The FSF just put out a press release recommending CiviCRM for non-profits. We've been working with the FSF very closely over the past 4 months to ensure that CiviCRM is licensing compliant (i.e. all the packages that we use and ship within CiviCRM are all compatible). This is an important milestone and a great endorsement for the project.

Some snippets from the FSF press release

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that CiviCRM has earned its recommendation as a fully featured donor and contact management system for nonprofits.

The FSF had highlighted the need for a free software solution in this area as part of its High Priority Projects campaign. With this announcement, the FSF will also be adopting CiviCRM for its own use, and actively encouraging other nonprofit organizations to do the same.

In making the switch, the FSF joins other organizations like Amnesty International, Creative Commons, and the Wikimedia Foundation, who have also been using CiviCRM.

Executive director Peter Brown described the FSF's use of the software and intent to publicize it: "I look forward to encouraging other nonprofit organizations to escape their current proprietary or 'software as a service' systems and give CiviCRM a try. As a nonprofit, the FSF manages over 40,000 contacts and 15,000 donation transactions per year, a book publishing operation, online store, and several advocacy campaign websites with associated mailing lists — all with free software. A general purpose donor and contact management system will be the final piece of the puzzle for charitable organizations looking to operate using only free software. We plan to publish a guide offering our experiences as a resource for other nonprofits concerned with the social implications of their technology."

You can read the complete press release: here

Kudos to Piotr Szotkowski from CiviCRM and Brett Smith from FSF for working super hard on getting the licensing issues resolved.