Free Software Foundation celebrates its 30th anniversary – Heise Newsticker

Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation

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Since 1985 sits the Free Software to ensure that users retain control over their computer.

On October 4, 1985 Richard M. Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation. The former objective of the organization was in the spirit of Unix hacker culture: promoting the free exchange of software and information about computers, software and disseminating information about computers, easier access to computers for all. Free Software, was still seen as a clear counterpoint to commercial software, it should allow people to themselves and to help others through the sharing of software and information. Soon after its creation, the FSF has been recognized as a charitable organization.

A year earlier, Stallman had already launched the GNU Project to life (GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”). GNU should be a Unix-compatible, free operating system, after Unix had dissolved already in the late 1970s of its open source roots and had become a commercial product. The success of GNU / Linux is parallel to the decline of Unix as properly Stallman was with his vision.

freedom

In the meantime, has become the focus of the Free Software Foundation shifted somewhat. Money will earn with software no longer provided this takes liberties of users are safeguarded in principle rejected as immoral. These four freedoms, codified in the General Public License (GPL), define which rights a software must grant the user, in order to qualify as free software:

• The freedom to the program for each use purpose.
• The freedom to study and adapt their needs the operation of the program. Access to the source code is a prerequisite.
• The freedom to share the program and thus to help his fellow man.
• The freedom to improve the program and to publish those improvements, so the whole community benefited. Access to the source code is a precondition for

The greatest threats to these freedoms arise today but no longer from companies who want to earn money with software -. For almost all proprietary applications are free alternatives available , More important are now technological developments such as the increasing use of DRM – interpreted by the FSF as Digital Restrictions Management -., The limited user in what they can do with their computers

Same Vision, new threats

For John Sullivan, the managing director of the FSF, is the greatest current danger in the increasing computerization of our environment. PCs, laptops and servers you can now operate with free software. The countless embedded systems, however – from the computer in the car until the SmartWatch – stood not under the control of the user, although they do still more important tasks. Another danger he sees in proprietary services of Facebook via Salesforce to Google Docs, which take the user the control over the whereabouts of his data.

Currently, the Free Software Foundation concentrates on educating the public about the importance of free software that support free software projects, various campaigns such as the anti-DRM campaign “defective by design”, the implementation of free software licenses and the issue free hardware: Just the Linux notebook was Libiquity Taurinus X200 with the product certificate “Respects Your Freedom” award. (ODI)

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