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Free software movement (view source)
Revision as of 06:30, December 4, 2014
, 06:30, December 4, 2014no edit summary
The '''free software movement''' advocates the creation and sharing of '''free software''' (compare [[open source]]).
Software genius and [[GNU]] pioneer [[Richard Stallman]] defines free software as respecting the "essential freedoms" to:
[[category:information Technologies]]
* Run the program for any purpose
* Study how the software works and modify it to meet your needs
* Distribute copies of the software
* Publish modifications to the software
In order to fulfill these requirements access to the [[source code]] is essential, so free software is a type of [[open source]] software. The right to distribute the software may be subject to a clause that ensures that future recipients of the software have the same freedoms.
Stallman and his [[Free Software Foundation]] created the [[General Public License]], which grants the user specific rights that are not typically granted for proprietary software.
Examples of free software are the [[Linux]] operating system and the [[Apache (software)|Apache]] web server, which this very site runs on.
==Free software and Open Source software==
Stallman wrote:
* The two terms describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a [[development methodology]]; free software is a [[social movement]]. For the free software movement, free software is an [[ethical imperative]], because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html]
==Links==
Articles by [[Richard Stallman]]:
*[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html Why “Free Software” is better than “Open Source”]
*[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software]
[[Category:Software]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Libertarianism]]
[[Category:Operating Systems]]
[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Open Source]]