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n / Philosophy / Essays & articles
About tree 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 a matter of liberty; not price: To understand the concept; you should think of "free" as
in "free
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
You may have
money tO get copies of a free program, Or YOu may have obtained copies at no
charge: But regardless of how you got your copies,
always have the freedom to copy and change
the software, even to sell copies
We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both
individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them: When users don't control the
program, we call it a
nonfree" or "proprietary" program: The nonfree program controls the users, and the
t
'speech;
gratis.
paid
you