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free_software.md
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Free (as in [freedom](freedom.md)) software is a type of ethical [software](software.md) that's respecting its users' freedom and preventing their abuse, generally by availability of its [source code](source_code.md) AND by a [license](license.md) that allows anyone to use, study, modify and share the software without restricting conditions (such as having to pay or get explicit permission from the author). Free software is NOT equal to software whose source code is just available publicly or software that is offered for zero price, the basic legal rights to the software are the key attribute that has to be present. Free software stands opposed to [proprietary software](proprietary_software.md) -- the kind of abusive, closed software that [capitalism](capitalism.md) produces by default. Free software is not to be confused with [freeware](freeware.md) ("gratis", software available for free); although free software is always available for free thanks to its definition, zero price is not its goal. The goal is freedom.
Free software is also known as *free as in freedom*, *free as in speech* software or *libre* software. It is sometimes equated with [open source](open_source.md), even though open source is fundamentally different ([evil](evil.md)), or neutrally labelled FOSS or FLOSS (free/libre and open-source software); sadly free software has lost to open source in mainstream popularity. In contrast to free software, software that is merely gratis (freeware) is sometimes called *free as in beer*.
Free software is also known as *free as in freedom*, *free as in speech* software or *libre* software. It is sometimes equated with [open source](open_source.md), even though open source is fundamentally different ([evil](evil.md)), or neutrally labeled FOSS or FLOSS (free/libre and open-source software); sadly free software (as a term and concept) has lost to open source in [mainstream](mainstream.md) popularity. In contrast to free software, software that is merely gratis (freeware) is sometimes called *free as in beer*.
**Examples of free software** include the [GNU](gnu.md) operating system (also known as "[Linux](linux.md)"), [GIMP](gimp.md) (image editor), [Stockfish](stockfish.md) chess engine, or games such as [Xonotic](xonotic.md) and [Anarch](anarch.md). Free software is actually what runs the world, it is a standard among experts and it is possible to do computing with exclusively free software (though this may depend on how far you stretch the definition), even though most normal people don't even know the term free software exists because they only ever come in contact with abusive [proprietary](proprietary.md) consumer software such as [Windows](windows.md) and capitalist [games](game.md). There also exists a lot of big and successful software, such as [Firefox](firefox.md), [Linux](linux.md) (the kernel) or [Blender](blender.md), that's often spoken of as free software which may however be only technically true or true only to a big (but not full) degree: for example even though [Linux](linux.md) is 99% free, in its [vanilla](vanilla.md) version it comes with [proprietary](proprietary.md) [binary blobs](binary_blob.md) which breaks the rules of free software. [Blender](blender.md) is technically free but it is also [capitalist software](capitalist_software.md) which doesn't really care about freedom and may de-facto limit some freedoms required by free software, even if they are granted legally by Blender's license. Such software is better called "[open source](open_source.md)" or [FOSS](foss.md) because it doesn't meet the high standards of free software. This issue of technically-but-not-really free software is addressed by some newer movements and philosophies such as [suckless](suckless.md) and our [less retarded software](lrs.md) who usually also aim for [unbloating](bloat.md) technology so as to make it more free in practice.
Though unknown to common people, the invention and adoption of free software has been **one the most important events in the [history](history.md) of computers** -- mere technology consumers nowadays don't even realize (and aren't told) that what they're using consists and has been enabled possibly mostly by software written non-commercially, by volunteers for free, **basically on [communist](communism.md) principles**. Even if consumer technology is unethical because the underlying free technology has been modified by [corporations](corporation.md) to abuse the users, without free software the situation would have been incomparably worse if [Richard Stallman](rms.md) hadn't achieved the small miracle of establishing the free software movement. Without it there would probably be practically no alternative to abusive technology nowadays, everything would be much more closed, there would probably be no "[open source](open_source.md)", "[open hardware](open_hardware.md)" such as [Arduino](arduino.md) and things such as [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md). If the danger of [intellectual property](intellectual_property.md) in software wasn't foreseen and countered by Richard Stallman right in the beginning, the corporations' push of legislation would probably have continued and copyright laws might have been many times worse today, to the point of not even being able to legally write free software nowadays. We have to be very grateful that this happened and continue to support free software.
