The Free Software Foundation

Founded in October 1985, the Free Software Foundation (FSFⁱ) is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to “promoting computer users’ rights to use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer programmes. Among the various free softwareⁱ, the FSF particularly promotes the development and use of the GNUⁱ operating system.

Since its founding, FSF initially used most of its funds to employ software developers to write free software. This changed in the mid to late 1990’s as many companies and individuals began writing free software on their own. Now, FSF employees and volunteers mostly work on legal and structural issues with regard to the free software community.

The FSF first published its Free Software Definition in 1989. This was later reworded to become the Debian Free Software Guidelines. It was modified by the Open Source Software movement by changing the terms “free software” to “open source”.

Currently the FSF is working on several projects.

• The GNU Project - The FSF is committed to developing and maintaining the GNU free software operating system.

• General Public Licence (GPLⁱ) Enforcement - The FSF enforces GPLs and other GNU licenses for use of software to which FSF holds the copyrightⁱ.

• GNU Licenses – The FSF writes and distributes various GPLs for developers who wish to license their programmes as free software.

• Free Software Directory – Started in September 1999 to catalogue all useful free software running under free operating systems.

• Savannah – a website by FSF to provide software development services at no cost to all free software developers.

Its founder and President Richard M. Stallman and Executive Director Peter T. Brown currently head the FSF. The FSF has six people on its Board of Directors. They are:

• Geoffrey Knauth, Senior Software Engineer at SFA, Inc.;

• Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University;

• Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University;

• Henri Poole, Founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm;

• Richard M. Stallman, Founder of FSF and the GNU Project and author of the GNU GPL; and

• Gerald J. Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The free software movement, the GNU Project and the FSF are all the brainchild of computer programmer Richard Matthew Stallman. An acclaimed hacker, Stallman is credited for having written the original Emacs, GNU Emacs, GNU C Compiler and the GNU Debugger, all of which are basic but popular software tools for programmers to make the code they write readable to computer hardware.

Since the 1980’s proprietary software vendors have been proliferating and computer manufacturers were using new means to stop their software from being used in computers manufactured by others. It was this and the growing practise of restricting access to source code and imposing restrictions on the copying and distribution of software that brought Stallman to the forefront of the free software movement.

Stallman insists that the efforts of proprietary software vendors to prohibit the freedom to share, study and modify software are actions that are “anti-social” and “unethical”. He argues that freedom is crucial for the benefit of software users besides just being instrumental in the creation of better software.

Stallman was also the creator of the concept of “Copyleft”. Copyleft is something endowed by a creator on his or her creation to avoid impediments that other users may face when dealing with intellectual property rights. It provides a license that ensures that users of a creation, e.g. software, may study, use, modify, and also redistribute both the work, and derivatives of the creation. Copyleft came about when a software company he had written a programme for later refused to grant Stallman access to an improved version of his submitted work.

Stallman emphasises on the need to use words such as “free software” and strongly rejects the term “open source” as a better alternative to “free software” as it downplays the underlying concept of “freedom”. It is generally accepted that most open source software may also be considered as free software and vice-versa. However, this is not always the case.

The most well known examples of free software are:

• Operating systems: GNU/Linuxⁱ, BSDⁱ (Berkeley Software Distribution) and Darwin (Apple Computer)

• GCC compilers, GDB debugger and C (programming language) libraries.

• Servers: BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) name server, Sendmail mail transport, Apache web server, and Samba file server.

• Relational database systems: MySQL and PostgreSQL.

• Programming languages: Perl (Practical Extraction & Report Language), PHP (Hypertext Pre-processors), Python, Ruby and Tcl (Tool Command Language).

• Graphical user interface related: X Window System, GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment), KDE (K Desktop Environment), and xfce (Xforms Common Environment) desktop environments.

• OpenOffice.org office suite, Mozilla and Firefox web browsers and the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Programme) graphics editor.

• Typesetting and document preparation systems TeX and LaTex..

• MediaWiki, the software which runs Wikipedia.

The Free Software Definition

Contrary to its name, free software is not software that you do not need to pay for. To clear the air, the FSF maintains the Free Software Definition to clarify what particular software programmes may be deemed free.

Free software, according to the FSF, is more akin to the concept of liberty rather than price or financial cost. The given analogy to describe this is that one should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”

The FSF explains that “free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.”

This freedom enjoyed by users is categorised in four ways:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your need.

• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.

• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

The availability and access to the source code of any particular software is a necessary precondition for the above-categorised freedoms. A software or programme is only deemed to be free software if its users can enjoy all four freedoms.

It follows then that any user should be “free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.”

The FSF also states that users of free software need not notify the developers if the user decides to modify, distribute or make money from distributing or using the free software.

The original text of the FSF definition of free software goes into greater detail, exploring various possibilities and discusses how free software may be maintained as free given the many scenarios. Due to its length and depth it is not reproduced in full in this article. Do refer to the FSF Free Software Definition web page at this link: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for more information.

Source:

Wikipedia – Richard Stallman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman,

Wikipedia – Free Software Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation, Wikipedia – Free Software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software