What i s Free Software?
The principles of Free Software are simple but its licencing and synonyms add complexity. We explain the basics.
The term Free Software was created in 1986 by Richard M. Stallman. Free Software refers to freedom, not price. It guarantees its users the essential four freedoms. The absence of at least one of these freedoms means an application is proprietary, so non-Free Software.
The Four Freedoms
| Free Software can be used for any purpose and is free of restrictions such as licence expiry or geographic limitations. | Use | Study | Free Software and its code can be studied by anyone, without non-disclosure agreements or similar restrictions. |
| Free Software can be shared and copied at virtually no cost. | Share | Improve | Free Software can be modified by anyone, and these improvements can be shared publicly. |
Licences
The four freedoms are given by a software’s licence. The Free Software Foundation[1] and the Open Source Initiative[2] maintain lists of reviewed and approved licences. An application can usually not be considered Free Software, if its licence does not appear in these lists.
There are a multitude of licences with different focal points. The actual selection is a strategic question but you are advised to pick one of the most widely used licences.
Synonyms
Over the course of time, people came up with additional labels for Free Software[3]. Often the motivation for these terms is to highlight different aspects and to avoid confusion.
| Free Software The original term, created in 1986 |
Open Source | Set up as a marketing campaign for Free Software in 1998 |
| Libre Software | Initiated to avoid the ambiguity of the English word free, borrowed from French and Spanish | |
| FOSS / FLOSS | Abbreviations for Free (Libre) and Open Source Software |
The level of freedom a particular software offers is always determined by the licence, not the label. In other words, don’t get confused by different terms for the same features.
- ↑ More information on different terms and licence categories: https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison
- ↑ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
- ↑ https://opensource.org/licenses/category
