page content
Glossary
direct access
Free
Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with certain requirements to ensure that further recipients also get these freedoms. To make software available as free software, the software has to be accompanied by a software licence saying that the copyright holder allows these acts (a free software licence), and the human readable form of the program (the source code) must be made available. The GNU General Public License aka GPL, is one of the most popular free software license.