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'''Free software''', '''software libre''' or '''libre software''' is [[software]] that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and that manufacturers of consumer-facing hardware allow user modifications to their hardware. Free software is available gratis (free of charge) in most cases.▼ In practice, for software to be distributed as free software, the human-readable form of the program (the [[source code]]) must be made available to the recipient along with a notice granting the above permissions. Such a notice either is a "[[free software license]]", or a notice that the source code is released into the public domain.▼ ▲'''Free software''', '''software libre''' or '''libre software''' is [[software]] that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and that manufacturers of consumer-facing hardware allow user modifications to their hardware. Free software is available gratis (free of charge) in most cases. ▲In practice, for software to be distributed as free software, the human-readable form of the program (the [[source code]]) must be made available to the recipient along with a notice granting the above permissions. Such a notice either is a "[[free software license]]", or a notice that the source code is released into the public domain. The free software movement was conceived in 1983 by Richard Stallman to satisfy the need for and to give the benefit of "software freedom" to computer users. The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985 to provide the organizational structure which Stallman correctly foresaw would be necessary to advance his Free Software ideas. From 1998 onward, alternative terms for free software came into use. The most common are "software libre", "[[free and open source software]]" ("FOSS") and "free, libre and open source software" ("FLOSS"). The "Software Freedom Law Center" was founded in 2005 to protect and advance FLOSS The antonym of free software is "[[proprietary software]]" or "non-free software". Commercial software may be either free software or proprietary software, contrary to a popular misconception that "commercial software" is a synonym for "proprietary software". (An example of commercial free software is Red Hat Linux.) Free software, which may or may not be distributed free of charge, is distinct from "[[freeware]]" which, by definition, does not require payment for use. The authors or copyright holders of freeware may retain all rights to the software; it is not necessarily permissible to reverse engineering, modify, or redistribute freeware. In the late 90s, other groups published their own definitions which describe an almost identical set of software. The most notable are Debian Free Software Guidelines published in 1997, 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 make software based on their source code, and then release the modified result as proprietary software. Their view is that this permissive approach is more free. The Kerberos (protocol), X.org, and Apache License software licenses are substantially similar in intent and implementation. All of these software packages originated in academic institutions interested in wide technology transfer University of California, MIT, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. == Examples of free software == The Free Software Directory maintains a large database of free software packages. Some of the best-known examples include the [[Linux Kernel]], the [[Berkeley Software Distribution\|BSD]] and [[GNU]]/Linux operating systems, the [[GNU Compiler Collection]] and [[GNU C Library~~\|C library]]~~; the [[MySQL]] relational database; the [[Apache HTTP Server~~\|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 [[OpenOffice.org]] office suite; and the [[TeX]] and [[LaTeX]] typesetting systems. == Free software licenses == The majority of free software uses a small set of licenses. The most popular of these licenses are: * the [[GNU General Public License]] * the [[GNU Lesser General Public License]] * the [[BSD License]] * the [[Mozilla Public License]] * the [[MIT License]] * the [[Apache 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. The FSF list is not prescriptive: free licensees can exist which 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. However, the OSI list is prescriptive: they only list licenses that have been submitted, considered and approved. This formal process of approval is what defines a license as Open Source. Thus, it's not possible for a license to be Open Source and not on the OSI approved list. 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. It is rare that a license is announced as being in-compliance by either FSF or OSI guidelines and not vice versa (the [[Netscape Public License]] used for early versions of Mozilla being an exception, as well as the ~~[[NASA~~ASA Open Source Agreement]]). === Permissive and copyleft licenses === The FSF categorizes licenses in the following ways: * [[Public domain]] software – the copyright has expired, the work was not copyrighted or the author has released the software onto the public domain. Since public-domain software lacks copyright protection, it may be freely incorporated into any work, whether proprietary or free. * ~~[[permissive free software licences\|~~Permissive licenses]], also called BSD-style because they are applied to much of the software distributed with the [[Berkeley Software Distribution\|BSD]] operating systems. The author retains copyright solely to disclaim warranty and require proper attribution of modified works, and permits redistribution and '''any''' modification, even proprietary ones. * [[Copyleft]] licenses, the [[GNU General Public License\|GPL]] being the most prominent. The author retains copyright and permits redistribution and modification provided 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. == Security and reliability == There is debate over the ~~[[computer security\|~~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 which lack fixes for known security flaws, at least until a fix is available. Free software advocates say that this method is biased by counting more vulnerabilities for the free software, since its source code is accessible and its community is more forthcoming about what problems exist, == Commercial viability and adoption== Free software played a part in the development of the Internet, the World Wide Web and the infrastructure of [[dot-com companies]]. Under the free software business model, free software vendors may charge a fee for distribution and offer pay support and software customization services. Proprietary software uses a different business model, where a customer of the proprietary software pays a fee for a license to use the software. 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. === Binary blobs === In 2006, [[OpenBSD]] started the first campaign against the use of [[binary blobs]], in ~~[[kernel (computer science)\|~~kernels]]. Blobs are usually freely distributable [[device ~~driver]]s~~drivers for hardware from vendors that do not reveal driver source code to users or developers. This restricts the users' freedom to effectively modify the software and distribute modified versions. Also, since the blobs are undocumented and may have ~~[[computer bug\|~~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 GNU/Linux distribution with all the binary blobs removed. The project received support from the [[Free Software Foundation]]. === BitKeeper === [[Larry McVoy]] invited high-profile free software projects to use his proprietary [[versioning system]], [[BitKeeper]], free of charge, in order to attract paying users. In 2002, Linux coordinator [[Linus Torvalds]] decided to use BitKeeper to develop the [[Linux kernel]], a free software project, claiming no free software alternative met his needs. This controversial decision drew criticism from several sources, including the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman. Following the apparent [[reverse engineering]] of BitKeeper's protocols, McVoy withdrew permission for gratis use by free software projects, leading the Linux kernel community to develop a free software replacement called [[Git ~~(software)\|Git]]~~. === Patent deals === In November 2006, the [[Microsoft]] and [[Novell]] software corporations announced a controversial partnership involving, among other things, patent protection for some customers of Novell under certain conditions. ~~== See also ==~~ * [[Free software community]] * [[Free software licenses]] * [[Gratis versus Libre]] * [[Libre knowledge]] * [[Free content]] * [[Free file format]] * [[Open standards]] * [[List of free software packages]] * [[List of free software project directories]] * [[List of formerly proprietary software]] ~~== References ==~~ * [http://www.softwarefreedom.org Software Freedom Law Center] * [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The Free Software Definition] * [http://fsfe.org/transcripts Transcripts about Free Software~~] by [[FSFE]~~] * [http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com Free Software Magazine] * [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition Free cultural works definition] * [http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!], analysis of the advantages of OSS/FS by [[David A. Wheeler]]. * [http://www.flossworld.org/index.php FLOSSWorld - Free/Libre/Open-Source Software: Worldwide impact study] * [http://www.teak.cc/softfree/software-freedom.html Software Freedom: An Introduction~~], by [[Robert J. Chassell]~~] * [http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~bcfoss/DL Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software]~~, by Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter~~ * [http://www.linfo.org/free_software.html Free Software Definition at The Linux Information Project] * [http://www.actuate.com/company/news/press-releases-resources.asp?ArticleId=13847 Open Source Enters the Mainstream According to Findings from the Actuate Annual Open Source Survey for 2008]