applicable; we do not use any nonfree operating systems, and any new computer we install must run a completely free operating system.
We don’t insist that users of GNU, or contributors to GNU, have to live by this rule. It is a rule we made for ourselves. But we hope you will follow it too, for your freedom’s sake.
Freeware
The term “freeware” has no clear accepted definition, but it is commonly used for packages which permit redistribution but not modification (and their source code is not available). These packages are
Shareware
Shareware is software which comes with permission for people to redistribute copies, but says that anyone who continues to use a copy is
Shareware is not free software, or even semifree. There are two reasons it is not:
• For most shareware, source code is not available; thus, you cannot modify the program at all.
• Shareware does not come with permission to make a copy and install it without paying a license fee, not even for individuals engaging in nonprofit activity. (In practice, people often disregard the distribution terms and do this anyway, but the terms don’t permit it.)
Private Software
Private or custom software is software developed for one user (typically an organization or company). That user keeps it and uses it, and does not release it to the public either as source code or as binaries.
A private program is free software in a trivial sense if its sole user has full rights to it.
In general we do not believe it is wrong to develop a program and not release it. There are occasions when a program is so useful that withholding it from release is treating humanity badly. However, most programs are not that important, so not releasing them is not particularly harmful. Thus, there is no conflict between the development of private or custom software and the principles of the free software movement.
Nearly all employment for programmers is in development of custom software; therefore most programming jobs are, or could be, done in a way compatible with the free software movement.
Commercial Software
Commercial software is software being developed by a business which aims to make money from the use of the software. “Commercial” and “proprietary” are not the same thing! Most commercial software is proprietary, but there is commercial free software, and there is noncommercial nonfree software.
For example, GNU Ada is developed by a company. It is always distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL, and every copy is free software; but its developers sell support contracts. When their salesmen speak to prospective customers, sometimes the customers say, “We would feel safer with a commercial compiler.” The salesmen reply, “GNU Ada is a commercial compiler; it happens to be free software.”
For the GNU Project, the emphasis is in the other order: the important thing is that GNU Ada is free software; whether it is commercial is just a detail. However, the additional development of GNU Ada that results from its being commercial is definitely beneficial.
Please help spread the awareness that free commercial software is possible. You can do this by making an effort not to say “commercial” when you mean “proprietary.”
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This list was originally published on http://gnu.org, in 1996. This version is part of
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire chapter are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Chapter 14.
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software
When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users’ essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”
These freedoms are vitally important. They are essential, not just for the individual users’ sake, but for society as a whole because they promote social solidarity—that is, sharing and cooperation. They become even more important as our culture and life activities are increasingly digitized. In a world of digital sounds, images, and words, free software becomes increasingly essential for freedom in general.
Tens of millions of people around the world now use free software; the public schools of some regions of India and Spain now teach all students to use the free GNU/Linux operating system. Most of these users, however, have never heard of the ethical reasons for which we developed this system and built the free software community, because nowadays this system and community are more often spoken of as “open source,” attributing them to a different philosophy in which these freedoms are hardly mentioned.
The free software movement has campaigned for computer users’ freedom since 1983. In 1984 we launched the development of the free operating system GNU, so that we could avoid the nonfree operating systems that deny freedom to their users. During the 1980s, we developed most of the essential components of the system and designed the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) to release them under—a license designed specifically to protect freedom for all users of a program.
Not all of the users and developers of free software agreed with the goals of the free software movement. In 1998, a part of the free software community splintered off and began campaigning in the name of “open source.” The term was originally proposed to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the term “free software,” but it soon became associated with philosophical views quite different from those of the free software movement.
Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a “marketing campaign for free software,” which would appeal to business executives by highlighting the software’s practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the campaigning for open source, they neither cited nor advocated those values. The term “open source” quickly became associated with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful, reliable software. Most of
