The software license typically used by authors of free programs is the GPL, but there are several other acceptable licenses. The developers can beg donations or charge an outright fee to use their products, but in either case they must assure they respect the 4 freedoms that all users are entitled. They function exactly the same either way because they are proprietary software.įree software, as in the true definition of free (free as in freedom, not free as in free beer,) is fundamentally different. There's really no differentiation from an end user's point of view between pirated software and free as in cost software. It's wonderful when companies are able to be profitable and also distribute their software at no cost, but it's meaningless to us when these gratis programs don't allow us the aforementioned freedoms. That is: that a customer can use the program for any purpose (and not be bound by an obnoxious EULA), that a customer has access to and is allowed to change and redistribute the source code to better suite their own needs, and that a customer is able to distribute their modified version via whatever mechanism feels appropriate to them.

When you say that a program is free, you are asserting that the customer base is able to exercise all four of their essential freedoms.

The author committed what ought to be a fundamental sin in the tech-writing world.

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