What is Free Software

When you hear the word "free" what is the first thought that comes to mind? To many people, lack of price is the first thought upon hearing the word. But "free" like many words in the English language, is a word with dual meanings. The word "free" also means freedom, liberty, and loose. Free Software is software that sets its users free from the dictates of programmers and software companies like Apple and Microsoft. In short, Free Software is software that enables you to compute in freedom and in harmony with your community. There are no restrictions on you when you use Free Software, but if you want to make copies for a friend or neighbor or modify another's work and/or redistribute it, there are a few restrictions. For more information, click here-> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Free Software was the idea of a man named Richard Stallman, who was working in the MIT artificial intelligence lab in the 1970's. In the early days of computers, software was shared around between people, and there were little or no "proprietary" non free software. But as the 70's came to a close, more and more computers used non free proprietary software. This new development model began to seriously hurt the innovation at the MIT lab. In order to use the best computers of the day, they were forced to use propietary UNIX OS. When problems were found, they could not create a fix, even if it would be to AT&T's benefit, because the source code was locked up! So, this put Richard Stallman in a real moral dilemma. If he chose to continue using computers, he would be using proprietary OS. But if he did that, he could no longer help his neighbor, because he could not give copies of the software to others. Mr. Stallman then concluded that non free "proprietary software is immoral in its creation and distribution!

One day he realized that he could create a Free Software OS and invite others to form a community and free their computing! Soon after, he started the GNU project (Gnu is Not Unix) and the Free Software Foundation. GNU is the name of the Operating System that Stallman and the Free Software community developed. GNU is commonly and mistakenly known by another more popular name, Linux. Actually Linux is only the kernel, the heart of the OS that orchestrates the rest. So it is more properly called GNU/Linux because the GNU part is such a larger part of the OS than the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel was developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991. At that time, the kernel was the only part of the GNU OS that was still missing. When Linus released his kernel, there were people who took parts of the GNU system and added the kernel, and without knowing it, filled in the last gap in the GNU OS!

That was then, and this is now. The GNU/Linux system has become a symbol of what free software can do! Many people who are in the GNU/Linux world like to thank Linus, and others for what it has become, but Richard Stallman deserves a great big thank you! If you are not using a Free Software Operating System, you are giving up essential freedoms, and are legally unable to be a good neighbor if a friend asks if they can get a copy of your program. Programs are made in a similar way as are foods, but what would you do if Betty Crocker gets a patent on cookies. You would be unable to make your own cookies because recipes for cookies are not free for the public anymore! If you made cookies, Betty Crocker would sue you for piracy for eating the cookies and giving your friend some! An even worse fate awaits you if you distribute the recipes! A similar problem exists for software programmers.

Some of you will say, "But proprietary software is more powerful, stable, reliable, secure." but that can be debated. Free Software is software that has the source code (recipe) available. That is one of the restrictions of Free Software, the source code must be made available to the user when distributing it. In this way, the user has the same freedoms as you! Since the source code is available to all, more people get to see the stability and security bugs in the code. Hence, the problems gets fixed faster. In the proprietary development model, only a few people see any particular part of the source code, so there is longer time between fixes. But all this is only but the icing on the cake, the important part is the Freedom and the Community. Freedom and the Community, even more important than the software itself, must be maintained and defended! Is GNU/Linux powerful, stable, reliable, secure? Yes. But more important than all of that, it is free, in every sense of the word!