The Four Freedoms of Free Computer software

A free software is a piece of computer code that can be used without restriction by simply the original users or perhaps by anybody else. This can be done by copying this program or modifying it, and sharing that in various ways.

The software independence movement was started in the 1980s by Richard Stallman, who was concerned that proprietary (nonfree) software constituted a form of oppression for its users and a violation of their moral legal rights. He formulated a set of several freedoms for software being considered free:

1 . The freedom to alter the software.

This is the most basic in the freedoms, and it is the one that constitutes a free program useful to its users. It is also the liberty that allows several users to share their modified version with each other as well as the community at large.

2 . The liberty to study this software and understand how it works, in order to make changes to it to match their own uses.

This independence is the one that most people visualize when they notice the word “free”. It is the liberty to tinker with the system, so that it truly does what you want this to do or perhaps stop undertaking some thing you rarely like.

four. The freedom to distribute copies of your revised versions in front of large audiences, so that the community at large can benefit from your advancements.

This freedom is the most important of your freedoms, in fact it is the freedom which makes a free system useful to their original users and to anybody else. It is the flexibility that allows a team of users (or person companies) to develop true value added versions on the software, which can serve the needs see this site of a particular subset on the community.

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