Free software

Free software or libre software[1][2] 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.[3][4][5][6][7] Free
software is a matter of liberty, not price: users —
individually or in cooperation with computer programmers
— are free to do what they want with their copies of a free
software application (including profiting from them)
regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program.[8][2]
Computer programs are deemed free insofar as they give Example of a modern free software operating
system running some representative applications.
users (not just the developer) ultimate control over the first,
Shown are the Xfce desktop environment, the
thereby allowing them to control what their computers are Firefox web browser, the Vim text editor, the GIMP
programmed to do.[5][9] image editor, and the VLC media player.

The right to study and modify a computer program entails

that source code —the preferred format for making changes— be made available to users of that program. While this is
often called 'access to source code' or 'public availability', the Free Software Foundation recommends against thinking
in those terms,[10] because it might give the impression that users have an obligation (as opposed to a right) to give
non-users a copy of the program.

Although the term free software had been used loosely in the past,[11] Richard Stallman is credited with tying it to the
sense under discussion and starting the Free Software movement in 1983, when he launched the GNU Project: a
collaborative effort to create a freedom-respecting operating system, and revive the spirit of cooperation once
prevalent among hackers during the early days of computing.[12][13]

Contents
Context
Naming
Definition and the Four Freedoms
Examples
History
1980s: Foundation of the GNU project
1990s: Release of the Linux kernel
Licensing
Security and reliability
Binary blobs and other proprietary software
Business model
Economical aspects and adoption
See also
References
 Further reading
External links

Context
Free software thus differs from

proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Sheets,

and Slides or iWork from Apple. Users cannot study, change, and
share their source code.
freeware, which is a category of proprietary software that does not
require payment for basic use.
For software under the purview of copyright to be free, it must carry a
software license whereby the author grants users the aforementioned
rights. Software that is not covered by copyright law, such as software in
the public domain, is free if the source code is in the public domain too,
or otherwise available without restrictions.

Proprietary software uses restrictive software licences or EULAs and

usually does not provide access to the source code. Users are thus
prevented from changing the software, and this results in the user relying
This Venn diagram describes the
on the publisher to provide updates, help, and support. Users often may typical relationship between freeware
not reverse engineer, modify, or redistribute proprietary software.[15][16] and free and open-source software
Additional legal and technical aspects, such as software patents and (FOSS): According to David Rosen
digital rights management may restrict users in exercising their rights, from Wolfire Games in 2010, open
source / free software (orange) is
and thus prevent a piece of software from becoming free.[17]
most often gratis but not always.
Freeware (green) seldom expose
Free software may be developed collaboratively by volunteer computer
their source code.[14]
programmers or by corporations; as part of a commercial, for-profit
activity or not.[18]

Naming
The FSF recommends using the term "free software" rather than "open-source software" because, as they state in a
paper on Free Software philosophy, the latter term and the associated marketing campaign focuses on the
technicalities of software development, while avoiding the ethical issue of user freedom. The FSF also notes that
"Open Source" has exactly one specific meaning in common English, namely that "you can look at the source code."
Stallman states that while the term "Free Software" can lead to two different interpretations, one of them is consistent
with FSF definition of Free Software so there is at least some chance that it could be understood properly, unlike the
term "Open Source".[19] Stallman has also stated that considering the practical advantages of free software is like
considering the practical advantages of not being handcuffed, in that it is not necessary for an individual to consider
practical reasons in order to realize that being handcuffed restricts their freedom.[20] "Libre" is often used to avoid the
ambiguity of the word "free" in English language and the ambiguity with the older usage of "free software" as public
domain software;[11] see Gratis versus libre.

Definition and the Four Freedoms

The first formal definition of free software was published by
FSF in February 1986.[21] That definition, written by
Richard Stallman, is still maintained today and states that
software is free software if people who receive a copy of the
software have the following four freedoms.[22][23] The
numbering begins with zero, not only as a spoof on the
common usage of zero-based numbering in programming
languages, but also because "Freedom 0" was not initially
included in the list, but later added first in the list as it was
considered very important.

