2003-03-27-patron Free Software Foundation Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USA Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Boston, MA, USA Thursday, March 27, 2003 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Free Software Foundation Ravi Khanna patron@fsf.org +1-617-542-5942 http://patron.fsf.org/ Following the highly successful launch of its Associate Membership program, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today its new Corporate Patronage Program. According to FSF's Executive Director Bradley M. Kuhn, "since its launch in late November, more than 950 people have signed up as Associate Members of FSF. We are now offering a similar opportunity to the community of businesses that use Free Software." A number of FSF's existing corporate supporters have already signed up as part of today's launch. They include companies of all sizes -- from industry giants to small start-up ventures. They include: Ada Core Technologies, ACT/Europe, Affero, Best Practical, Brainfood, Cyclades Corporation, HP, IBM, MySQL, OEone Corporation and Penguin Computing. "The freedom to create is at the core of innovation, and FSF fully embraces this principle," said Marcio Saito, vice president of technology at Cyclades, a data center fault management company that has built a global business on GNU/Linux technology. "FSF is in the forefront of promoting users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study and change software and their work is to be commended." FSF's Corporate Patrons can display the Patronage logo on their materials and website, will be listed on FSF's Corporate Patronage website (http://patron.fsf.org/), will receive two free hours of consulting from FSF's GPL Compliance Lab, and will receive two complimentary passes to FSF-sponsored seminars. "The FSF has been, and will continue to be, at the apex of the movement to promote and defend free software ideals, " said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. "MySQL has built a successful business on its GPL software license, and applauds the FSF's efforts to defend the GPL against license breaches and educate the world in the principles of free software. We're pleased to extend our partnership with FSF as a corporate patron." Patronage dues are on a sliding scale based on the number of employees at a company, or at a particular division of a large company. Regardless of the size of the company and the dues they pay, all participating companies will receive the same benefits. The dues range from $500 for companies with five or less employees to $10,000 for companies with over 10,000 employees. Organizations or companies who wish to sign up as a Corporate Patron or want to learn more about the Corporate Patronage Program are encouraged to contact FSF. The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of Free (as in freedom) Software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and Free Documentation for Free Software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their web site, located at http://www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.