William John Sullivan (more commonly known as John Sullivan; born December 6, 1976) is a

software freedom The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run the software, to study the software, to modify the software, and to share copies of the ...

activist, hacker, and writer. John was formerly

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

of the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 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 ...

(FSF), where he has worked since early 2003. He is also a speaker and webmaster for 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 collaborati ...

. He also maintains the Plannermode and delicious-el packages for the

GNU Emacs GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of ...

text editor.

Biography

Active in both the

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 ...

and

free culture The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content or Free content, open content without compensation to, or the consent of, the work's origin ...

communities, Sullivan has a BA in philosophy from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

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 The National Debate Tournament is one of the national championships for collegiate policy debate in the United States. The tournament is sponsored by the American Forensic Association with the Ford Motor Company Fund. History of the NDT The ...

. Until 2007, John was the main contact behind the

Defective by Design Defective by Design (DBD) is an anti-DRM initiative by the Free Software Foundation. Digital rights management (DRM) technology restricts users' ability to freely use their purchased movies, music, literature, software, and hardware in ways the ...

, BadVista and Play Ogg campaigns. He also served as the chief webmaster for the

, until July 2006. He served as Executive Director of the

from 2011 to 2022.

As a speaker for the GNU Project

John has delivered speeches on the following topics, in English: *

Digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...

issues and the FSF's

campaign * Media format

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

proprietary licensing {{Short pages monitor