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BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Saturday, May 4, 2024 -- The FreeSoftware Foundation (FSF) today announced the recipients of the 2023Free Software Awards, which are given annually at the FSF'sLibrePlanetconference to groups and individuals in the freesoftware community who have made significant contributions to thecause for software freedom.
This year's recipients of the awards are Bruno Haible, Nick Logozzo,and the French Free Software Unit of the French government. Theaward ceremony was conducted both in person and virtually.
Bruno Haible was this year's winner of theAward for the Advancementof Free Software, which is given to an individual who has made agreat contribution to the progress and development of free softwarethrough activities that accord with the spirit of software freedom.Haible is one of the lead contributors to and maintainer ofGnulib, a set of common software routines for other free softwareprograms (including many parts of theGNU operating system) toutilize for the programmer's convenience. Thus, Gnulib significantlylightens the amount of prep work a programmer needs to do beforebeginning work on the main functionality of their program.
Bruno Haible during his award acceptance speech.
When presenting the award to Haible, FSF executive director ZoëKooyman commented on the significance of Haible's work, saying thatHaible's work enabled free software programmers around the world tofocus on the main, innovative portions of their program, thusfacilitating the development of more and more free software.
In his acceptance of the award, Haible said: "I've been a GNU hackerfor many years. Receiving the FSF's award for the Advancement of FreeSoftware is a great honour, because it's an honour to be mentioned inone line with Alan Cox, with Theo de Raadt, with Paul Eggert, and JimMeyering. I receive the award for my work on GNU Gnulib. But thisproject is not an individual's work, it's a team effort: by PaulEggert, Jim Meyering, Simon Josefsson, and many others."
The 2023 Award forOutstanding New Free Software Contributorwentto Nick Logozzo, a university student who is the lead developer ofParabolic(not to be confused with Parabola GNU/Linux), a programfor the GNU/Linux desktop that allows users to watch YouTube videoswithout running Google's nonfree JavaScript. In recognition ofLogozzo's work, Kooyman said: "Nick's work shows that you can beginyour work in the free software movement anywhere, and at any age."
Bastien Guerry, accepting on behalf of code.gouv.fr.
Upon receiving the award, Logozzo said: "It's truly been a pleasurethus far working on my applications with members of the community.From personal money management with Denaro to my audio tools such asTagger and Parabolic, I never thought any one of these apps would havethe support and popularity they currently do. [...] I'm sorry that Ican not be there in person to accept this award and share more aboutmy projects, but what I can say is that the best is yet to come!"
TheFrench Free Software Unitof the French national governmentwas presented with this year'sAward for Projects of Social Benefit,one given to a project or team responsible for applying free software,or the ideas of the free software movement, to intentionally andsignificantly benefit society. The French Free Software Unit has made great strides in increasing the use of free software like LibreOffice into the daily departmental work of the French government, a space where nonfree software like Office365 typically dominates.
Accepting the award was Bastien Guerry from the Unit. Upon receivingthe award, Guerry stated: "we want public administrations to have avoice in the free software ecosystem. By contributing directly withcommits. By funding free software solutions. By awarding keymaintainers. By pushing for a digital commons approach in criticalfree software projects. The French Free Software unit existssince 2021. [...] We take this award as an encouragement to set upmore Free Software units in European countries and beyond."
Anyone can voice their support for free software in the government in France, as well as the work the French Free Software Unit does by wearing a blue hat, Guerry also explained.
A report of day 1 of the conference was published at fsf.org, and LibrePlanet continued live and in person on May 5. In thecoming weeks after the conference, videos of talks will be availableinthe LibrePlanet video archives.
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated topromoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, andredistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development anduse of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operatingsystem and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for freesoftware. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical andpolitical issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of informationabout GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made athttps://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
More information about the FSF, as well as important information forjournalists and publishers, is athttps://www.fsf.org/press.
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Greg Farough Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation
