Whois & Analysis for fsfe.org

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) was founded in 2001 to support all aspects of the free software movement in Europe.

FSFE is a charitable registered association (eingetragener Verein) under German law, and has registered 'chapters' in several European countries.

It is as an official European sister organization of the US-based Free Software Foundation (FSF).

FSF and FSFE are financially and legally separate entities.

A nonprofit organization (also known as a non-business entity) is an organization whose purpose is something other than making a profit.

A nonprofit organization is often dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a particular point of view.

In economic terms, a nonprofit organization uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing its surplus income to the organization's shareholders (or equivalents) as profit or dividends.

This is known as the non-distribution constraint.

The decision to adopt a nonprofit legal structure is one that will often have taxation implications, particularly where the nonprofit seeks income tax exemption, charitable status and so on.

The free software movement (FSM) or free / open source software movement (FOSSM) or free / libre open source software (FLOSS) is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedom to run the software, to study and change the software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes.

Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by launching the GNU Project.

Stallman later established the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement.

Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group which aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions.

Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research or conducting exit poll or the filing of an amicus brief.

Lobbying (often by lobby groups) is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on an issue which plays a significant role in modern politics.

Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.