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any

purpose.
Diagram of free and nonfree software, as defined
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program
by the Free Software Foundation. Left: free
works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
software, right: proprietary software, encircled:
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make
copies so you can help your neighbor. Gratis software
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and
release your improvements (and modified versions in
general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Freedoms 1 and 3 require source code to be available because studying and modifying software without its source code
can range from highly impractical to nearly impossible.

Thus, free software means that computer users have the freedom to cooperate with whom they choose, and to control
the software they use. To summarize this into a remark distinguishing libre (freedom) software from gratis (zero
price) software, the Free Software Foundation says: "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the
concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer' ".[22] See Gratis versus libre.

In the late 1990s, other groups published their own definitions that describe an almost identical set of software. The
most notable are Debian Free Software Guidelines published in 1997,[24] and the Open Source Definition, published in
1998.

The BSD-based operating systems, such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, do not have their own formal definitions
of free software. Users of these systems generally find the same set of software to be acceptable, but sometimes see
copyleft as restrictive. They generally advocate permissive free software licenses, which allow others to use the
software as they wish, without being legally forced to provide the source code. Their view is that this permissive
approach is more free. The Kerberos, X11, and Apache software licenses are substantially similar in intent and
implementation.

Examples
There are thousands of free applications and many operating systems available on the Internet. Users can easily
download and install those applications via a package manager that comes included with most Linux distributions.
The Free Software Directory maintains a large database of free software packages. Some of the best-known examples
include the Linux kernel, the BSD and Linux operating systems, the GNU Compiler Collection and C library; the
MySQL relational database; the Apache web server; and the Sendmail mail transport agent. Other influential
examples include the Emacs text editor; the GIMP raster drawing and image editor; the X Window System graphical-
display system; the LibreOffice office suite; and the TeX and LaTeX typesetting systems.

Free Software
 Kscreen-krunner.png Captura de pagina de manual de Op…
KDE Plasma desktop on Debian OpenSSL's manual page.
GNU/Linux.

BgeCarSc.jpg Replicant 4.0 on NexusS.png

Creating a 3D car racing game using Replicant smartphone, an Android-
the Blender Game Engine based system that is 100% free
software.

Libreoffice 5.3 writer MUFFIN interfa…

Libreoffice is a free multi-platform office
suite.

History
From the 1950s up until the early 1970s, it was normal for computer users to have the software freedoms associated
with free software, which was typically public domain software.[11] Software was commonly shared by individuals who
used computers and by hardware manufacturers who welcomed the fact that people were making software that made
their hardware useful. Organizations of users and suppliers, for example, SHARE, were formed to facilitate exchange
of software. As software was often written in an interpreted language such as BASIC, the source code was distributed
to use these programs. Software was also shared and distributed as printed source
code (Type-in program) in computer magazines (like Creative Computing,
SoftSide, Compute!, Byte etc) and books, like the bestseller BASIC Computer
Games.[25] By the early 1970s, the picture changed: software costs were
dramatically increasing, a growing software industry was competing with the
hardware manufacturer's bundled software products (free in that the cost was
included in the hardware cost), leased machines required software support while
providing no revenue for software, and some customers able to better meet their
own needs did not want the costs of "free" software bundled with hardware
product costs. In United States vs. IBM, filed January 17, 1969, the government
charged that bundled software was anti-competitive.[26] While some software
might always be free, there would henceforth be a growing amount of software
produced primarily for sale. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the software industry
began using technical measures (such as only distributing binary copies of
Richard Stallman, founder of
computer programs) to prevent computer users from being able to study or adapt
the Free Software
the software applications as they saw fit. In 1980, copyright law was extended to Movement (2009)
computer programs.

In 1983, Richard Stallman, one of the original authors of the popular Emacs program and a longtime member of the
hacker community at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, announced the GNU project, the purpose of which
was to produce a completely non-proprietary Unix-compatible operating system, saying that he had become frustrated
with the shift in climate surrounding the computer world and its users. In his initial declaration of the project and its
purpose, he specifically cited as a motivation his opposition to being asked to agree to non-disclosure agreements and
restrictive licenses which prohibited the free sharing of potentially profitable in-development software, a prohibition
directly contrary to the traditional hacker ethic. Software development for the GNU operating system began in
January 1984, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. He developed a free software
definition and the concept of "copyleft", designed to ensure software freedom for all. Some non-software industries
are beginning to use techniques similar to those used in free software development for their research and
development process; scientists, for example, are looking towards more open development processes, and hardware
such as microchips are beginning to be developed with specifications released under copyleft licenses (see the
OpenCores project, for instance). Creative Commons and the free culture movement have also been largely influenced
by the free software movement.

