April is an association for the promotion of

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

in the French-speaking world. Since its inception in 1996, April has maintained a close relationship with the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft (" ...

, establishing a working group to undertake a French-language exposition of the

GNU project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...

's philosophy. The group's name is an acronym standing for ''Association pour la Promotion et la Recherche en Informatique Libre'' (meaning ''Association for the Promotion and Study of Free Computing''). Regarding the name, the French term ''libre'' always means " free-as-in-freedom" and never " free-as-in-beer". Membership is open to both physical persons and institutions. Annual dues for individuals are 10 euro. Dues for institutional memberships are assessed on a sliding scale according to size, total sales, or budget as appropriate.

Important dates

* November 1998: April welcomes

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

at its conference at Université Paris 8 for the first time. * April 2001: Frédéric Couchet, Loïc Dachary and Raphaël Rousseau establish FSF France by modifying Gna.org. * June 2009: The association's enlistment reaches 5000 members.April's successful membership drive (3 June 2009)
Retrieved 17 January 2013

References

April's website
Free and open-source software organizations {{free-software-stub