The Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software is presented annually by FSF president Richard Stallman to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software.

Projects that describe themselves as "open" instead of "free" are eligible nonetheless, provided the software is in fact free/libre.

In 2012, the award was given to Dr. Fernando Perez, the creator of IPython. IPython provides a rich architecture for interactive computing with a debugger, editor, and python command-line interpreter all in one.

Previous winners include Yukihiro Matsumoto, Rob Savoye, John Gilmore, Wietse Venema, Harald Welte, Ted Ts'o, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Alan Cox, Larry Lessig, Guido van Rossum, Brian Paul, Miguel de Icaza and Larry Wall.

For awards prior to 2004, historical award information is also available.