Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that ensures that the end users have freedom in using, studying, sharing and modifying that software.

Free software legally guarantees the freedom-rights to use, to share, and to modify, in the license. This definition of free software that refers to end user freedoms (and not monetary cost), was coined by Richard Stallman (as early as February 1986^[3]), who founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the concept. The word free in the term free software refers to freedom (liberty) and is not at all related to monetary cost. ^[4] Free software is generally available without charge but is not bound to such a restriction.

In practice, for software to be distributed as free software, the source code, a human-readable form of the program from which an executable form is produced, must be accessible to the recipient along with a document granting the same rights to free software under which it was published. The free software movement was conceived in 1983 by Richard Stallman to satisfy the need for and to give the benefit of software freedom to computer users.^[5]Free software differs from proprietary software, which to various degree does not give the user freedoms to study, modify and share the software. Also proprietary software is usually sold as a binary executable program without the source code.

From 1998 onward, alternative terms for free software came into use. The most common are software libre, free and open source software (FOSS) and free, libre and open source software (FLOSS). ^[6] Commercial software may sometimes offer freedoms that are typical of free and open source software. Contrary to a popular misconception that software is either free or commercial, they are unrelated traits, since free software can be commercial and proprietary software can be non-commercial. One example of free commercial software is GNAT, an Ada compiler from the company AdaCore.^[7]Since free software may be freely redistributed, it is generally available at little or no cost. At the same time, some business models that work with proprietary software are not compatible with free software, such as those that depend on the user to pay for a license in order to lawfully use the software product.