasurer
GPG key: 2C31 130B F7D5 A459 AFF2 A3F3 C9DF FE4A 33AA 52D9
Geoffrey is an independent software contractor, has worked as a programmer, senior associate, systems engineer, and systems analyst at various companies and has contributed to the GNU Objective-C project. He is fluent in Russian and French and has a working knowledge of German, which helps him maintain relationships with computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists of the Russian Academy of Sciences and with United States economists, scientists, and agencies. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and is the treasurer of the FSF.
Christina Haralanova
Christina is an academic researcher, free software activist, technical trainer, and university lecturer. She has been an active free software supporter since 2000, helping over 30 women's rights-defending organizations and community centers understand the importance of software freedom and migrate to free software. Founding member of the Free Software Association, Bulgaria, and later Board member of Koumbit, member of FACIL – for the adoption of free software in Quebec (FACiL, pour l'appropriation collective de l'informatique libre), Christina has been working in the intersection of technology, feminism, and social justice. Christina's Master's thesis analyzed women's contribution to free software development (2010). Her Ph.D. thesis discovered how to transform hacking spaces to become more accessible, diverse, and pedagogically engaging diverse, and accessible to everyone (2019). In her current practice, Christina is exploring ways to help Canadian community organizations create strategic and sustainable technological practices in their daily usage.
Gerald Jay Sussman, Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT
Gerald has been involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT since 1964. He co-authored Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics and is the recipient of numerous awards, including ACM's Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the Amar G. Bose award for teaching. He is a fellow of numerous institutions including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the ACM, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the New York Academy of Arts, and Sciences.
Henry Poole, founder of CivicActions
Henry Poole is an Internet strategist with three decades' experience in information technology and more than a decade's with online communities and commerce. He was the first technologist to set up a blog for a member of the US House of Representatives. He has presented at conferences in Europe and in the US, and was the technical editor of Demystifying Multimedia. He co-founded CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm in 2004, helping provide network-centric free software technology solutions focusing on transforming the world.
Ian Kelling
Ian holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and is a continuous user, developer, and advocate for free software. His past experience working as a software developer for proprietary software companies, while using, learning, and contributing to GNU/Linux on his own time, solidified his personal belief in complete software freedom. He now works exclusively on GNU/Linux. He has contributed to pieces of free software like GNU Emacs, community efforts like the Free Software Directory and others, and has been a speaker at the Seattle GNU/Linux conference (SeaGL). Ian joined the Free Software Foundation in 2017, where he is a senior systems administrator.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is a philanthropist, computer engineer, entrepreneur, civil libertarian, and nonprofit board member. He is a pioneer with thirty years of experience in the computer industry, including applications programming, systems programming, language implementation, management, and investment. He was the fifth employee at Sun Microsystems, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a cypherpunk privacy activist. He co-designed the DHCP protocol that your phone or laptop uses daily to get its Internet address. He also contributed decades and more than $12 million to improving United States drug laws. Gilmore has served as a member of many nonprofit and for-profit boards for four decades.
He cofounded Cygnus Support, the successful commercial free software company that polished and supported GCC, Binutils, and GDB; and invested tens of millions of revenue dollars into engineers improving GNU tools. Gilmore also wrote, maintained, or improved many free software programs. He wrote the program that became GNU Tar, was the GDB maintainer for years, improved the GNU Binutils and the GNU manuals, and catalyzed and funded GNU Radio and Gnash.
Maria Chiara Pievatolo
Maria Chiara Pievatolo is a professor of political philosophy at the university of Pisa, Italy. She is one of the earliest Italian proponents and practitioners of open (as in "free") scholarly principles. She founded one of the oldest Italian Open Access journals in the humanities and social sciences, the "Bollettino telematico di filosofia politica." Chiara is also a founding member of the Italian Association for the promotion of Open Science (AISA), of which she is currently president. "Openness" of science refers to the freedom of knowledge commons from obstacles due to monopolies and secrecy, bureaucratic evaluation obligations, or academic hierarchy. Inspired by the philosophy of GPL, free software, and copyleft she is interested in alternative non-monopolistic forms of copyright (such as Kant's), and thus that are capable of taking seriously the interest of the public use of reason and the knowledge commons.
Richard M. Stallman
GPG key: 6781 9B34 3B2A B70D ED93 2087 2C64 64AF 2A8E 4C02Richard Stallman founded the free software movement in 1983 when he announced he would develop the GNU operating system, a Unix-like operating system meant to consist entirely of free software. He has been the GNU project's leader ever since. In October 1985 he started the Free Software Foundation.
Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time in political advocacy for free software. Before that, Richard developed a number of widely used programs that are components of GNU.
Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft, and is the main author of the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license.
Stallman graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in physics. During his college years and after, he worked as a staff hacker at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, learning operating system development by doing it. He wrote the first extensible Emacs text editor there in 1975.
Voting members
About the distinction between voting and board members
- Alexandre Oliva
- Christina Haralanova
- Geoffrey Knauth
- Gerald Jay Sussman
- Henry Poole
- Ian Kelling
- John Gilmore
- Maria Chiara Pievatolo
- Odile Bénassy
- Richard M. Stallman
Board governance information: