Essays and Articles

Table of Contents


This page lists a series of articles describing the philosophy of the free software movement, which is the motivation for our development of the free software operating system GNU.

A list of the latest published articles is also available.

We also keep a list of Organizations that Work for Freedom in Computer Development and Electronic Communications.

About Free Software

Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs from material objects—such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline—in that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be able to make use of them.

About the GNU Operating System

Licensing Free Software

Laws and Issues

Stallman's Law

Patents

Digital Restrictions Management

The propaganda term “Intellectual Property”

Network Services

Cultural and Social Issues

Misc

Terminology and Definitions

Upholding Software Freedom

Philosophical humor