April (French association)

April is an association for the promotion of free software in the French-speaking world. Since its inception in 1996, April has maintained a close relationship with the Free Software Foundation, establishing a working group^[1] to undertake a French-language exposition of the GNU project's philosophy.^[2]

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).^[3] 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.^[4] Dues for institutional memberships are assessed on a sliding scale according to size, total sales, or budget as appropriate.^[5]

Important dates

• November 1998: April welcomes Richard Stallman at its conference at Université Paris 8 for the first time.^[6]
• April 2001: Frédéric Couchet, Loïc Dachary and Raphaël Rousseau establish FSF France by modifying Gna.org.^{[citation needed]}
• June 2009: The association's enlistment reaches 5000 members.^[7]