1980s: Foundation of the GNU project

In 1983, Richard Stallman, longtime member of the hacker community at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,
announced the GNU project, saying that he had become frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the
computer industry and its users.[27] Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and
the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. An article outlining the project and its goals was
published in March 1985 titled the GNU Manifesto. The manifesto included significant explanation of the GNU
philosophy, Free Software Definition and "copyleft" ideas.

1990s: Release of the Linux kernel

The Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991. The first licence
was a proprietary software licence. However, with version 0.12 in February 1992, he relicensed the project under the
GNU General Public License.[28] Much like Unix, Torvalds' kernel attracted the attention of volunteer programmers.
FreeBSD and NetBSD (both derived from 386BSD) were released as free software when the USL v. BSDi lawsuit was
settled out of court in 1993. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in 1995. Also in 1995, The Apache HTTP Server,
commonly referred to as Apache, was released under the Apache License 1.0.

Licensing
All free software licenses must grant users all the freedoms discussed
above. However, unless the applications' licenses are compatible,
combining programs by mixing source code or directly linking binaries is
problematic, because of license technicalities. Programs indirectly
connected together may avoid this problem.

The majority of free software falls under a small set of licenses. The most
popular of these licenses are:[30][31]

The MIT License

The GNU General Public License v2
The Apache License
The GNU General Public License v3 Copyleft, a novel use of copyright law
The BSD License to ensure that works remain
The GNU Lesser General Public License unrestricted, originates in the world
The Mozilla Public License (MPL) of free software.[29]
The Eclipse Public License
The Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative both
publish lists of licenses that they find to comply with their own definitions of free software and open-source software
respectively:

List of FSF approved software licenses

List of OSI approved software licenses
The FSF list is not prescriptive: free licenses can exist that the FSF has not heard about, or considered important
enough to write about. So it's possible for a license to be free and not in the FSF list. The OSI list only lists licenses
that have been submitted, considered and approved. All open-source licenses must meet the Open Source Definition
in order to be officially recognized as open source software. Free software on the other hand is a more informal
classification that does not rely on official recognition. Nevertheless, software licensed under licenses that do not meet
the Free Software Definition cannot rightly be considered free software.

Apart from these two organizations, the Debian project is seen by some to provide useful advice on whether particular
licenses comply with their Debian Free Software Guidelines. Debian doesn't publish a list of approved licenses, so its
judgments have to be tracked by checking what software they have allowed into their software archives. That is
summarized at the Debian web site.[32]

It is rare that a license announced as being in-compliance with the FSF guidelines does not also meet the Open Source
Definition, although the reverse is not necessarily true (for example, the NASA Open Source Agreement is an OSI-
approved license, but non-free according to FSF).

There are different categories of free software.

 Public domain software: the copyright has expired, the work was not copyrighted (released without copyright
notice before 1988), or the author has released the software onto the public domain with a waiver statement (in
countries where this is possible). Since public-domain software lacks copyright protection, it may be freely
incorporated into any work, whether proprietary or free. The FSF recommends the CC0 public domain dedication
for this purpose.[33]
Permissive licenses, also called BSD-style because they are applied to much of the software distributed with the
BSD operating systems: these licenses are also known as copyfree as they have no restrictions on
distribution.[34] The author retains copyright solely to disclaim warranty and require proper attribution of modified
works, and permits redistribution and any modification, even closed-source ones. In this sense, a permissive
license provides an incentive to create non-free software, by reducing the cost of developing restricted software.
Since this is incompatible with the spirit of software freedom, many people consider permissive licenses to be
less free than copyleft licenses.
Copyleft licenses, with the GNU General Public License being the most prominent: the author retains copyright
and permits redistribution under the restriction that all such redistribution is licensed under the same license.
Additions and modifications by others must also be licensed under the same "copyleft" license whenever they are
distributed with part of the original licensed product. This is also known as a viral, protective, or reciprocal license.
Due to the restriction on distribution not everyone considers this type of license to be free.[35][36]

Security and reliability

There is debate over the security of free software in comparison to
proprietary software, with a major issue being security through
obscurity. A popular quantitative test in computer security is to use
relative counting of known unpatched security flaws. Generally, users of
this method advise avoiding products that lack fixes for known security
flaws, at least until a fix is available.

