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 will be 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.
Nominations for this year's award are now open.
The 2022 award was received by Eli Zaretskii, a co-maintainer of GNU Emacs whose conscientious coordination of hundreds of contributors has helped lead to a renaissance of the GNU Emacs community.
Previous winners include 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.