Software Freedom Day: All About Technology And Accessibility

“Software freedom is nothing more than a chance to be better than ever.” With this quote, Software Freedom Day opens. Organized since 2004 by the Digital Freedom Foundation (DFF), Software Freedom Day always takes place on the third Saturday of September, with the main purpose of encouraging people to use FOSS (Free and Open Source Code). This article discusses the importance of Free Software and how it differs from Open Source Software.

Around the world, more than 300 events take place in more than 100 cities. In Brazil, three face-to-face events will take place in 2022 in the cities of Porto Alegre, in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Izabel do Pará, in Pará, and Cariacica, in Espírito Santo. The International Free Software Forum, held annually in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, is among the two largest in the world, demonstrating the importance that the Software Freedom Day has been gaining in the national territory.

If you want to know what Free Software is and discover some examples, continue reading this article.

What is Free Software?

Free Software is a political and philosophical movement that values the freedom of access to the source code of any software. Contrary to what many people believe, Free Software refers to freedom of use, and not to its monetary value. Free Software allows the user to share, study and modify it — and that’s where its name come from: it respects users’ freedom and sense of community.

According to the non-profit organization Free Software Foundation (FSF or, in Portuguese, Fundação para o Software Livre), any software that follows four types of freedom is considered free:

1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it as needed
3. The freedom to redistribute copies
4. The freedom to improve the program and release your modifications so that the entire community benefits.

In short, Free Software can be copied, used, studied, modified and redistributed according to the needs of each user. In its philosophy, the Foundation seeks to propagate the spirit of freedom against the logic of profit that prevails in our times.

The FSF was founded in 1859 by programmer Richard Stallman, known as the father of Free Software. However, after Stallman made controversial statements about victims of abuse committed by Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier, netizens created an online petition that demanded Stallman’s departure from the entity’s board of directors. The programmer was also the creator of the GNU GLP, or simply GLP, the most worldwide known Free Software license and by which most Free Software is licensed.

As previously mentioned, a very important feature of Free Software is source code sharing. This is considered an advantage, as it is possible to simplify the development of new applications (which do not need to be programmed from scratch) and, consequently, reduce costs.

Free Software is also approved from an economic point of view, since it generates competition between different suppliers based on the same software. In this way, it is possible to perform bug fixes and improvements to support services more quickly.

Linux — one of the most used Free Software

This may come as a surprise to some people, since Free Software implies free and accessible software, but the number of programs of this type currently available is enormous (and is increasing day by day). One of the best-known examples of Free Software is Linux, an operating system that thousands of people use on a daily basis. Other very popular examples are Firefox, GIMP and Wordpress.

According to a survey carried out by the ISF (Instituto Sem Fronteiras) back in 2008, several large Brazilian companies (with more than a thousand employees) already said they opted for Linux on their computers. That’s because in addition to being an economical alternative, Free Software can also be a good alternative to the practice of program piracy. As you can imagine, currently the number of companies that adhere to Free Software is still significant.

So what is the difference between Free Software and Open Source Software?

The main difference between Free Software and Open Source Software is that, while the former implies non-ownership of the software, the latter can have an owner, although it is also free and accessible to anyone.

In the case of Open Source Software, any software license and software distributed under that license must meet the following ten criteria governed by the Open Source Initiative:

1. Free redistribution
2. The program must include source code and must allow its distribution
3. Derivative works and modifications must be allowed
4. Author source code integrity
5. Non-discrimination against people or groups
6. No discrimination against areas of expertise
7. License Distribution
8. The license must not be specific to a product
9. License must not restrict other software
10. The license must be technology-neutral

In general, licenses that meet the aforementioned definition of Free Software (from the Free Software Foundation) also meet the definition of Open Source, and thus it can be said, at least in the vast majority of cases, that if a certain software is free, it is also open source, and vice versa.

How to work with Free Software?

Free Software seems to be a good bet when it comes to job opportunities, given its philosophy, number of supporters and popularity in the software development community. If you’ve come this far and find the Free Software proposal interesting, know that it’s possible to find vacancies (onsite or remote) to work with technologies that fit this type of software, such as Git and jQuery.

Turing, for example, offers several long-term, full-time remote employment opportunities for developers who want to work with Free Software. Visit the website, sign up, pass the coding tests and join the world’s largest developer hiring platform, all for free.