Free Software Movement

This page is intended to be a grouping of class materials pertaining to the free software movement. In the free software movement free refers to free as in freedom, not free as in beer.

Richard Stallman and the GNU Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto was written by Richard Stallman and published in 1985. It is viewed as a core material by the free software movement as a piece that illustrates their current philosophy. It begins by outlining the project GNU, which stands for GNU's Not Unix, and then goes into a discussion of why software needs to be free. A large portion of the piece is devoted to dispelling objections to the idea of free software. Richard Stallman himself has become an iconic part of the free software movement, as he was one of the early pioneers of the philosophy.

Bill Gates "Open Letter to Hobbyists"
After the want of software being free, Bill Gates wrote a letter to hobbyists explaining how they would never suceed at making software free. His letter critcized anyone thinking that all the software they made should be made free and instead explained that software should be made for profit. The letter created much controversy towards how software should be handled. Letter to Hobbyists

Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the use of copyright law in order to make it possible for people to distribute copies and modified versions of a work, while also requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work. Normally copyright law is used to prevent others from reproducing, adapting, or distributing copies of an author's work, in contrast, copyleft is designed to give others these rights. The GNU General Public License created by Richard Stallman was the first copyleft license that saw extensive use. Creative Commons provides a similar license to copyleft called ShareALike.

Open source
Open source describes the practice of promoting access to the end product's source materials through production and development. Much of the software created today is created as open source through the help of communities. Open source has become so important to the world of technology that even Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, believes that technologies pertaining to the Internet should always be open and free.

Further Examples Pertaining to Copyright and Public Domain

 * The project This Is The Public Domain was created as a way to take advantage of the idea of a public domain by trying to create a specific space to be in the public domain.
 * The project Public Smog attempted to create a moving park that belonged to all who contributed.