Free 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
restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things. To make these acts possible, the human readable
form of the program (called the source code) must be made available and the software must be
accompanied by a software licence saying that the copyright holder permits these acts
(a free software licence). Software can also be free software by putting the
source code in the public domain.
Alternative terms for free software have been coined in an
attempt to make the use of "free" less ambiguous. The most common is "open-source
software", which has since evolved to refer to a subtly different sense of freedom. Free software is also known as
"software libre", "free, libre and open-source software" ("FLOSS"), and "free/open-source software"
("FOSS").
Free software is distinct to freeware; freeware is proprietary software made available free of charge. Everyone is free to sell copies of free
software, to use it commercially, and to charge for distribution and modifications. Because anyone who has a copy may distribute
the software at no cost, the software generally is available at no cost. Free software business models are usually based on
adding value such as support, training, customisation, integration, or certification. At the same time, some business models
which work with non-free software are not compatible with free software, such as
those that depend on a user having no choice but to pay for a license in order to lawfully use a software product.
The free software movement was launched in 1983 to make these freedoms
available to every computer user.[1] Software that does not
provide these freedoms is referred to as proprietary software or non-free
software.
History
-
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it was normal for computer users to have the freedoms provided by free software. Software was
commonly shared by individuals who used computers and by hardware manufacturers who were glad that people were making software
that made their hardware useful. In the 70s and early 80s, the increasing complexity of software applications drove the industry
to protect their investments through application of copyright law, and they began using technical measures such as only
distributing binary copies to prevent computer users from being able to study and modify the software.[citation needed]
In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU
project after becoming frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and users. Software
development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the
Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. He introduced a
free software definition and "copyleft", designed to ensure software freedom for all.
Free software is a huge international effort, producing software used by individuals, large organizations, and governmental
administrations. Free software has a very high market penetration in server-side Internet applications such as the
Apache web server, MySQL database, and
PHP scripting language. Completely free computing environments are available as large packages of
basic system software such as the many Linux distributions and FreeBSD. Free software developers have also created free versions of almost all commonly used desktop
applications such as web browsers, office productivity suites, and multimedia players. It is important to note, however, that in
many categories, free software for individual workstation or home users has only a fraction of the market share of their
proprietary competitors. Most free software is distributed online without charge,
or off-line at the marginal cost of
distribution, but this is not required, and people may sell copies for any price.
The economic advantages[citation needed] of the free software model have been recognised by large corporations such
as IBM, Red Hat, and Sun
Microsystems. Many companies whose core business is not in the IT sector 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. Also, some non-software industries are beginning to use techniques similar to those used in free software development
for their research and development: 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.
Naming
The FSF recommends using the term "free software" and never "open source software" because that term and the associated
marketing campaign focuses on technical issues and avoids talking about the value of freedom.[2] "Libre" is used to avoid the
ambiguity of the word "free". However, libre is mostly used within the free
software movement.
Definition
-
The first formal definition of free software was published by FSF in February 1986.[3] 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:
- Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
- Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.
- Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
- Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements 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 is highly impractical.
Thus, free software means that computer users have the freedom to cooperate with
whom they choose, and to control the software they use. To summarise this into a remark distinguishing libre (freedom) software from gratis (zero
price) software, Richard Stallman has long said: "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'".[4]
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,[5] and the Open Source
Definition, published in 1998.
The free BSD-based operating systems, such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, don't have their own formal definitions of free software
but users of these systems generally find the same set of software to be acceptable. However, rather than advocate the use of
copyleft free software licences, they see copyleft as being merely tolerable. Instead, they advocate permissive free software licences which allow others to make software based on their
source code and then not, in turn, also distribute the source. Their view is that this permissive approach is more free. The
Kerberos, X.org, and Apache software licences are substantially similar in intent and implementation. All of these software
packages originated in academic institutions interested in the widest possible technology transfer (University of California,
MIT, and UIUC).
Examples of free software
-
Notable free software:
- Operating systems: Linux, BSD,
Darwin, and OpenSolaris.
- GCC compilers, GDB debugger and
C libraries.
- Servers: BIND name server, Sendmail mail transport,
Apache web server, and Samba file
server.
- Relational database systems: MySQL and
PostgreSQL.
