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Free Software and the GNU project


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by

Harald Welte <laforge@gnumonks.org>


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Free Software and the GNU project
Contents


	Introduction

	Richard Stallman

	The GNU project

	Free Software

	Copyleft

	Other free software licenses

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Free Software and the GNU project
Introduction

Background

	In the 1960es software was always bundled to hardware and came in the source code

	This didn't change very much during the 70s, because hardware was expensive

	binary-only proprietary software became very strong in the early 80s 

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Free Software and the GNU project
Richard Stallman


	Experienced the early computing years at MIT AI labs

	Was unwilling to give up the freedom he had through the source code

	Had already written Emacs, the famos editor

	Decided to do something against it in fall 1983

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Free Software and the GNU project
The GNU project


	Started 1984 by Richard Stallman

	Aim: Implement a free UNIX like system 

	He started with a development environment (gcc, )


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Free Software and the GNU project
What is free software

According to Richard Stallmans definition, free software has the following freedoms:

	Freedom to use the program for every purpose
	Freedom to study how the program works and to adapt it to your own needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this
	Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
	Freedom to improve the program and release the changes to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.


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Free Software and the GNU project
Copyleft

Copyleft is a special enhancement to free software

Copyleft is defined by the GNU GPL (General Public License)

It adds certain distribution terms for the software and any derived work

	If you redistribute a copylefted software to anybody, you license it including the sourcecode under the terms of the GPL

	All derived work from the program is subject to the GPL, too.


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Free Software and the GNU project
Other free software licenses

Apart from the GNU copyleft free software license (GPL) there are some other non-copyleft free software licenses.

The BSD (Berkley Software Distribution) license and the XFree86 license are the best-known examples

These licenses don't protect the software from being used in proprietary software products.

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Free Software and the GNU project
Open source


Open source is a totally different ideology than free software. 

The open source movement has the goal to produce stable software through availability of the source code to the public.  Compare this to the aim of the free software movement: Freedom for all users.

Open source licenses may restrict publications of derived work as well as redistribution.

Please use the term 'free software' if you talk about linux and other projects licensed under the terms of the GPL or BSD license.

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Free Software and the GNU project
Further information


More information about free software is available at http://www.gnu.org

More information about the open source movement is available at http://www.opensource.org

The author can be contacted at <laforge@gnumonks.org>