Award for the Advancement of Free Software
The Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software is presented annually 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. This year's winner was announced at LibrePlanet 2024.
Individuals who describe their projects as "open" instead of "free" are eligible nonetheless, provided the software is in fact free/libre.
The 2023 award was received by Bruno Haible, for his outstanding work on Gnulib, a key part of the GNU operating system and other free software projects.
Previous winners include Eli Zaretskii, Paul Eggert, Bradley Kuhn, Jim Meyering, Deborah Nicholson, Karen Sandler, Alexandre Oliva, Werner Koch, Sébastien Jodogne, Matthew Garrett, Dr. Fernando Perez, 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.