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M / Philosophy
Essays & articles / About free software
Principles
What is Free Software?
"Free software" means software that respects users' freedom and community: Roughly, it means that the
users have the freedom to run, cOpY; distribute, study, change and improve the software: Thus;
"free software" is & matter of liberty; not price: To understand the concept; you should think of "free" as
in "free
'speech;
not aS in "free beer:
We sometimes call it "libre software
borrowing the French or
Spanish word for "free'
as in freedom; to show we do not mean the software is gratis:
You may have paid money to get copies of a free program; O1 YOU may have obtained copies at no
charge: But regardless of how YOu got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change
the software
even t0
sell copies
We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves
With these freedoms, the users (both
individually
collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the
program; we call it a "nonfree'
'proprietary" program. The nonfree program controls the users,
the
developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.
"Open source" is
something different: it has a very different philosophy based on different values Its practical
definition ic difterentton
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