Skip to main content

Free Software

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

The four essential freedoms

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

 The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3)
By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is non free. While we can distinguish various non free distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Writing a Bash Shell Script

Bash shell scripts in Linux are text files that contain a series of commands that can be executed by the Bash shell. Bash (Bourne Again Shell) is a popular shell in Linux and UNIX systems, and shell scripts are used to automate tasks, configure systems, or perform a sequence of operations. How to Write a Bash Shell Script Create a New File: You can create a new script using any text editor like nano , vim , or gedit . gedit myscript.sh Write the Script: A basic shell script begins with a "shebang" ( #!/bin/bash ) to specify the interpreter that will be used to execute the script. The rest of the file contains the commands to be run. Example of a simple script: #!/bin/bash # This is a comment echo "Hello, World!" # Print "Hello, World!" #!/bin/bash : Specifies that the script will be executed using the Bash shell. echo "Hello, World!" : A command that prints the string "Hello, World!" to the terminal. Comments: Any line starting ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Different syntax for writing arithmetic expressions in bash shell

#!/bin/bash echo "Enter two numbers" read a b s=`expr $a + $b` echo "Sum1=$s" s=$[$a+$b] echo "sum2=$s" ((s=$a+$b)) echo "sum3=$s" ((s=a+b)) echo "sum3=$s" let s=$a+$b echo "sum4=$s" let s=a+b echo "sum4=$s" Note:bash shell support only integer arithmetic.zsh support operations on real numbers.We can use bc in bash shell to do real arithmetic. Eg: echo "$a*$b"|bc # where a and b are real Mathematical Operators With Integers Operator Description Example Evaluates To + Addition echo $(( 20 + 5 )) 25 - Subtraction echo $(( 20 - 5 )) 15 / Division echo $(( 20 / 5 )) 4 * Multiplication echo $(( 20 * 5 )) 100  % Modulus echo $(( 20 % 3 )) 2 ++ post-increment (add variable value by 1) x=5 echo $(( x++ )) echo $(( x++ )) 5 6 -- post-decrement (subtract variable value by 1) x=5 echo $(( x-- )) 4 ** Exponentiation x=2 y=3 echo $(( x ** y )) 8
Post a Comment
Read more

Basic Linux Commands For Beginner's

Basic Linux Commands for Beginners Linux is an Operating System’s Kernel. You might have heard of UNIX. Well, Linux is a UNIX clone. But it was actually created by Linus Torvalds from Scratch. Linux is free and open-source, that means that you can simply change anything in Linux and redistribute it in your own name! There are several Linux Distributions, commonly called “distros”. A few of them are: Mint Ubuntu Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux Debian Fedora Kali Linux is Mainly used in Servers. About 90% of the Internet is powered by Linux Servers. This is because Linux is fast, secure, and free! The main problem of using Windows Servers are their cost. This is solved by using Linux Servers. Forgot to mention, the OS that runs in about 80% of the Smartphones in the World, Android, is also made from the Linux Kernel. Yes, Linux is amazing! A simple example of its security is that most of the viruses in the world run on Windows, but not on Linux...
4 comments
Read more