[2] Launched in 2010, FreedomBox has grown from a software system to an ecosystem including a DIY community as well as some commercial products.

[3] In this speech, Moglen predicted the damage that Facebook would do to society; "Mr. Zuckerberg has attained an unenviable record: he has done more harm to the human race than anybody else his age."

In direct response to the threat posed by Facebook in 2010, Moglen argued that FreedomBox should provide the foundation for an alternative Web.

[6] The early developers aimed to create and preserve personal privacy by providing a secure platform for building decentralized digital applications.

In 2017, the project was so successful that "the private sector global technology company ThoughtWorks had hired two developers in India to work on FreedomBox full-time.

As of April 2019, FreedomBox is packaged in custom operating system images for 11 single-board computers.