The Free Software Foundation celebrated its 40th anniversary on Saturday, October 4, 2025, in Boston, Massachusetts, marking the milestone with two major announcements — a new president and a new project aimed at bringing software freedom to mobile devices.
As we informed you a few days ago, longtime systems administrator and board member Ian Kelling was officially introduced as the new president of the organization.
On the event, discussions included several familiar names, such as Richard Stallman, Geoffrey Knauth, Christina Haralanova, and Gerald Jay Sussman — all of whom reflected on the FSF’s mission and direction for the future.
Among the speakers were Amin Bandali, known for his work on GNU and Debian projects; Corwin Brust, a Savannah Hacker and Emacs contributor; and Panos Alevropoulos, who shared his experiences from the FSF’s Licensing & Compliance Lab and End Software Patents campaign.
However, one of the biggest announcements came from FSF Executive Director Zoë Kooyman, who introduced the LibrePhone Project—a new initiative aimed at extending software freedom to mobile computing.
The project, developed in partnership with veteran free software developer Rob Savoye, aims to create a fully free and open mobile platform, from the firmware to the operating system.
“Since mobile phone computing is now so ubiquitous, we’re very excited about LibrePhone and think it has the potential to bring software freedom to many more users all over the world.”
Over the years, as we’ve covered many times, several efforts have been made to build devices like these. The most notable examples include UBports with Ubuntu Touch, Purism’s Librem Phone, and newer contenders such as the Liberux NEXX, FuriLabs FLX1s, and others. Still, these (unsurprisingly) remain niche products miles away from the kind of mass adoption we see with Apple and Android phones.
Lastly, for those unfamiliar with it, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman, aiming to promote computer users’ freedom to run, study, modify, and share software. It’s best known as the main organization behind the GNU Project, which provides many of the core components of the Linux operating system.
To learn more about the FSF’s 40th anniversary celebration, check out the official announcement.
