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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/news/2025-photo-contest-winners

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA (Thursday, November 6, 2025): The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced the winning photo submissions in the FSF40 Photo Contest held in August.

Over the course of three weeks, twenty-one images were submitted in the first ever FSF photo contest, held in honor of the FSF's fortieth anniversary. After the submission period closed, the community voted to pick the top three photos. These are the results:

In first place, "Can We Believe Without the Source Code?" by Benson Muite; in second place, "Servers" by datagonerogue; and in third place "Operating system testing" by Dragos Pirvu.

"We were very happy to see some of the ways that everyday people use free software in their work and hobbies," reported FSF's outreach and communications coordinator Eko K. Owen. "It's always inspiring to see the hard work of countless developers and over forty years of advocacy being put to use and enjoyed."

When asked if there was anything to share about the inspiration behind "Servers," datagonerogue replied with the following:

"I never thought I would have my own servers, yet here I am. I started self hosting private services on my old laptop two years ago and I haven't stopped since. [...] I am building my own private services instead of using online services where I risk my personal data getting misused or stolen. Managing my own GNU/Linux servers has taught me lots of skills that has also helped me in my computer science studies."

"Can We Believe Without the Source Code?" is a political statement, and shows free software can have both incredibly broad applications, as does the image by Benson Muite.

There is one more event the FSF will hold to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. In just a few weeks, on November 21-23, 2025, the FSF will host its virtual hackathon. The FSF40 Hackathon will be centered around important GNU software like Org Mode, GNU Guix, and GNU Boot, with plenty of tasks for both developers and non-programmers. This hackathon will also feature some less-known but remarkable projects, like an interactive platform to learn African writing systems called Lewa, and Don't track bugs: track valuable discussions, a tool for helping contributors track bugs, patches, feature requests, and other valuable discussions shared on mailing lists. You can register here to participate in the virtual FSF40 hackathon.

Press Kit

The FSF prepared a press kit for the fortieth anniversary that includes a timeline of events, the most important announcements around the fortieth anniversary, and a short history of the FSF.

About the Free Software Foundation

The FSF, 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 websites, located at https://www.fsf.org and https://www.gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. The FSF is a remote organization, incorporated in Massachusetts, US.

MEDIA CONTACT

Eko K. A. Owen
Outreach and Communications Coordinator
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
[email protected]

This work, "FSF40 Photo Contest winners" is adapted from "Can we Believe Without the Source Code?" 2025 © by Benson Muite, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license; "Servers" 2025 © by datagonerogue, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license; and "Operating system testing" 2025 © by Dragos Pirvu, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. "FSF40 Photo Contest winners" © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc., by Eko K. A. Owen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.