What Is Free Software ? Why Is It So Important ?
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What is free software ? why is it so important ?
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Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. Currently, many people use proprietary software that denies users these freedoms and benefits. If we make a copy and give it to a friend, if we try to figure out how the program works, if we put a copy on more than one of our own computers in our own home, we could be caught and fined or put in jail. That’s what’s in the fine print of the license agreement you accept when using proprietary software.
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The corporations behind proprietary software will often spy on your activities and restrict you from sharing with others. And because our computers control much of our personal information and daily activities. Proprietary software represents an unacceptable danger to a free society.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor . Freedom 3:The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits . Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
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The GNU operating system is a complete free software system, upward-compatible with Unix. GNU stands for “GNU's Not Unix”. Richard Stallman made the Initial Announcement of the GNU Project in September 1983. A longer version called the GNU Manifesto was published in March 1985. It has been translated into several other languages. The name “GNU” was a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not Unix”, second,
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The project to develop the GNU system is called the “GNU Project”. The GNU Project was conceived in 1983 as a way of bringing back the cooperative spirit that prevailed in the computing community in earlier days—to make cooperation possible once again by removing the obstacles to cooperation imposed by the owners of proprietary software.
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In 1971, when Richard Stallman started his career at MIT, he worked in a group which used free software exclusively. Even computer companies often distributed free software. Programmers were free to cooperate with each other, and often did.
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By the 1980s, almost all software was proprietary, which means that it had owners who forbid and prevent cooperation by users. This made the GNU Project necessary.
An Unix-like operating system is much more than a kernel; it also includes compilers, editors, text formatters, mail software, and many other things. Thus, writing a whole operating system is a very large job. We started in January 1984. It took many years. The Free Software Foundation was founded in October 1985, initially to raise funds to help develop GNU. By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components except one—the kernel. Then Linux, a Unix-like kernel, was developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and made free software in 1992. Combining Linux with the almost-complete GNU system resulted in a complete operating system: the GNU/Linux system. Estimates are that tens of millions of people now use GNU/Linux systems, typically via distributions such as Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, and others.
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There are no limits, except when laws such as the patent system prohibit free software entirely.
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The ultimate goal is to provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to do and thus make proprietary software obsolete.
Resources • • • • • •
http://www.fsf.org http://www.gnu.org http://www.debian.org/ http://www.ubuntu.com/ - can get free CD. http://www.redhat.in/ http://fedoraproject.org/ -can freely download
•
•
•
Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. Currently, many people use proprietary software that denies users these freedoms and benefits. If we make a copy and give it to a friend, if we try to figure out how the program works, if we put a copy on more than one of our own computers in our own home, we could be caught and fined or put in jail. That’s what’s in the fine print of the license agreement you accept when using proprietary software.
•
•
•
The corporations behind proprietary software will often spy on your activities and restrict you from sharing with others. And because our computers control much of our personal information and daily activities. Proprietary software represents an unacceptable danger to a free society.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor . Freedom 3:The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits . Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
•
•
•
•
The GNU operating system is a complete free software system, upward-compatible with Unix. GNU stands for “GNU's Not Unix”. Richard Stallman made the Initial Announcement of the GNU Project in September 1983. A longer version called the GNU Manifesto was published in March 1985. It has been translated into several other languages. The name “GNU” was a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not Unix”, second,
•
The project to develop the GNU system is called the “GNU Project”. The GNU Project was conceived in 1983 as a way of bringing back the cooperative spirit that prevailed in the computing community in earlier days—to make cooperation possible once again by removing the obstacles to cooperation imposed by the owners of proprietary software.
•
In 1971, when Richard Stallman started his career at MIT, he worked in a group which used free software exclusively. Even computer companies often distributed free software. Programmers were free to cooperate with each other, and often did.
•
By the 1980s, almost all software was proprietary, which means that it had owners who forbid and prevent cooperation by users. This made the GNU Project necessary.
An Unix-like operating system is much more than a kernel; it also includes compilers, editors, text formatters, mail software, and many other things. Thus, writing a whole operating system is a very large job. We started in January 1984. It took many years. The Free Software Foundation was founded in October 1985, initially to raise funds to help develop GNU. By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components except one—the kernel. Then Linux, a Unix-like kernel, was developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and made free software in 1992. Combining Linux with the almost-complete GNU system resulted in a complete operating system: the GNU/Linux system. Estimates are that tens of millions of people now use GNU/Linux systems, typically via distributions such as Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, and others.
•
There are no limits, except when laws such as the patent system prohibit free software entirely.
•
The ultimate goal is to provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to do and thus make proprietary software obsolete.
Resources • • • • • •
http://www.fsf.org http://www.gnu.org http://www.debian.org/ http://www.ubuntu.com/ - can get free CD. http://www.redhat.in/ http://fedoraproject.org/ -can freely download
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