First of all lets begin with the
term Free Software- free software stands for freedom associated with
a software not necessarily price. As we know software unlike
furniture or car is not not a physical object but an conceptual
object that is expressed in the forms of computer insturctions and
data which execute to do a specific task. One property a software has
is that it can be copied multiple times once made if one has the
source code it can be ported across various platforms you will never
have the above privileges with physical goods like furniture ,clothes
etc. So incase of software as mentioned before its simply programmes
and data now there are kinds of software in existence today a)
Proprietry Software b) Free Software
Proprietry
software is software which one has to buy or is given for free but
the orginal developer of the software retains the source code of the
software and does not give it to the user. Examples are all the
Windows Operating Systems,Adobe Photoshop etc. In case of propritery
software the user does not have the freedom to modify or distribute
the original or modified copies of the software. The user is
controlled by the software rather than the software controlling the
user.
Free software is
either bought or downloaded or distributed free of cost. In case of
free software the author of the software provides the entire source
code of the software to the user ,the user of the software has total
freedom to study the source code of the software,modify it as per his
wish and distribute the original as well as modified copies of the
software either for a fee or absolutely free of cost .It is this
freedom of free software that makes it great , the examples of free
software are GNU/LINUX ,GCC, Mozilla Firefox etc. In case of free
software its the user that controls the software rather than being
controlled by it take for example Richard Stallman the founder of the
Free Software Foundation when he was working at the AI lab of MIT
modified the device driver code of a Xerox Laser printer because of
which the printer automatically sent a mail to user when his job was
done and in case of a paper jam it would mail all the users about it.
The major advantage
that Free Software offers is customization as
per users need since the source
code of the software is available to them. Again you are free to
share any change that is made in the orginal software ,this is how
GNU/LINUX has grown it all started off as a final
year project of Linus Trovalds he
made the kernal and released its source code other developers around
the world joined in and since the code us openly available to
everyone and everyone had freedom to modify the code they kept making
little improvements in Linux and it grew into a powerful OS being used by most
of the supercomputers ,servers and a few home computers across the
world.
The following are the four
freedoms thats essential for a software to be free:
Freedom 0: Freedom to run the
software as per the wish of the user.
Freedom 1: Freedom to study the
source code and modify it as per
his her wish.
Freedom 2: Freedom to distribute
the copies of the original software.
Freedom 3: Freedom to distribute
the copies of the the modified versions of the software.
Being a Free Software
enthusiast I wish to see all the people around the world using free software.
Rakesh Mallick
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