Free software advocates strongly believe that this methodology is biased

by counting more vulnerabilities for the free software systems, since
their source code is accessible and their community is more
Although nearly all computer viruses
forthcoming about what problems exist,[40] (This is called "Security only affect Microsoft
Through Disclosure"[41]) and proprietary software systems can have Windows,[37][38][39] antivirus software
undisclosed societal drawbacks, such as disenfranchising less fortunate such as ClamAV (shown here) is still
would-be users of free programs. As users can analyse and trace the provided for GNU/Linux and other
Unix-based systems, so that users can
source code, many more people with no commercial constraints can
detect malware that might infect
inspect the code and find bugs and loopholes than a corporation would
Windows hosts.
find practicable. According to Richard Stallman, user access to the
source code makes deploying free software with undesirable hidden
spyware functionality far more difficult than for proprietary software.[42]

Some quantitative studies have been done on the subject.[43][44][45][46]

Binary blobs and other proprietary software

In 2006, OpenBSD started the first campaign against the use of binary blobs in kernels. Blobs are usually freely
distributable device drivers for hardware from vendors that do not reveal driver source code to users or developers.
This restricts the users' freedom effectively to modify the software and distribute modified versions. Also, since the
blobs are undocumented and may have bugs, they pose a security risk to any operating system whose kernel includes
them. The proclaimed aim of the campaign against blobs is to collect hardware documentation that allows developers
to write free software drivers for that hardware, ultimately enabling all free operating systems to become or remain
blob-free.
The issue of binary blobs in the Linux kernel and other device drivers motivated some developers in Ireland to launch
gNewSense, a Linux based distribution with all the binary blobs removed. The project received support from the Free
Software Foundation and stimulated the creation, headed by the Free Software Foundation Latin America, of the
Linux-libre kernel.[47] As of October 2012, Trisquel is the most popular FSF endorsed Linux distribution ranked by
Distrowatch (over 12 months).[48] While Debian is not endorsed by the FSF and does not use Linux-libre, it is also a
popular distribution available without kernel blobs by default since 2011.[47]

Business model
Selling software under any free software licence is permissible, as is commercial use. This is true for licenses with or
without copyleft.[18][49][50]

Since free software may be freely redistributed, it is generally available at little or no fee. Free software business
models are usually based on adding value such as customization, accompanying hardware, support, training,
integration, or certification.[18] Exceptions exist however, where the user is charged to obtain a copy of the free
application itself.[51]

Fees are usually charged for distribution on compact discs and bootable USB drives, or for services of installing or
maintaining the operation of free software. Development of large, commercially used free software is often funded by
a combination of user donations, crowdfunding, corporate contributions, and tax money. The SELinux project at the
United States National Security Agency is an example of a federally funded free software project.

Proprietary software on the other hand tends to use a different business model, where a customer of the proprietary
application pays a fee for a license to legally access and use it. This license may grant the customer the ability to
configure some or no parts of the software themselves. Often some level of support is included in the purchase of
proprietary software, but additional support services (especially for enterprise applications) are usually available for
an additional fee. Some proprietary software vendors will also customize software for a fee.[52]

The Free Software Foundation encourages selling free software. As the Foundation has written, "distributing free
software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!".[53] For example, the FSF's own
recommended license (the GNU GPL) states that "[you] may charge any price or no price for each copy that you
convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."[54]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated in 2001 that "open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the
license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source."[55]
This misunderstanding is based on a requirement of copyleft licenses (like the GPL) that if one distributes modified
versions of software, they must release the source and use the same license. This requirement does not extend to other
software from the same developer. The claim of incompatibility between commercial companies and Free Software is
also a misunderstanding. There are several large companies, e.g. Red Hat and IBM, which do substantial commercial
business in the development of Free Software.

