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@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ Free (as in freedom) software is a type of ethical [software](software.md) that'
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*.
**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 [Fireforx](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.
**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 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 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.