Portal:Free and open-source software

Today, Portal:Free and open-source software is a topic that has become increasingly relevant in our society. With the advancement of technology and globalization, Portal:Free and open-source software has become a point of interest for a large number of people around the world. Whether due to its impact on health, the economy or the environment, Portal:Free and open-source software has managed to capture the attention of academics, experts and ordinary citizens alike. In this article, we will explore the different facets of Portal:Free and open-source software, from its origins to its possible implications in the future.

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Introduction

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Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software – modified or not – to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free software and open-source software. The rights guaranteed by FOSS originate from the «Four Essential Freedoms» of The Free Software Definition and the criteria of The Open Source Definition. All FOSS must have publicly available source code, but not all source-available software is FOSS. FOSS is the opposite of proprietary software, which is licensed restrictively or has undisclosed source code.

The historical precursor to FOSS was the hobbyist and academic public domain software ecosystem of the 1960s to 1980s. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-source licenses have been adopted by many software packages. Reasons for using FOSS include decreased software costs, increased security against malware, stability, privacy, opportunities for educational usage, and giving users more control over their own hardware.

The free software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production, adoption and promotion of FOSS, with the former preferring to use the equivalent term free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS). FOSS is supported by a loosely associated movement of multiple organizations, foundations, communities and individuals who share basic philosophical perspectives and collaborate practically, but may diverge in detail questions. (More about free and open-source software…)

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rio, default user interface of Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system which originated from the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s and built on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. Since 2000, Plan 9 has been free and open-source. The final official release was in early 2015.

Under Plan 9, UNIX’s everything is a file metaphor is extended via a pervasive network-centric filesystem, and the cursor-addressed, terminal-based I/O at the heart of UNIX-like operating systems is replaced by a windowing system and graphical user interface without cursor addressing, although rc, the Plan 9 shell, is text-based.

The name Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a reference to the Ed Wood 1957 cult science fiction Z-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. The system continues to be used and developed by operating system researchers and hobbyists. (Full article…)

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Terminology

Alternative terms for free software, such as open source, FOSS, and FLOSS, have been a recurring issue among free and open-source software users from the late 1990s onwards. These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.

In 1983 Richard Stallman launched the free software movement and founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the movement and to publish its own definition. Others have published alternative definitions of free software, notably the Debian Free Software Guidelines. In 1998, Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond began a campaign to market open-source software and founded the Open Source Initiative, which espoused different goals and a different philosophy from Stallman’s. (Full article…)

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Operating systems

The following operating systems are released under free software licenses:

Mobile operating systems:

Desktop and server operating systems:

Linux systems focusing on free software:

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Topics

Free and open-source software
General
Software
packages
Community
Organisations
Licenses
Types and
standards
Challenges
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topics

Impediments and challenges
Digital Millennium Copyright Act · Digital rights management · Tivoization · Software patents and free software · Trusted Computing · Proprietary software · SCO-Linux controversies · Binary blobs
Adoption issues
OpenDocument format · Vendor lock-in · GLX · Free standards · Free software adoption cases
About licences
Free software licences · Copyleft · List of FSF-approved software licenses
Common licences
GNU General Public License · GNU Lesser General Public License · GNU Affero General Public License · IBM Public License · Mozilla Public License · Permissive free software licences
History
…of free software · Free software movement · Timeline of free and open-source software
Groupings of software
Comparison of free software for audio · List of open-source video games
Naming issues
GNU/Linux naming controversy · Alternative terms for free software · Naming conflict between Debian and Mozilla

Free and open-source typography
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corporate and
professional
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Free healthcare software
DICOM
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Practice management
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Related portals

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Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

  • Commons
    Free media repository

  • Wikibooks
    Free textbooks and manuals

  • Wikidata
    Free knowledge base

  • Wikinews
    Free-content news

  • Wikiquote
    Collection of quotations

  • Wikisource
    Free-content library

  • Wikiversity
    Free learning tools

  • Wiktionary
    Dictionary and thesaurus

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