Economical aspects and adoption

Free software played a significant part in the development of the
Internet, the World Wide Web and the infrastructure of dot-com
Free Software runs the world
companies.[58][59] Free software allows users to cooperate in
enhancing and refining the programs they use; free software is a pure
public good rather than a private good. Companies that contribute to
free software increase commercial innovation.[60]

The economic viability of free

“We migrated key
functions from
Windows to Linux
because we needed an
operating system that
was stable and reliable
-- one that would give
us in-house control. So
if we needed to patch,
adjust, or adapt, we
could.”
Official statement of the
United Space Alliance,
which manages the
computer systems for the
International Space Station
(ISS), regarding their May
2013 decision to migrate
ISS computer systems
from Windows to
Linux[61][62]
condition of the software and its usage. Such an agreement is made separately from the free software license.
Of the world's five hundred fastest
software has been recognized by
supercomputers, 494 (98.8%) use the
large corporations such as IBM,
Linux kernel.[56] The world's second
Red Hat, and Sun
fastest computer is the Oak Ridge
Microsystems.[63][64][65][66][67]
National Laboratory's Titan
Many companies whose core
supercomputer (illustrated), which uses
business is not in the IT sector
the Cray Linux Environment.[57]
choose free software for their
Internet information and sales
sites, due to the lower initial capital investment and ability to freely customize
the application packages. Most companies in the software business include free
software in their commercial products if the licenses allow that.[18]
Free software is generally available at no cost and can result in permanently
lower TCO costs compared to proprietary software.[68] With free software,
businesses can fit software to their specific needs by changing the software
themselves or by hiring programmers to modify it for them. Free software often
has no warranty, and more importantly, generally does not assign legal liability
to anyone. However, warranties are permitted between any two parties upon the

A report by Standish Group estimates that adoption of free software has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary
software industry by about $60 billion per year.[69] In spite of this, Eric S. Raymond argues that the term free
software is too ambiguous and intimidating for the business community. Raymond promotes the term open-source
software as a friendlier alternative for the business and corporate world.[70]

See also
Definition of Free Cultural Works
Digital rights
Free content
Free and open-source software
Libre knowledge
Open format
Open standard
Open-source hardware
Outline of free software
Public domain
Category:Free software lists and comparisons
List of formerly proprietary software
List of free software project directories
List of free software for Web 2.0 Services

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Further reading
Puckette, Miller. "Who Owns our Software?: A first-person case study." eContact (September 2009). Montréal:
CEC (http://cec.sonus.ca/econtact/11_3/puckette_ownership.html)
Hancock, Terry. "The Jargon of Freedom: 60 Words and Phrases with Context". Free Software Magazine. 2010-
20-24 (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/jargon_freedom_60_words_and_phrases_context)
Stallman, Richard M. (2010) [2002]. Free Software Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, 2nd
Edition (http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society-2/). GNU Press. ISBN 978-0-9831592-0-9.

External links
Definition and philosophy

Free Software Movement (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-intro.html) (gnu.org)

Philosophy of the GNU Project (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html) (gnu.org)
What is free software? (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) (gnu.org)
What is free software? (http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software) (fsf.org)
Categories of free and nonfree software (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html) (gnu.org)
Freedom for Users, Not for Software (http://mako.cc/writing/hill-freedom_for_users.html) (Benjamin Mako Hill)
What Does Free Mean? or What do you mean by Free Software? (http://www.debian.org/intro/free.html)
(debian.org)

Presentations

Video (http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/) and audio (http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/) presentations on Free

Software (top link (http://audio-video.gnu.org/))
Free as in Freedom (http://faif.us/) (originally the oggcast of the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softw
arefreedom.org/podcast/), it includes a focus on law issues, and other topics)

Software

Free Software from the GNU Project (https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html)

Free Software Directory (http://directory.fsf.org) (catalog of useful free software)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_software&oldid=830724869"

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