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- parent: Overview
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- title: What is Free Software?
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-
- # What is Free/Libre/Open Source Software?
-
- Free / Open Source Software is software that provides the following
- four freedoms to us:
-
- * Freedom to use the software for any purpose
-
- * Freedom to study the source code of the software and learn from it
-
- * Freedom to modify the software and make changes to it
-
- * Freedom to share the software (in its original and modified form)
-
- These freedoms are essential as they provide us with the essential
- framework for learning and sharing knowledge.
-
- The freedom to use software for any purpose ensures that anyone can
- use the software for any endeavour (educational, personal, commercial,
- non-profit, governmental, defence and more) and in any region. Free
- Software does not discriminate.
-
- > <em> For the purpose of this document, we use the terms “Free Software” and “Free
- > / Open Source Software” interchangeably to refer to software that provides
- > freedom to us. While “Free Software” is the original term that was used to
- > describe such a body of software, the term “Open Source” has also gained a
- > lot of popularity . We consider “Free Software” to be a more useful term
- > since it captures the essence of this philosophy and does not dilute it for
- > whatever pragmatic or marketing reasons. </em>
-
- The availability of source code provides us an opportunity to study
- and understand how something works. Without this freedom we would
- never be able to learn from what others have done or apply that
- learning to our own lives.
-
- The freedom to modify the software enables to learn and gain
- confidence by doing things. It allows us to extend the software, fix
- bugs in it, translate or localise it and adapt it for other purposes.
- Finally, the freedom to share a program (in its original or modified
- form) allows us to help others while also providing subsequent users
- with the same sort of freedom that we enjoy. It ensures that the
- software remains free and provides every user, teacher and developer
- equitable freedom.
-
- Proprietary software (ie. software that is distributed only as a
- binary and where we are restricted from accessing its source code or
- modifying it or sharing it freely), on the other hand, does not
- provide us with any opportunity to learn or understand how things work
- or make changes to them to test and validate our understanding.
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