What Is Free Software?

The word ‘free’ means two quite different things when describing software:

Software that doesn’t cost you anything to acquire.
Software that allows you to do what you want with it.

The first definition uses the word ‘free’ as in ‘free beer,’ the second as in ‘free speech.’

This article discusses the second type, and attempts to explain it to non-specialists. If you are more interested in the first type, we can recommend some useful software that doesn’t cost you anything.

Four Software Freedoms

Free software is generally taken to have four specific freedoms. Two of these freedoms mostly affect other people:

You can help other people by giving them copies of the software.
You can help other people by distributing improved versions of the software.

And two freedoms affect only the person who possesses the software:

You can run the software as and when you like.
You can inspect and modify the code.

Free Speech and Free Beer Sometimes Coincide

Don’t forget that with all of these freedoms, it is immaterial whether or not any money changes hands. In practice, the majority of free (speech) software is also free (beer) software, but it is not unknown for commercially available software to meet these definitions too.

Understanding Software Freedom

It is easy to see the point of the first two freedoms, but the second two are less easy for non-geeks to relate to everyday life.

Giving Copies of Software to Other People

The freedom to give someone a piece of software implies that we should treat software just as we treat a book or a bunch of flowers or a ticket to a football match. You can give these items to people in exchange for money, or not; it doesn’t matter.

Distributing Improved Versions of Software

Distributing an improved version of the software is no different in principle to rearranging the bunch of flowers before handing it over. Again, whether or not you charge for rearranging the flowers is beside the point.

Running Software As and When You Feel Like It

Running software whenever you like doesn’t seem to be an issue worth worrying about, because we have that freedom already. You switch on your personal computer, or your mobile phone or any other device that functions as a computer, and you are able to run whatever software happens to be installed on that device.

There are, however, several common situations in which this does not apply. The fact that these situations are common prevents them being recognised for what they are. For example:

DVDs and Blu–Ray discs, which are essentially software in physical form, are often intentionally crippled, so that they work only with players supplied in particular regions of the world.
Some commercial software also is intentionally crippled, so that it will cease to work after a specified period of time.

In both of these cases, the software is not free to be run as and when you feel like it. The restrictions are not accidental or unavoidable; they are deliberate.

Inspecting and Modifying the Code

This is the freedom that is the most difficult for the general public to understand. After all, very few people have the necessary skills to be able to modify the software they use. Why should this impractical freedom matter to the average computer user?

An Analogy: Tinkering With Your Car

If you buy a car, you are lawfully entitled to inspect and modify its mechanical components, provided that the car remains roadworthy. Doing so may invalidate the manufacturer’s warranty, and your insurance company may charge you a higher premium, but there is no legal barrier to messing about and getting your hands dirty.

If you have the necessary skills, you have the freedom to tinker as much as you like. Most car owners don’t have the necessary skills, of course, but they do have the freedom to allow the car to be inspected and modified by anyone who does have those skills.

Stop Messing About!

Some software gives you this freedom, but much commercial software does not. It is like:

the Ford Motor Company having the legal right to prevent owners of Ford cars taking those cars to non-Ford garages,
or Volkswagen having the legal right to prevent VW owners installing non-VW replacement parts,
or Toyota having the legal right to manufacture cars with a padlocked bonnet in order to make it as difficult as possible for anyone not approved by Toyota to inspect the engine.

These analogies might sound absurd, but they are exactly equivalent to some of the current, legally-enforced restrictions on the use of software.

Further Thinking

So that’s what free software is. The important issue is whether or not certain restrictions on the use of software can be justified.

Software is Different from Physical Objects

Most of the ethical questions are prompted by the fact that it is vastly easier to make a working copy of a piece of software than of a physical object such as a car or a book.

Software writers need to eat. It is widely claimed that:

software can only be developed for profit if it can be sold, and that
because copying digital files is easy, software can only be sold in sufficient numbers if the freedom to share is restricted by law.

Against this, there is the observation that developing software for profit often causes more problems than it solves.

Who Benefits from the Existing Restrictions?

Some restrictions on the freedom of car owners can be justified by their benefits to other road users, such as the requirement to possess a current driving licence and to keep the vehicle in a roadworthy condition.

But none of the restrictions on software seem to have that justification. They appear to exist only to promote the interests of those who supply the software, and in almost every case they are against the interests of those who use the software.

Software Patents Discourage Innovation

Many of the restrictions are applied through patents. This talk by Richard Stallman explains how software patents are applied not to individual products, as is the case with most pharmaceutical patents, but to individual ideas.

Stallman points out that a new piece of software, like a new piece of music, is almost always an improvement on existing ideas rather than a completely new discovery. A large piece of software will normally need to contain many existing individual ideas, any of which could already be patented. Although patents on pharmaceutical products can encourage innovation, patents on software tend to have the opposite effect, as would patents on music.