The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to free software and the free software movement:
Free software – software which can be run, studied, examined, modified, and redistributed freely (without any cost). This type of software, which was given its name in 1983, has also come to be known as "open-source software", "software libre", "FOSS", and "FLOSS". The term "Free" refers to it being unfettered, rather than being free of charge.
Large free software projects GNU Project Linux Berkeley Software Distribution
Free software by type
Free and open-source software packages (by type) Comparison of free off-line GPS software Comparison of free software for audio Free television software Free web application software
Free software products List of free software project directories List of formerly proprietary software List of Linux distributions List of Ubuntu-based distributions List of open source software packages Comparison of open source wireless drivers List of open source statistical packages List of trademarked open source software List of free and open-source Android applications List of free and open-source software packages List of free software web applications
Operating system families Comparison of open-source operating systems AROS BSD Darwin eCos FreeDOS GNU Haiku Inferno Linux Mach MINIX OpenSolaris Plan 9 ReactOS
Open-source software development products
Eclipse F# Free Pascal FreeBASIC Gambas GCC Java LLVM Lua NetBeans Open64 Perl PHP Python ROSE Ruby Tcl TypeScript
Free software movement
Alternative terms for free software Debian Social Contract Free-software licence Gratis versus Libre Open source Open-source definition Open-source software Open-source-software movement Comparison of open source and closed source Comparison of open-source software hosting facilities Open standard Long-term support Software Package Data Exchange
Challenges Proprietary software Proprietary device driver ("binary blobs") Free and open-source graphics device driver Proprietary firmware Secure boot Digital rights management License proliferation Software patents and free software SCO–Linux controversies Mozilla software rebranded by Debian Open-source software security Trusted Computing
Free software licenses
Specific licenses Apache Artistic Beerware Boost Software License BSD licenses CC0 GNU General Public License GNU Lesser General Public License ISC license MIT License Mozilla Public License Ms-PL/RL WTFPL zlib License
License types and standards Comparison of free and open-source software licenses Contributor License Agreement Copyleft Debian Free Software Guidelines Definition of Free Cultural Works Free license The Free Software Definition The Open Source Definition Open-source license Permissive free software licence Public domain Viral license
History of the free software movement
Free Software Foundation SCO-Linux controversies Open Source Initiative History of GNU History of Haiku History of Linux History of the Linux kernel Mozilla History of Mozilla Application Suite History of Firefox History of Mozilla Thunderbird Timeline of free and open-source software
Events List of free-software events
Organizations
.NET Foundation Android Open Source Project Apache Software Foundation Blender Foundation The Document Foundation Eclipse Foundation F Sharp Software Foundation Free Software Foundation Free Software Foundation Europe Free Software Foundation of India Free Software Foundation Latin America FreeBSD Foundation freedesktop.org Free Software Movement of India GNOME Foundation GNU Project Google Code KDE e.V. Linux Foundation Mozilla Foundation Open Knowledge Foundation Open Source Geospatial Foundation Open Source Initiative Outercurve Foundation Software Freedom Conservancy SourceForge Symbian Foundation X.Org Foundation Xiph.Org Foundation XMPP Standards Foundation
Persons influential in the free software movement
Well known scholars Lawrence Lessig John Gilmore Eben Moglen Eric S. Raymond
Other leading personalities
Rick Adams Eric Allman Brian Behlendorf Keith Bostic Alan Cox Miguel de Icaza Theo de Raadt Jim Gettys Jon Hall Jordan Hubbard Lynne Jolitz William Jolitz Rasmus Lerdorf Marshall Kirk McKusick Bram Moolenaar Ian Murdock Tim O'Reilly Keith Packard Brian Paul Bruce Perens Bob Scheifler Mark Shuttleworth Richard Stallman Linus Torvalds Andrew Tridgell Guido van Rossum Larry Wall
See also
Comparison of free and open-source software licenses List of free and open-source software packages Category Commons Portal
External links
The Free Software Definition Transcripts about Free Software by FSFE Free Software Magazine, which bills itself as "a free magazine for the free software world." Free cultural works definition FLOSSWorld - Free/Libre/Open-Source Software: Worldwide impact study, to find out more about the recently announced European Union funded study. Software Freedom: An Introduction, by Robert J. Chassell