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Related Links
Free Software Resource
RONSNET Community
Case Study
Important Note!
1. The "free" in "Free Software" refers
"freedom", it is not the "free" in "free of charge".
2."Free Software" is NOT completely same with "open sources software". RMS
has an article
for differences between them.
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RMS's Column
Preface for the First Issue
Richard M. Stallman,
Free Software Foundation
Welcome to Free Software Magazine -- the first magazine dedicated to
specifically to free software.
Free software is a convenient and powerful way to use a computer, but
it is more than that. Free software is the the basis for a community
of freedom that you can join.
With free software, you have freedom to change software when you wish,
as you wish. You can ask a friend to change it for you, or hire a
company to change it for you. With free software, you have the
freedom to share with your neighbors, and your neighbors have the
freedom to share with you.
This community of freedom is the reason that we founded the Free
Software Movement. Only free software respects your freedom; to live
and work in a community of freedom and cooperation, we needed free
software. So we wrote free software.
In this and future issues of Free Software magazine, you
will learn:
- How to obtain free software and share it with your neighbor, both
legally and practically. (If you use a typical proprietary software
product, you could only share it illegally.)
- How to change free software for yourself. (If you use a typical
proprietary software product, you are prevented from changing it.)
- How to find a company that you can hire to make changes for you.
- How to write free software better, using the availble free
software tools.
- How to find other people who share your interests in using and
changing free software.
- Why a free and cooperative community generates software that becomes
more reliable, efficient, and secure.
- Which companies and laws threaten our community's freedom, and how
you can help defend our community from these threats.
- How free software can empower you.
Today the free software community is large. Our movement has had
substantial success, and we hope to have more. But success for free
software does not mean "world domination", as boosters of the kernel,
Linux, like to put it. Success for free software is world liberation!
History
We started with a free operating system, because you can't do anything
with your computer without an operating system. We started developing
the GNU system in 1984; in 1991, with the GNU system almost finished,
the last missing crucial piece of the system was developed: the
kernel, Linux. When GNU and Linux were combined to form the GNU/Linux
system, it became possible, for the first time since the hobbyist
microcomputers of the 70s, to use a computer and keep your freedom.
But GNU/Linux is a Unix-like operating system--a system that a wizard
could love, but ordinary users did not like. To carry freedom to
non-wizards, we had to make GNU/Linux easy to use. We needed to
provide a desktop with graphical interfaces.
The need for this was evident long before. The first GNU project to
develop a graphical desktop was started in 1990, but it did not take
off. GNOME, started in 1997, did take off. GNOME also provoked the
freeing of a crucial library needed by the KDE desktop, so that it too
became fully free.
So we are on the threshold of an age where a user-friendly free
operating system can satisfy all kinds of computer users.
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