Though unknown to common people, the invention and adoption of free software has been **one the most important events in the [history](history.md) of computers** -- mere technology consumers nowadays don't even realize (and aren't told) that what they're using consists and has been enabled possibly mostly by software written non-commercially, by volunteers for free, **basically on [communist](communism.md) principles**. Even if [consumer](consumerism.md) technology is unethical because the underlying free technology has been modified by [corporations](corporation.md) to abuse the users, without free software the situation would have been yet incomparably worse if [Richard Stallman](rms.md) hadn't achieved the small miracle of establishing the free software movement. Without it there would probably be practically no alternative to abusive technology nowadays, everything would be much more closed, there would probably be no "[open source](open_source.md)", "[open hardware](open_hardware.md)" such as [Arduino](arduino.md) and things such as [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md). If the danger of [intellectual property](intellectual_property.md) in software wasn't foreseen and countered by Richard Stallman right in the start, the corporations' push of legislation would probably have continued and copyright [laws](law.md) might have been many times worse today, to the point of not even being able to legally write free software nowadays. We have to be very grateful that this happened and continue to support free software.
[Richard Stallman](rms.md), the inventor of the concept and the term "free software", says free software is about ensuring the freedom of computer users, i.e. people truly owning their tools -- he points out that unless people have complete control over their tools, they don't truly own them and will instead become controlled and abused by the makers (true owners) of those tools, which in [capitalism](capitalism.md) are [corporations](corporation.md). Richard Stallman stressed that **there is no such thing as partially free software** -- it takes only a single line of code to take away the user's freedom and therefore if software is to be free, it has to be free as a whole. This is in direct contrast with [open source](open_source.md) (a term discourages by Stallman himself) which happily tolerates for example [Windows](windows.md) only programs and accepts them as "open source", even though such a program cannot be run without the underlying proprietary code of the platform. It is therefore important to support free software rather than the business spoiled open source.
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**Is free software [communism](communism.md)?** This is a question often debated by [Americans](usa.md) who have a panic phobia of anything resembling ideas of sharing and giving away for free. The answer is: yes and no. No as in it's not [Marxism](marxism.md), the kind of [evil](evil.md) pseudocommunism that plagued the world not a long time long ago -- that was a hugely complex, twisted violent ideology encompassing whole society which furthermore betrayed many basic ideas of equality and so on. Compared to this free software is just a simple idea of not applying intellectual property to software, and this idea may well function under some form of early capitalism. But on the other hand yes, free software is communism in its general form that simply states that sharing is good, it is communism as much as e.g. teaching a kid to share toys with its siblings.
**Is free software an ideology/cult?** Free software is a movement based on [ethics](ethics.md) of technology and its followers typically do hold strong opinions, so naturally there appear radicals strongly rejecting anything proprietary only out of principle, just like religious people for example refuse to eat certain kinds of food, i.e. the so called "freetards" are oftentimes made fun of and compared to "digital [vegans](veganism.md)". Nonetheless if we talk about free software USERS, more than 99% are moderate people who probably don't even know what free software means, and there are people in between -- still outnumbering the extremists -- who know free software and support it without being too radical. Richard Stallman himself plays along with the joke of "software as religion" and named himself the head of a parody "Church of [Emacs](emacs.md)". Again, however, we can't generalize behavior and culture of one group to the CONCEPT of free software and to other groups that have adopted the concept, most of free software is purely a mode of developing software and a voluntary relaxation of legal restrictions. Practically all computers on Earth work thanks to free software. Extremists appear everywhere and are always in minority but still, given that free software is unquestionably GOOD for the people, can we even claim that being an extremist at doing good is a bad thing to do? Perhaps we may end up arguing about the means of promoting free software, licenses and so on, but to speak in general means to speak only about the underlying commonly shared goal of sharing software, and that is good.
[Fun](fun.md) fact: around 1991 Richard Stallman created the *Free Software Song* which starts with the lyrics: "Join us now and share the software; you'll be free, [hackers](hacking.md)." -- Stallman said he put the lyrics in the [public domain](public_domain.md). The melody is taken from Bulgarian folk song called *Sadi Moma*. The song has a very uncommon 7/8 rhythm that is not easy to follow, especially when singing at the same time, but Richard Stallman always follows it perfectly.
## Definition