Free software movement: Difference between revisions

{{short description|Social movement}}

The '''free software movement''' is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for [[End user|software users]], namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html|title=What is Free Software?|website=(gnu.org)|access-date=2020-03-18|archive-date=2013-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014132149/https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-03/msg00635.html Richard Stallman on the nature of the Free software movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170513005715/http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-03/msg00635.html |date=2017-05-13 }} in 2008 on emacs-devel mailing list.</ref> Software which meets these requirements, [[The Free Software Definition#The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software|The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software]], is termed [[free software]].

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== Organisations ==

==== China ====

==== India ====

In the United States, there have been efforts to pass legislation at the state level encouraging the use of free software by state government agencies.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/open-sources-new-weapon-the-law/|title=Open source's new weapon: The law?|website=CNET|access-date=2023-03-16|archive-date=2023-03-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230316221116/https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/open-sources-new-weapon-the-law/|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== South America ===

== Events ==

{{Main|List of free-software events}}

Free Software events happening all around the world connects people to increase visibility for Free software projects and foster collaborations.

==Economics==

In his 1998 article "The High-Tech Gift Economy", [[Richard Barbrook]] suggested that the then-nascent free software movement represented a return to the [[gift economy]] building on [[hobby]]ism and the [[Post-scarcity economy|absence of economic scarcity]] on the Internet.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barbrook |first1=Richard |date=1998 |title=The High-Tech Gift Economy |url=http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/631/552 |journal=First Monday |volume=13 |issue=12 |access-date=July 22, 2018 |archive-date=July 22, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180722184805/http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/631/552 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Programmer income ===

{{main|Business models for open-source software}}

Stallman said that this is where people get the misconception of "free": there is no wrong in programmers' requesting payment for a proposed project, or charging for copies of free software.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Selling Free Software |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html |url-status=live |access-date=2021-04-04 |website=GNU |archive-date=2018-02-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207222030/http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html }}</ref> Restricting and controlling the user's decisions on use is the actual violation of freedom. Stallman defends that in some cases, monetary incentive is not necessary for motivation since the pleasure in expressing creativity is a reward in itself.<ref name="The GNU Manifesto" /> Conversely, Stallman admits that it is not easy to raise money for free software projects.<ref name="LAS300RMS">{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=radmjL5OIaA&t=0h53m46s| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/radmjL5OIaA| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|work=GNU/LAS s20e10 |title=Interview with Richard Stallman |publisher=[[Linux action show]] |quote=[[Richard Stallman|RMS]]: ''I'm not gone to claim that I got a way to make it easier to raise money to pay people who write free software. We all know, that to some extent there are ways to do that, but we all know that they are limited, they are not as broad as we would like.'' |access-date=2014-08-22 |date=2012-03-11 }}{{cbignore}}</ref>

