Monday, September 27, 2010

Software Freedom Day

Advocates of software freedom in India joined hundreds of their counterparts all over the world in organising various programmes and events to celebrate Software Freedom Day on 18th September 2010.

The day is aimed at promoting awareness of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in general. It celebrates software freedom and the people behind it try to promote public awareness of software freedom and encourage the adoption of free software and open standards, among other things.

The first formal definition of free software was published by FSF in February 1986.That definition, written by Richard Stallman, states that a user of a free software has the following freedoms:
  • Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
  • Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
  • Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
  • Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.


Happy SFD all! Celebrate the freedom, and if you cannot contribute by any means, encourage and adopt free software.

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