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What is the free software movement?

The free software movement is committed to enabling computer users to obtain freedom through free software. Users of free software can autonomously control their calculations. Non-free software subjects users to software developers. See the video introduction.

What is free software?

Free software means that users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, research, modify and improve the software.

Free software is a matter of rights, not price. To understand this concept, you should consider "free" as the "freedom" in "free speech"; not the "free" in "free beer".

More precisely, free software grants software users four basic freedoms:

Regardless of the purpose, there is freedom to run the software (freedom zero). There is the freedom to study how the software works and rewrite the software as needed (free one). Obtaining the source code of the software is mentioned before achieving this purpose.

There is the freedom to redistribute the copy so that you can use it to get close to neighbors (Freedom 2). There is the freedom to release an improved version of the software to the public (Freedom 3) so that the entire community can benefit from it. Obtaining the source code of the software is mentioned before achieving this purpose.

Compared with 1983, the development of technology and network makes these freedoms more important now.

Now the free software movement is much more than the development of the GNU system. See the Free Software Foundation website to learn more about what we do and how you can participate.