=== License proliferation and compatibility ===

{{main|Comparison of free and open-source software licenses}}

FLOSS [[license proliferation]] is a serious concern in the FLOSS domain due to increased complexity of [[license compatibility]] considerations which limits and complicates source code reuse between FLOSS projects.<ref name="proliferationimpact">[https://fossbazaar.org/content/osi-and-license-proliferation/ OSI and License Proliferation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160220081208/https://fossbazaar.org/content/osi-and-license-proliferation/ |date=2016-02-20 }} on fossbazar.com by Martin Michlmayr ''"Too many different licenses makes it difficult for licensors to choose: it's difficult to choose a good license for a project because there are so many. Some licenses do not play well together: some open source licenses do not inter-operate well with other open source licenses, making it hard to incorporate code from other projects. Too many licenses makes it difficult to understand what you are agreeing to in a multi-license distribution: since a FLOSS application typically contains code with different licenses and people use many applications which each contain one or several licenses, it's difficult to see what your obligations are."'' (on August 21st, 2008)</ref> The OSI and the FSF maintain their own lists of dozens of existing and acceptable FLOSS licenses.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Various Licenses and Comments about Them|url=https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html|access-date=2021-04-04|website=GNU|archive-date=2010-07-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100724023833/https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html|url-status=live}}</ref> There is an agreement among most that the creation of new licenses should be minimized and those created should be made compatible with the major existing FLOSS licenses. Therefore, there was a strong controversy around the update of the [[GNU GPLv2]] to the [[GNU GPLv3]] in 2007,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://socializedsoftware.com/2008/05/08/the-curse-of-open-source-license-proliferation/ |title=The Curse of Open Source License Proliferation |author=Mark |date=2008-05-08 |access-date=2015-11-30 |publisher=socializedsoftware.com |quote=Currently the decision to move from GPL v2 to GPL v3 is being hotly debated by many open source projects. According to Palamida, a provider of IP compliance software, there have been roughly 2489 open source projects that have moved from GPL v2 to later versions. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208112000/http://socializedsoftware.com/2008/05/08/the-curse-of-open-source-license-proliferation/ |archive-date=2015-12-08 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="mcdougall2007">{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080413091038/http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/07/linux_creator_c.html |url=http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/07/linux_creator_c.html |archive-date=2008-04-13 |title=Linux Creator Calls GPLv3 Authors 'Hypocrites' As Open Source Debate Turns Nasty |quote=[...]the latest sign of a growing schism in the open source community between business-minded developers like Torvalds and free software purists. |first=Paul |last=McDougall |date=2007-07-10 |access-date=2015-02-12 |publisher=informationweek.com}}</ref> as the updated license is not compatible with the previous version.<ref name="gpl2gpl3comp">{{cite web | url=https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility | title=Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses – Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2? | publisher=GNU | access-date=3 June 2014 | quote=No. Some of the requirements in GPLv3, such as the requirement to provide Installation Information, do not exist in GPLv2. As a result, the licenses are not compatible: if you tried to combine code released under both these licenses, you would violate section 6 of GPLv2. However, if code is released under GPL "version 2 or later," that is compatible with GPLv3 because GPLv3 is one of the options it permits. | archive-date=30 March 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200330051354/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI4Mjc |title=FSF Wastes Away Another "High Priority" Project |first=Michael |last=Larabel |date=24 January 2013 |publisher=[[Phoronix]] |access-date=22 August 2013 |quote=''Both LibreCAD and FreeCAD both want to use LibreDWG and have patches available for supporting the DWG file format library, but can't integrate them. The programs have dependencies on the popular GPLv2 license while the Free Software Foundation will only let LibreDWG be licensed for GPLv3 use, not GPLv2.'' |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109200145/https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI4Mjc |archive-date=9 November 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1390172&seqNum=3 |title=The Failure of the GPL |first=David |last=Chisnall |date=2009-08-31 |access-date=2016-01-24 |publisher=[[informit.com]] |archive-date=2016-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124132254/http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1390172&seqNum=3 |url-status=live }}</ref> Several projects (mostly of the open source faction<ref name="mcdougall2007"/> like the [[Linux kernel]]<ref name="torvaldsgpl">{{cite web |url=http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3720371/Torvalds+Still+Keen+On+GPLv2.htm |title=Torvalds Still Keen On GPLv2 |quote=''"In some ways, Linux was the project that really made the split clear between what the FSF is pushing which is very different from what open source and Linux has always been about, which is more of a technical superiority instead of a -- this religious belief in freedom," Torvalds told Zemlin. So, the GPL Version 3 reflects the FSF's goals and the GPL Version 2 pretty closely matches what I think a license should do and so right now, Version 2 is where the kernel is."'' |date=2008-01-08 |first=Sean Michael |last=Kerner |publisher=internetnews.com |access-date=2015-02-12 |archive-date=2015-02-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212130610/http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3720371/Torvalds+Still+Keen+On+GPLv2.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://lwn.net/Articles/202106/ |title=Busy busy busybox |date=2006-10-01 |author=corbet |publisher=lwn.net |quote=''Since BusyBox can be found in so many embedded systems, it finds itself at the core of the GPLv3 anti-DRM debate. [...]The real outcomes, however, are this: BusyBox will be GPLv2 only starting with the next release. It is generally accepted that stripping out the "or any later version" is legally defensible, and that the merging of other GPLv2-only code will force that issue in any case'' |access-date=2015-11-21 |archive-date=2016-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160107184000/https://lwn.net/Articles/202106/ |url-status=live }}</ref>) decided to not adopt the GPLv3 while almost all of the GNU project's packages adopted it.