- Programming languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Lua, Ruby, and Tcl.
- GUI related: X Window System,
GNOME, KDE, and Xfce desktop
environments.
- OpenOffice.org office suite, Mozilla and Firefox web browsers, and the
GIMP graphics editor.
- Typesetting and document preparation systems TeX and LaTeX.
- ogg: free software multimedia file type that can function like an mp3 or mp4.
- GRASS: open-source Geographic Information
System (GIS)
The Free Software Directory is a free software project that maintains a large
database of free software packages.
Free software licenses
-
All free software licences must grant people all the freedoms discussed above. However, unless the applications' licences are
compatible, combining programs by mixing source code or directly linking binaries is problematic, because of licence
technicalities. Programs indirectly connected together may avoid this problem.
Most free software uses a small set of licenses. The most popular of these are:
Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative both publish lists of licenses that they find to comply with their
definition of free software and open-source software respectively.
These lists are necessarily incomplete, because a license need not be known by either organization in order to provide these
freedoms.
Apart from these two organisations, 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 judgements have to be tracked by checking
what software they have allowed into their software archives. That is summarized at the Debian web site[6].
However, it is rare that a license is announced as being in-compliance by FSF or OSI and not the other (the Netscape Public License used for early versions of Mozilla being an exception), so exact
definitions of the terms have not become hot issues.
Permissive and copyleft licences
The FSF categorizes licenses in the following ways:
- Copyleft licenses, the GNU General Public
License being the most prominent. The author retains copyright and permits redistribution and modification under terms to
ensure that all modified versions remain free for as long as the author wishes.
- BSD-style licenses, so called because they are applied to much of the software
distributed with the BSD operating systems. The author retains copyright
protection solely to disclaim warranty and require proper attribution of modified works, but permits redistribution and
modification in any work, even proprietary ones, again, for as long as the author wishes.
- Public domain software - the author has abandoned the copyright. Since public-domain
software lacks copyright protection, it may be freely incorporated into any work, whether proprietary or free. Importantly,
software released thus goes completely out of control of the author, who, even if he subsequently so desires, cannot
impose any restriction on its use.
Impact
Free software played a part in the development of the Internet, the World Wide Web and the infrastructure of dot-com companies[citation needed]. 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 can increase commercial innovation amidst the void of patent cross
licensing lawsuits. (See mpeg2 patent holders)
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.
Free software is generally available at little to no cost and can result in permanently lower costs compared to
proprietary software. 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 condition of the software and its usage. Such an agreement is made separately from the free software
license.
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 using 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. Some claim that
method counts more vulnerabilities for the free software, since their source code is accessible and their community is more
forthcoming about what problems exist.[7]
Free software advocates rebut that closed source programs do not have published flaws, but flaws could exist and are possibly
already known to malicious users. The ability to view and modify the software provides many more people who can analyze the code,
and possibly have a higher rate of finding bugs and flaws than an average corporation. Having access to the source code also
makes creating spyware far more difficult.[8]
Controversies
Binary blobs
-
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 to effectively 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 distribution with all the binary blobs
removed. The project received support from the Free Software Foundation[9]
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 a controversial decision was made to use BitKeeper to develop the Linux kernel, a free
software project. This proved to be a major source of controversy:
The free software movement has said »Think of free speech, not free beer« for 15 years. McVoy said the opposite; he
invited developers to focus on the lack of monetary price, instead of on freedom. A free software activist would dismiss this
suggestion, but those in our community who value technical advantage above freedom and community were susceptible to it …
A free kernel, even a whole free operating system, is not sufficient to use your computer in freedom; we need free software
for everything else, too. Free applications, free drivers, free BIOS: some of those projects face large obstacles ─ the need to
reverse engineer formats or protocols or pressure companies to document them, or to work around or face down patent threats, or
to compete with a network effect. Success will require firmness and determination. A better kernel is desirable, to be sure, but
not at the expense of weakening the impetus to liberate the rest of the software world.[10]
Following the reverse engineering of BitKeeper's protocols, McVoy withdrew
permission for gratis use by free software projects. After this, Linux kernel community decided to develop and use
Git, which is free software.
Patent deals
-
In November of 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.[11]
See also
References
External links
rmy:Mesto software
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