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Miloslav Ciz 2025-03-19 21:20:29 +01:00
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@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ Though unknown to common people, the invention and adoption of free software has
[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.
Fun fact: in Spain there is a street named after free software.
**Free software is not about [privacy](privacy.md)!** That would be quite misleading viewpoint. Free software, as its name suggests, is about freedom in wide sense, which includes the freedom of absolute control over one's devices that may ensure privacy and anonymity, but there are many more freedoms which free software stands for, e.g. the freedom of customization of one's tools or the general freedom of [art](art.md) -- being able to utilize or remix someone else's creation for creating something new or better. Software focused on privacy is called simply privacy respecting software.
The forefront non-profit organization promoting free software has since its invention been the [Free Software Foundation](fsf.md) (FSF) started by Richard Stallman himself alongside his [GNU](gnu.md) project. Nevertheless we must keep in mind that FSF doesn't equal free software, free software as a concept is bigger than its inventor or any organization, the idea -- just as for example political or religious ideas -- has since its birth been adopted with various modifications by many others, it is being expanded, improved, renamed and yes, even twisted and abused. Free software has spawned or influenced for example [Debian](debian.md), [free culture](free_culture.md), [free hardware](free_hardware.md), [FSFE](fsfe.md), [FSFLA](fsfla.md), [open $ource](open_source.md), [suckless](suckless.md), [copyfree](copyfree.md), [freedesktop](freedesktop.md) and many others. FSF itself has become quite spoiled and political, but it has achieved sending out the message about sharing, collaboration and ethics, which at least a few people still try to keep following.