Bureaucrats, checkuser, Interface administrators, interwiki, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Editors (Semantic MediaWiki), staff, Suppressors, Administrators
83,693
edits
Category:Free software: Difference between revisions
imported text from Category:Free Software prior to merge
Hoof Hearted (talk | contribs) ({{merge|Free Software}}) |
Hoof Hearted (talk | contribs) (imported text from Category:Free Software prior to merge) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{merge|Free Software}} | {{merge|Free Software}} | ||
'''Category: free software''' — this [[Special:Categories|category]] contains [[wiki]]s or other subject matter on free (as in free speech or freedom; not as in price) {{tag|software}}. The 'free software movement' was started by Richard M. Stallman and [http://www.GNU.org GNU] in 1984, later the [http://www.FSF.org Free Software Foundation] was founded. | |||
'Free software', defined by four 'freedoms', is where the license gives everybody | |||
*the freedom to run the program for any purpose – known as 'freedom 0'; | |||
*the freedom to study and modify the program – 'freedom 1'. Access to the source code is a precondition for this; | |||
*the freedom to copy and redistribute the program so one can help his neighbor – 'freedom 2'; | |||
*the freedom to improve the program, and release the improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits – 'freedom 3'; access to the source code is a precondition for this. | |||
The opposite of this would be non-free software; this is best described as 'proprietary software' (or sometimes known as 'commercial software'). It should also be noted free software should not be confused with 'freeware'; which is simply proprietary software given away for [[:Category:Free|free]] (as in free beer). | |||
;Related categories | |||
{{related|GNU}}, {{related|Linux}}, {{related|Creative Commons}}. | |||
[[Category:Open Source]] | |||