Free software thus differs from:
• proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides or iWork from Apple. Users cannot study, change, and share their source code.
• freeware, … See more

There are thousands of free applications and many operating systems available on the Internet. Users can easily download and install those applications via a package manager that … See more

All free-software licenses must grant users all the freedoms discussed above. However, unless the applications' licenses are compatible, combining programs by mixing source code or directly linking binaries is problematic, because of license technicalities. … See more

Selling software under any free-software licence is permissible, as is commercial use. This is true for licenses with or without See more

The first formal definition of free software was published by FSF in February 1986. That definition, written by Richard Stallman, is still maintained … See more

From the 1950s up until the early 1970s, it was normal for computer users to have the software freedoms associated with free software, which was typically public-domain software. Software was commonly shared by individuals who used computers and by hardware … See more

There is debate over the security of free software in comparison to proprietary software, with a major issue being security through obscurity. A popular quantitative test in computer security is to use relative counting of known unpatched security flaws. Generally, … See more