What is free software?
Not all software is free software, even if you got it legally without paying for it.
“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.” – Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. – The FSF Free Software Definition
Many people mistakenly believe that having the right to computer programming source code is important only to programmers. While programmers have the ability to use the source code themselves, having the source code means you can hire/barter with a programmer and get changes made to the code. Having source code means never being left with no options ever again.
The rights to copy, distribute, change, and improve the software are key freedoms to installfests. Without the freedom to copy and distribute, it just wouldn’t be an installfest.
Examples of free software include:
- The GNU Software Packages
- The Linux Kernel
- Debian GNU/Linux
- Slackware Linux
- Red Hat Linux
- Mandrake Linux
- SuSE Linux
- Yellow Dog Linux
- FreeBSD
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
What’s the difference between Linux and the Linux Kernel?
Why are there so many things named "Linux" and "BSD"?
What is GNU/Linux?
Linux is used to refer to both the Linux kernel, and a Linux kernel-based operating system. The kernel is the core part of the system, much like the engine in an automobile. When combined with supporting software such as the software developed for Project GNU, it becomes an operating system that you can actually use on a computer, sometimes referred to as GNU/Linux. Since
a GNU/Linux operating system can consist of many programs written by many different people and companies, there exists many different distributions ("distros") of Linux, such as that come from Red Hat and Debian. The same is true for BSD operating systems. A distribution is tailored to a specific purpose, and this is largely how we differentiate among them. Red Hat is known for usually being stable, Debian is known for being 100% volunteer-maintained and with maximal freedom, Yellow Dog Linux is for PowerPC chips, Mandrake is often an excellent choice for beginners and desktop users.
For more information about Linux distributions, please see: The Comparison of Linux Distributions
On the Linux Distribution Game Page, you can see one author’s opinion of some of the better known distros.
If anyone knows of a site like distrowatch for BSD distros, please let us know.
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