The Free Software Directory | Search for a title, author or keyword | |||||||||||||||
The Free Software Directory The Free Software Directory is a project of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). We catalog useful free software that runs under free operating systems — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants. Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free. Currently, many people use proprietary software that denies users these freedoms and benefits. If we make a copy and give it to a friend, if we try to figure out how the program works, if we put a copy on more than one of our own computers in our own home, we could be caught and fined or put in jail. That’s what’s in the fine print of the license agreement you accept when using proprietary software. Today, free software is available for just about any task you can imagine. From complete operating systems like GNU, to over 5,000 individual programs and tools listed in the FSF/UNESCO free software directory. Millions of people around the world—including entire governments—are now using free software on their computers. The free software movement was started in 1983 by computer scientist Richard M. Stallman, when he launched a project called GNU, which stands for “GNU is Not UNIX”, to provide a replacement for the UNIX operating system—a replacement that would respect the freedoms of those using it.
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