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This article is about the free software philosophy and the free software movement. The free software movement began in 1983 when Richard Stallman announced the GNU project. It is a social movement which aims change the rights which software users have. In terms of social movements, it is classed as a new social movement, and its ethical basis is a branch of information philosophy.
Philosophy Stallman co-founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement. The philosophy of the movement is to give freedom to computer users by replacing proprietary software under restrictive licensing terms with free software,* with the ultimate goal of liberating everyone in cyberspace.* Members of the free software movement believe that all software should come with the freedoms listed in the free software definition. Many hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent society where software users can help each other, and to have control over their computer. Some adherents to the free software movement do not believe that proprietary software is strictly immoral. They argue freedom is valuable (both socially and pragmatically) as a property of software in its own right, separate from technical quality in a narrow sense. Moreover, they may use the term "free software" to distance themselves from claims that "open source" software is always technically superior to proprietary software. In this sense, they object that "open-source" advocates, by concentrating solely on technical merits, encourage users to sacrifice their freedom (and the long-term benefits thereof) for short-term conveniences that proprietary software may provide. Supporters of open source argue for the pragmatic virtues of free software rather than questions of morality. Their basic disagreement with the Free Software Foundation is its blanket condemnation of proprietary software. There are many programmers who enjoy supporting and using free software but make their livings developing proprietary software, and do not consider their actions immoral. The "official" free-software and open-source definitions are slightly different, with the free-software definition generally considered to be more strict, but the open source licenses which are not considered to be free software licenses are generally obscure, so in practice virtually all open source software may also be considered free software (a notable exception being the Netscape Public License used by Netscape Navigator and Mozilla). The free software movement also believes all software needs free documentation, but does not take a strong position on other types of works. Members of the free software movement advocate works that serve a practical purpose should also be free. Writing and spreading free software The first actions of the free software movement was to write software. The free software movement also reject proprietary software, refusing to install software that does not give them the freedoms of free software. Building awareness Some supporters of the free software movement take up public speaking, or host a stall at software-related conferences to raise awareness of software freedom. This is seen as important since people who receive free software, but who aren't aware that it is free software, will later accept a non-free replacement or will add software which is not free software *. Legislation Political acts include campaigning against software patents and expansions of copyright law. See also | ||||||||
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