Free software

:This article is about Free Software as defined by the sociopolitical Free Software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. For other uses, see free software (disambiguation).

Related Topics:
Freeware - Free software (disambiguation)

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Free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed. Free software is sometimes referred to by other names such as libre software, FLOSS, or open source software. The opposite of free software is not necessarily commercial, but rather proprietary software.

Related Topics:
Free Software Foundation - Libre software - FLOSS - Open source software - Proprietary software

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Most free software is distributed gratis online, or offline for marginal cost of distribution, but this is not required, and people are free to sell copies for any price. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement, coined the phrase, "free as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'" to help people understand the difference between libre (freedom) software and gratis (zero price) software. More specifically, the term free software emphasises the freedom for computer users to cooperate and to control the software they use.

Related Topics:
Marginal cost - Richard Stallman - Free Software Movement - Free speech - Libre

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The capitalized term "Open Source" is attached to a definition originally created in 1998 from Debian's rewrite of the GNU definition of "Free Software". As a result, nearly all Open Source programs are Free Software, but there are some exceptions.

Related Topics:
Debian - GNU

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Although the license criteria and development practices are nearly identical, according to Stallman, the free software movement considers its philosophical values fundamentally different to those of open source movement. Stallman endorses the terms F/OSS and FLOSS to mention both "free software" and "open source" without choosing between or dividing the two camps, but he asks people to rather consider supporting the "free software" camp. (see Open source vs. free software for more information).

Related Topics:
F/OSS - FLOSS - Open source vs. free software

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"Freeware" refers to software distributed at no charge. Freeware source code may or may not be published, and permission to distribute modified versions may or may not be granted, so freeware is gratis software, rather than libre software.

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