Free software is software that is distributed with a licence that authorises its users to run the software for any purpose, to redistribute copies of, and to examine, study, and modify the source code. The term free software was coined in 1983, with free denoting the broad freedom that the licence gives users, rather than being free-of-charge (i.e., freeware). Alternative terms for free software include software libre, libre software, and free and open source software (abbreviated FOSS and F/OSS). Open source software is not necessarily free software, but free software is always open source software. The free software movement was launched in 1983 with the primary goal of developing free software replacements for the proprietary software that society had come to rely upon. Examples of well-known free software packages include GNU, the Linux kernel, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice, and, on network servers, FreeBSD, Samba, and the Apache web server. Featured and Good content A number of articles on Free Software topics have been designated featured or good articles: Please consider improving other Free Software articles; with your attention, they could be added to this list! | |