[GNU/FSF Press] FSF works with PayPal to the benefit of the free software community

[Peter Brown]

## FSF works with PayPal to the benefit of the free software community

The Free Software Foundation thanks PayPal for responding to its
concerns and making its terms more free software friendly.

http://www.fsf.org/news/paypal/

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Monday, November 23rd, 2009 -- Usually
when you hear good news about licensing from the Free Software
Foundation (FSF), it's because some noteworthy software has become free
software or GPL-compatible when it wasn't before. Today's news is a
little unorthodox because it doesn't fit that description--but it will
still be a big help to free software developers.

A large number of people in the free software community feel that PayPal
is a convenient way to send money to others. Part of the reason for this
is that you can use many of PayPal's services with only free
software--they typically don't require special proprietary software, or
even JavaScript.

However, FSF recently discovered that PayPal had added a proprietary
software license to its User Agreement. FSF license compliance engineer
Brett Smith explained, "Of course, the FSF couldn't agree to those
terms, so as soon as we learned about them, we contacted PayPal to see
if we could make other arrangements. The company listened to our
concerns, and specifically excepted us from these conditions. But not
only that: next year, PayPal is also updating its user agreement to
ensure that the free software community can continue to receive and make
payments without having to accept a proprietary software license."

FSF executive director Peter Brown said, "We'd like to express our
appreciation to PayPal for taking time to hear us out and make this
change. The company easily could have insisted on keeping the terms
as-is. But they recognized how important this issue was to the
community, and put in the effort to listen to us and accommodate our
concerns. We want to thank them for that generous help."


### About the Free Software Foundation

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, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org
and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux.
Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.


### Media Contacts

Peter Brown
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
address@hidden

###