To nominate an individual for the Award for the Advancement of Free
Software or a project for the Award for Projects of Social Benefit,
send your nomination along with a description of the project or
individual to award-nominations@gnu.org.
What are you waiting for? Take a few minutes to give a little
something to people and projects that have inspired you. Your
nominations will be reviewed by our awards committee and the winners
will be announced at LibrePlanet 2015.
Award for the Advancement of Free Software
The Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free
Software is presented 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.
Individuals who describe their projects as
"open" instead of "free" are eligible nonetheless, provided the
software is in fact free/libre.
Award for Projects of Social Benefit
The Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to the project
or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the
free software movement, in a project that intentionally and
significantly benefits society in other aspects of life.
We look to recognize projects or teams that encourage people to
cooperate in freedom to accomplish social tasks. A long-term
commitment to one's project (or the potential for a long-term
commitment) is crucial to this end.
This award stresses the use of free software in the service of
humanity. We have deliberately chosen this broad criterion so that
many different areas of activity can be considered. However, one area
that is not included is that of free software itself. Projects with a
primary goal of promoting or advancing free software are not eligible
for this award (we honor individuals working on those projects with
our annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software).
We will consider any project or team that uses free software or its
philosophy to address a goal important to society. To qualify, a
project must use free software, produce free documentation, or use the
idea of free software as defined in the
Free Software Definition. Projects that promote or depend on the
use of non-free software are not eligible for this award. Commercial
projects are not excluded, but commercial success is not our scale for
judging projects.
Eligibility
In the case of both awards, previous winners are not eligible for
nomination, but renomination of other previous nominees is encouraged.
Only individuals are eligible for nomination for the Advancement of
Free Software Award (not projects), and only projects can be nominated
for the Social Benefit Award (not individuals). For a list of previous
winners, please visit https://www.fsf.org/awards.
Current FSF staff and board members, as well as award committee
members, are not eligible.
The tentative award committee members are: Marina Zhurakhinskaya,
Matthew Garrett, Rob Savoye, Wietse Venema, Richard Stallman, Suresh
Ramasubramanian, Vernor Vinge, Hong Feng, Fernanda G. Weiden, Harald
Welte, Vernor Vinge, Jonas Oberg, and Yukihiro Matsumoto.
Instructions
After reviewing the eligibility rules above, please send your
nominations to award-nominations@gnu.org, on or before Sunday,
November 16th, 2014 at 23:59 UTC. Please submit nominations in the
following format:
-
In the email message subject line, either put the name of the
person you are nominating for the Award for Advancement of Free
Software, or put the name of the project for the Award for
Projects of Social Benefit.
-
Please include, in the body of your message, an explanation (forty
lines or less) of the work done and why you think it is especially
important to the advancement of software freedom or how it
benefits society, respectively.
-
Please state, in the body of your message, where to find the
materials (e.g., software, manuals, or writing) which your
nomination is based on.
Attend the Free Software Awards at LibrePlanet 2015
Want to be in the room when the winners are announced? Register today
for the LibrePlanet conference, March 21-22 2015, in Cambridge,
MA. In addition to rubbing elbows with the award winners, you'll have
a blast at the rest of the conference, with a program chock full of
sessions free software enthusiasts will love. Remember:
Free Software Foundation members attend LibrePlanet gratis!