Free Software Foundation announces annual awards

The Free Software Awards were presented by Richard Stallman

The Free Software Foundation has announced the winners of its annual Free Software Awards at the Libre Planet 2009 conference.

The award for Projects of Social Benefit, previous winners of which include Wikipedia and Groklaw, went this year to Creative Commons, the non-profit organisation that develops contracts for free software distribution.

"It's an incredible honour," said Creative Commons vice president Mike Linksvayer accepting the award. "Creative Commons should be giving an award to the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman, because what Creative Commons is doing would not be possible without them."

The award for the Advancement of Free Software was given to Wietse Venema, a Dutch programmer who created the Postfix email system and has been involved in developing a number of free security tools.

"In my experience, free software presents a tremendous opportunity for individuals and organisations to make contributions to society," he said. "I'm grateful for the opportunities that I have had over the past 20 years, and I'm proud that so many people have adopted my software."

The awards were presented by Stallman at the Harvard Science Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.