William John Sullivan

John Sullivan
Sullivan at Free Software Foundation event, June 2006.
Born	(1976-12-06) December 6, 1976 (age 45)
Employer	Free Software Foundation[1]

William John Sullivan (more commonly known as John Sullivan;^[2] born December 6, 1976) is a software freedom activist, hacker, and writer. John was formerly executive director^[3][4] of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), where he has worked since early 2003. He is also a speaker and webmaster for the GNU Project. He also maintains the Plannermode and packages for the GNU Emacs text editor.

Biography[]

Active in both the free software and free culture communities, Sullivan has a BA in philosophy from Michigan State University and an MFA in Writing and Poetics. In college, Sullivan was a successful policy debater, reaching finals of CEDA Nationals and the semifinals of the National Debate Tournament.^[5]

Until 2007, John was the main contact behind the Defective by Design, BadVista and Play Ogg campaigns. He also served as the chief-webmaster for the GNU Project, until July 2006.^[6]

He served as Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation from 2011 to 2022.

As a speaker for the GNU Project[]

Matthew Garrett and John Sullivan at LibrePlanet 2016

John has delivered speeches on the following topics,^[7] in English:

• Digital rights management^[8] issues and the FSF's Defective by Design campaign
• Media format patents, , and the FSF's PlayOgg.org campaign
• Choosing free software over Microsoft Windows
• How you can help: Strategies for communicating and organizing around free software ideals
• Introduction to the GPLv3 and free software licensing
• FSF/GNU high-priority free software projects^[9]

References[]

External links[]

• Personal homepage