Thread: Free Software

I would like to start off with what free software is all about, according to you?

Free software means software that respects the user's rreedom and the user community. Proprietary software traps the user's freedom and divides the user, leaving him helpless. They are divided because they are forbidden to share the source code. Helpless because they don't get the so'i.lrce code; hence they can't change the program and they can't even verify what it is doing to them.

Free software respects that and there are four essential freedoms that a user must have. Zero is the freedom to run the program as you wish. Freedom One is the freedom to study the source code of the program and then change it to make the program do what you wish. Freedom Two is to help your neighbour, which means to make exact copies of the program and distribute it to others when you wish. And Freedom Three is the freedom to contribute to your community, which means distribute modified versions when you wish.

Now, this has nothing to do with the details of what the program does and how. It's about what you are allowed to do with the program. So, if one of these freedoms is missing, or partly missing, then the social system of a distribution is unethical, and that makes it proprietary software. So, that software should not exist, because every time someone uses it, it becomes a social problem.