The Free Software Foundation has announced the winners of the 2024 Free Software Awards, annual honors presented to individuals and projects that make significant contributions to software freedom.
Established to recognize work that advances users’ ability to use, study, modify, and share software, the awards highlight the technical, social, and community impact of contributors across the free software ecosystem.
This year’s Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to Andy Wingo, co-maintainer of GNU Guile. His long-running work on Guile, a central component of the GNU operating system and the Scheme foundation of GNU Guix, has shaped the project’s growth and long-term stability.
The Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor wa…
The Free Software Foundation has announced the winners of the 2024 Free Software Awards, annual honors presented to individuals and projects that make significant contributions to software freedom.
Established to recognize work that advances users’ ability to use, study, modify, and share software, the awards highlight the technical, social, and community impact of contributors across the free software ecosystem.
This year’s Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to Andy Wingo, co-maintainer of GNU Guile. His long-running work on Guile, a central component of the GNU operating system and the Scheme foundation of GNU Guix, has shaped the project’s growth and long-term stability.
The Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor was given to Alx Sa for their contributions to the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Their work on GIMP builds on mentorship from experienced developers and reflects the program’s tradition of supporting new contributors who strengthen the project through practical improvements.
Govdirectory received the Award for Projects of Social Benefit. The project provides a collaborative, fact-checked directory of government contact information—addresses, websites, phone numbers, and social media accounts—all published under a free license and accessible with free software.
To recall, the previous year’s winners (2023) of the FSF Free Software Awards were:
- Bruno Haible — Award for the Advancement of Free Software.
- code.gouv.fr (the French Free Software Unit of the government) — Award for Projects of Social Benefit.
- Nick Logozzo — Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor.
Finally, on a side note, this year the FSF celebrated its 40th anniversary, welcomed a new president, and launched the new Librephone project.
The FSF plans to highlight the accomplishments of the 2024 award recipients through events scheduled for early 2026.
For more information, see the FSF’s announcement.
Bobby Borisov
Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.