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Free Software
Free Software is software which, once obtained, can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed. It is often made available online without charge or offline for the cost of distribution; however, this is not required, and software can be "free as in free speech" and sold for profit. Similarly, freeware is sometimes published with source code; however, the software is not free in the same sense as free software unless the rights to modify and redistribute modified versions of the program are guaranteed. History In the 1960s and 1970s, software was considered an addon that mainframe vendors supplied so that their customers could use the computers. In that culture, programmers and developers frequently shared their software freely among each other. This was especially common with some of the large users groups, such as DECUS, the DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Users Group. In the late 1970s, companies started routinely imposing restrictions on people using license agreements. In 1983, Richard Stallman started working on the GNU project, founding the Free Software Foundation (FSF) two years later http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html. He introduced a definition for "free software" and the concept of "copyleft", which he specifically devised to give users freedom and to restrain the possibilities for appropriation http://cisn.metu.edu.tr/2002-6/free.php. According to that definition, software is "free" if it grants: - the freedom to run the program for any purpose (called "freedom 0")
- the freedom to study and modify the program ("freedom 1")
- the freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor ("freedom 2")
- the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits ("freedom 3")
Note that freedoms 1 and 3 are interpreted as requiring access to the source code. Although it is possible to reverse-engineer, study, and modify software without source code, this is extremely difficult and highly ineffective compared to working directly with annotated source code. A list of compliant licenses is available from FSF's web site (see below). The term "proprietary software" describes software distributed under more restrictive licenses which lack these freedoms. Copyright law reserves most rights of modification, duplication and redistribution for the copyright owner; software released under a free software license specifically rescinds most of these reserved rights. The FSF definition of free software disregards price; a commonly used slogan is "free as in speech, not as in beer", and it is common to see CDs of free software such as Linux distributions for sale. However, in this situation the buyer of the CD would have the right to copy and redistribute it. Free beer software can include restrictions that confict with the FSF definition—for example, gratis software may lack source code, actively prohibit redistributors from charging a fee, etc. To avoid confusion, some people use the words "libre" and "gratis" to avoid the ambiguity of the English word "free." However, these alternative terms are mostly used within the free software movement and are only slowly spreading to the outside world. There are several variations on free software in the FSF sense, for example: - The freedoms defined by the FSF are protected through copyleft licenses, the most prominent of which is the GNU General Public License. The author retains copyright, and permits redistribution and modification under terms designed to ensure that all modified versions of the software remain under copyleft terms.
- Public domain software, in which the author has abandoned the copyright. Public-domain software, lacking copyright protection, may be freely incorporated into closed, proprietary works as well as free ones.
- BSD-style licenses, so called because they are applied to much of the software distributed with the BSD operating systems. The author under such licenses retains copyright protection solely to disclaim warranty and to require proper attribution of modified works, but permits redistribution and modification, even in proprietary works.
Note that the original copyright owner of copyleft-licensed software can also make a modified version under their original copyright, and sell it under any license they like, in addition to distributing the original version as free software. This technique has been used as a business model by a number of free software companies; this does not restrict any of the rights granted to the users of the copyleft version. Examples and evolution The amount of free software is large and increasing; this trend is often referred to as the free software movement. Notable free software projects: Like all free software, these projects distribute their programs under licenses that grant users all the freedoms discussed above. However, due to license technicalities, combining programs by mixing source code or directly linking binaries is problematic unless the applications' licenses are compatible. Programs indirectly linked together into a single program may avoid this problem. Much free software supports the non-free platform Microsoft Windows, and non-free software can support free platforms, although purists prefer all-free software on a free platform such as Linux. Free software packages constitute a software ecosystem where software provides services, resulting in mutual benefit: for instance, the Apache web server handling the HTTP protocol, using mod_python to provide dynamic content. Political significance Soon after free software product begins circulation, it becomes available at little or no cost. While its utility is constant, or even increases due to network effects. Thus, free software is a pure public good rather than a private good. Because free software freedoms result in lower cost than proprietary software, free software is often popular in third world countries. Furthermore, the openness of free software eases internationalization, increasing translations. Free software is mostly produced by international teams cooperating through free association. Individuals within a team typically have a wide variety of motivations. Stances on the relationship between free software and capitalism, the current economic system: - Competition - free software and capitialism are incompatible.
- Inter-market competition - free software is a form of competition within capitalisim. Copyright is a governmental market restriction.
- Gift economy - status depends on gifts.
Oekonux and Hipatia contend free association could produce everything. Free association is also used for writing wikis such as Wikipedia and give-away shops. Relative security There is controversy over the security of free software vs. proprietary software (a major issue being security through obscurity). A popular relative security measurement is counting 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. As of early December, 2004 the security site Secunia counts zero security flaws unfixed for the most popular free software products for Internet browsing, office productivity, and e-mail—Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Thunderbird, compared to several unfixed flaws for each of the three main proprietary, Microsoft equivalents—Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and Outlook Express. See also External links
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